This article was republished 8 March 2026 for International Women’s Day to highlight the incredible women of Bylines Network
Let’s face it, older age is a time for having to get used to all sorts of unusual and disagreeable minor ailments. Who, in their later years, doesn’t wake up each morning to find a new pain or symptom of something that wasn’t there yesterday and think: “What, in the name of all that’s holy, is that?”, only for said pain to have disappeared by the end of the day.
Who has not been on their knees, alone in the kitchen, trying to retrieve something from the floor, only to find that it’s a sudden near impossibility to get back on their feet? Who among us, of a certain age, does not find that they suddenly have to factor into their finances the costs of podiatry, audiology, extra supplements to try to rediscover what it means to have a short-term memory, never mind having to take out private medical insurance so that we can have our cataracts removed before the end of the century?
Growing old at the dentist: not doing the right thing
The two appointments are back-to-back on a Monday morning. First, the hygienist, then the six-monthly check-up with the dentist. The hygienist is her usual upbeat, breezy self.
“Everything looks great,” she says. “You’re keeping this gum condition under good control.”
Twenty minutes later, my optimism is in a state of rapid deflation as the dentist and I have the same conversation that we’ve been having at six-monthly intervals for the last two years.
“You know, you really should consider this periodontal treatment,” he intones mechanically. “Your teeth will eventually fall out if you don’t”.
I can see that I’m going to have to take the bull by the proverbial horns. I resist the impulse to grab him by his little ginger beard and snarl: “If you think for one moment that I’m going to put myself through that hideous procedure again, only for it to fail a year later, never mind the astronomical cost of it, you can think again.”
Instead, I calmly remove myself from his chair and with a smile, ask:
“Do you mean that my teeth will all fall out at once?”
“Well, no,” he replies. “Over time – one after the other.”
I put my coat on and pick up my handbag.
“OK,” I say. “I’m almost seventy now, so with any luck, by the time they all fall out, I’ll be dead. See you in six months.”
Choosing not to have something fixed flies in the face of everything that we’re told is wise, but that’s one of the many conundrums of older age. We have the confidence to decide not to do the supposed ‘right thing’ if we want to because, if we’re going to live with the consequences, it won’t be for forty or fifty years; it’ll be for ten or twenty at most and, as long as it doesn’t hurt too much, we’ll be fine.
The afflictions of older age and how not to combat them
We all battle on, some more successfully than others. Trying to apply make-up from memory, rather than actually being able to see what you’re doing, becomes an art form in itself and has considerable mileage in terms of entertainment value for those who witness the results.
Cutting toenails from memory, however, is an altogether more hazardous exercise. The only real benefits of suffering from cataracts, in particular, are that you can see neither the wrinkles in your face nor the true extent of the butchery that you’ve inflicted on your feet. They’re also, incidentally, the perfect excuse to stop giving people lifts or going out in the evening when you don’t want to, because you can no longer drive in the dark.
Some, however, sensing that this is only the beginning of a world of pain and disability and in a desperate attempt to take control, go into a frenzy of exercise and diet change, often espousing deeply suspect new habits which would challenge the physical and mental capacities of a thirty-year-old drill sergeant. Or maybe they attempt to cut out all forms of processed food and end up living on nuts and boiled lizard claw from the Chinese medical centre, while their spouse of fifty years leaves them in frustration and disgust and they end up weighing six stone, looking as though they’re ninety-five and suffering from liver failure and joint problems that they’ve never had in their lives.
Embrace your eccentricity as if no-one is watching
There is hope, however, and its real name is eccentricity, in the midst of the chaos. Now is the time for all those shameful, weird little secretive habits to take centre stage and to be upgraded to the level of lifestyle choices. This, of course, is much more easily achieved if a person lives alone, as the balancing and grounding influences of a partner or spouse are absent.
So, for instance, if you happen to be male, you can now indulge, without guilt, your long-held desire to dance in your living-room wearing only a mankini and a pair of sunglasses while singing loudly into a hairbrush and simultaneously playing air guitar. You may even choose to take this to a tantalising new level of fun via a deliberate decision not to close the curtains. Be careful, though, to restrict this to an indoor activity, especially if you live near a primary school. If, on the other hand, you happen to live in a forest, then the world is truly your oyster.
If you are female, the menopause may well have supercharged your capacity to forget the importance of anything that isn’t overtly criminal, so you have a wonderful head start in the eccentricity stakes. This means, in practice, that tending your garden at dawn in the pouring rain while wearing only your grandmother’s wedding dress, will seem perfectly natural. As will the creation of a Hawaiian-style grass skirt in which you can sit watching re-runs of Benidorm which you can neither see nor hear properly, while sipping a cocktail of gin, Ribena and half a tin of pineapple chunks which threaten to sink the two paper umbrellas at any moment.
Don’t just sit there; enjoy every moment
All we need to remember is the fact that we’re all in the same leaky boat together and that the direction of travel is the same for everyone. Some people will just sit there, passively refusing to even try to bail it out until they sink with it.
Others will grab the oars and try to row upstream in a noble, if futile, attempt to outwit the passage of time. Still others, though, will ride the waves, enjoy the scenery, take an occasional dip to the depths from which they’ll emerge either dead or smiling, and know that the whole thing is and always has been, just a short journey.
So, start wearing purple, smack a few railings with your walking stick and ride those waves like a champion and as though your life depends on it. Because your happiness most certainly does.
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