61

Is a house-number, not an age. It's a piece of arithmetic based on my date of birth and today's date. I never felt as old as I did when I was over-weight and in a dead-bedroom relationship in my mid-fifties. Then I joined my gym, and after my second boxing class recognised that I could either get my ass kicked, or kick ass. Getting old means you stop kicking ass. Growing older means that kicking ass takes more effort and has longer recovery times.

I don't expect to behave like a thirty-something. I don't have the hormones, I've sorted out the neuroses. I stay in more and do random stuff less. I used to walk in parks on weekend afternoons, but if I do that now, I almost pass out from the histamines from the pollen I get more sensitive to each year. I can go walking in winter, and then it's too cold. I read for intellectual challenge or entertainment: I've done my English Lit duty reading. I've seen Battleship Potemkin and Man With A Movie Camera, so I have no qualms watching Nikita just because Maggie Q. I leave Friday and Saturday nights to the kids, and Saturdays to the parents. I get older, I adjust. That's what smart people do. And me, even if I'm a little slow on the uptake.


If you're an able-bodied man, it is never too late to re-build your body and mind. I've done it twice: in my early-30's and late 50's. I couldn't do reasonable deadlifts (for an office worker) until six months ago. If you've had an education you can always pick up the books again. That's why I can give you a very simple explanation of why the spectrum of a cylinder has trivial higher co-homology, even though the cylinder itself has a non-trivial first group in the usual topology. I know. I wouldn't have understood a word of that ten years ago either.

In a couple of weeks I begin a year or more's worth of orthodonty. And I will after a bit more hesitation get some personal training sessions to change up the work I do in the gym. The trick is not minding that I have to re-build myself. And not minding that my social life is limited to a few good friends, and that my best sexual days are behind me. That's going to happen to you, and you can work with it or let it get you down.

62? Bring it on.