65+

A party of a friend, whom I met when I was a university student, celebrating her 65^th birthday. I still feel young inside, don't we all, so it is shocking to meet a collection of old ladies at the party. I do not want to belong, but realise I do and desperately ask myself if I am looking as old and settled as they do to me. I can't be like that, can I? Besides, I feel life still has to begin, adventures await me just round the corner, and there are so many new things to be discovered. I do not want to sit down and grow old, but want to experience new things, enjoy the things I really like doing,  singing, writing, gardening, go for long walks, take a road trip through Europe to see all the different cultures, the churches, the diversity of nature, castles and caves, villages and cities , all the things I haven't seen yet. I don't want to rush either, but to soak up the different atmospheres, to meet the people, to hear about the way they live their lives.

Hopefully I have my father's genes. At 88 he learned to e-mail, handle a computer. He bought a digital camera, sent us his pictures. He painted, and mailed scans of his finished works to his children. He e-mailed his grandchildren. He greeted each day with enthusiasm. He always wanted to see and experience new things, was inquisitive, wanted to know how things worked, welcomed innovations, with an open mind. I think that kept him young. He would go out with a group of elderly people from church, and be their leader and tour guide as he, probably the oldest of the group, still felt young. Till the very end – and he died at the age of 98! – he wrote letters to the editors of magazines and newspapers if he disagreed with something or thought the wrong or incomplete information had been given. He taught us never to take anything at face value, always try to discover how things worked and why and to form and formulate independent opinions. Is that the secret of youth? To go with the times but keep your own values? Not to dismiss new things, as they might be a blessing, and if they are not, to ignore them? Of course digital photography is the future, we do no longer use glass plates, do we, he would say. And we do not use slates for writing either, he added when I remarked that  the digital pictures were not as good as the ones taken with a roll of film. He said to give it time, and wholeheartedly embraced this new development with its many possibilities, unheard of before.