Sensodyne for sensitive teeth……………….

Sensodyne for sensitive teeth, anti-allergy tablets for a cough that won’t quit, eye drops for redness and sensitive eyes are becoming standard in my life. Every time my employer changes medical service providers I am one of those required to get a full medical checkup before being admitted into the scheme. I am getting to that stage (and age) where health becomes an ever present constant that requires regular medical check-up for cancer, diabetes, hypertension and whatnot and where you are always being warned to watch what you eat and drink and avoid stress.

Where recalling names becomes a chore that the more you try to remember the more difficult it is. Where forgetfulness, loss of sleep and tiredness are your constant companion and one dreads password change day because you are bound to be a nuisance to your network administrator for the next few days after the change because you have been locked out of your account. One morning recently I spent a good 25 minutes looking for my car keys which I had left in the pocket of the tracksuit that I had worn the previous evening…….and couldn’t recall that!!

It is that time when eyes start to get a little rheumy and eye glasses become a necessity, the aches come to joints unbidden and itches explode all over your body at the wrong time and place. Your toilet breaks become more frequent and at shorter intervals and where you have to chart a route that guarantees you a stop over half way home for a urine break.  At the hospital, offices, post office and other service outlets the doctors, nurses, attendants, engineers, receptionists all appear to be just out of their teens and at the local pub or restaurant the buxom middle age waitresses of yesterday are now replaced by the slim down models of 2012.

This is the time when you are addressed as ‘Mzee’ to your face in a public place, and enjoy it, and your children no longer accompany you for functions and visits and are more comfortable going off with their friends. It is also the time when you turn to your children to assist you in anything technology related because somewhere along the way your ability to cope with the changing technology is obsolete and now completely irrelevant.

It is that time when you are looked upon to provide pearls of wisdom to the younger generation because of the wisps of white hairs setting you apart as a wise one, and where suddenly talk of long ignored cultural visits to accompany friends and family for some wedding negotiation or some family get together come your way unsolicited and uninvited.      

As one of my friends said recently, it is time in life where if you do not have an ache or a pain somewhere on your person when you wake up on any given morning; it means that you are close to meeting your maker!!

Speeding on the roads is now behind you because why accelerate (pun intended) to your demise when you are approaching the last two score of your biblical life anyway. You are also attending more burials and funerals of parents of friends and relatives and of your own kith and kin who have either grown old and passed on or succumbed to one illness or another.  Stories abound of titanic battles against cancer and other deadly diseases that ravage families or parts of families and which now morbidly fascinate you while you wonder if you will be exchanging similar stories soon. Now is the time when talk of preparing for the weddings of our daughters and sons supercedes plans for the weddings of our friends and peers.

But it is also a time where you have forged great contacts and friendships and are confident in your professional or business life and you wear a weathered mature look about you. You are probably, if in the middle class, a member of a private members club where you visit once or twice a week jealous of the retirees with all the time in the word to indulge in their golf unhindered by the nine-to-five humdrum of the rest of us working folk.

You have a regular routine for your weekly haircut and shave; you tend to find comfort at a favorite stool in your local club or bar where you can sit and while away time alone and with an understanding barman to serve your usual tipple at the right temperature.

I am lucky to have a surviving grandfather and grandmother one each from my mother and father side who must now be pushing 100 years well past their God given ages and I hope to one day emulate them to be a nuisance to my grandchildren and daughters who will be doomed to take care of me until the ripe old age of 100 for that is my prayer to my God.