An Ode to Ageing

Ageing has a PR problem. For years, we’ve been sold a narrative of quiet decline...a slow, beige transition into the background. I’m not buying it. From where I’m standing, sixty feels less like a slow lane and more like a long-overdue run on the Autobahn: foot firmly on the accelerator, windows down, the wind in my hair, and deafening 80s music blaring while I zip past.

In three weeks, I turn sixty, and I’m excited to see what this stage of life will look like for me. I find myself in a contemplative mood, asking big questions; not the frantic ones about what’s left, but the optimistic ones about how I want to live. Retirement has a way of pulling the rug out from under old assumptions. It leaves you standing in the open, blinking slightly, realising that time is no longer organised for you. Terrifying? Occasionally. Liberating? Completely.

Work used to steer my days, regiment them, and structure them with rules and regulations outside of myself. It also carried an unreasonable amount of my sense of self. Somewhere along the way, effort and identity became close companions. Retirement loosened that knot. Now, esteem has to come from elsewhere, and that elsewhere turns out to be far more interesting. It shows up in how I treat my body, how I speak to people I love, and how willing I am to say "no" without inventing excuses that sound believable.

Money still taps me on the shoulder from time to time, asking if I’m paying attention. I am, but I'm no longer ruled by it. I am learning that "enough" is not a number on an ATM slip, but a feeling of contentment and gratitude for what I have been given. The new list will be simple: Enough sleep. Enough movement. Enough laughter that catches me off guard. When I focus on sustaining a good life rather than panicking about an imaginary future catastrophe, the worry quiets down. Not gone, but manageable. Like a radio playing softly in the next room.

Health and strength have moved to the front of the queue. Not as vanity, but because mobility is now a grave concern. I’d rather hold onto the railings as I make my way down the stairs, because a fall at sixty is not the same as one at forty, that’s for damn sure. Statistically, a fall at this age marks a threshold; while roughly one in three adults over sixty-five will fall this year, the real sting is in the recovery. At forty, you bounce; at sixty, you break. A simple trip can become a gamble with one’s autonomy, often leading to a permanent loss of independence or months of gruelling rehabilitation. This body is the vehicle for everything I still want to experience, and I intend to look after it with the seriousness it deserves and the humour it requires.

Retirement also hands you an abundance of choice, which sounds delightful until you realise you actually have to choose. No manager. No timetable. Just you and a day that asks, quietly: what now? I have to learn to give my days a rhythm without turning them into chores. Some days are for growth. Some are for rest. Some are for making a mess creatively and calling it progress.

And then there is joy...the deliberate kind. The decision to laugh. The intention to enjoy. The willingness to be amused by my own stubbornness. I am fully leaning into my future as a grumpy old lady with opinions, muttered commentary about the youngsters, and a heart that still wants the world to do better. I plan to be a force for good while occasionally rolling my eyes. Yes, Sharo, these things can coexist.

Ageing, it turns out, is not about fading away; it is a refusal to be edited and regulated. Retirement is not an ending but a handing over: from obligation to authorship. I am drafting this next chapter with curiosity, leaning into learning, and it will involve a rather liberal amount of swearing and frustration as I navigate the elder-Nariman.

If this is what growing older looks like, I am all in...minus tight-fitting underwear, footwear, and other cumbersome additions, of course.