Older and Better

You know you are getting old when you are sitting at your desk and something just pulls in your back. Or like last year, I was just walking along the road, when I twisted my ankle. I don’t know about these people who keep telling you that aging is in your mind, that age is only a number. Tell that to my body! There is the added weight gain around the middle, the slower recovery from sudden bursts of exercise, and of course “the change” which happened last year.   

I have no idea what my children are talking about in Math, and have to suffer the rolling eyes when I need help with an apparently trivial technology-related problem. I nearly fried my brain at the 4-hour workshop I attended on how to use my camera. Other giveaways must be talking about the "old days", and preferring snail mail and chats on the phone to "texting".

I don’t have a problem with getting older; I just have a problem with everyone telling me that it is happening in my head. It’s a process, this getting older. I remember a visit to the doctor a while back, when she told me that now that I was over 40 we needed to do an annual battery of tests like mammograms, cholesterol, thyroid, etc. I left there feeling like I was about to spontaneously combust now that I had passed a certain milestone. 

But here I am years later, still going strong! I have been growing my hair for the last few months. I have had short hair since forever but was feeling like I needed a change. "The only way to have something different is if you grow it," said my hairdresser (while you can still carry it off, he added, half under his breath). But there is life in the old dog yet! Last year was also the year that I went shark cage diving, learnt to ride an elephant and took horse-riding lessons. I have my open water diving certificate and made my television debut on Morning Live, no less.  I have just finished a course on magazine journalism and set up my blog (by myself when they were all in Durban watching Portugal and Brazil during the World Cup!). 

So now I find myself with the odd pain, embracing my curves and the natural highlights in my hair. I am doing things I never dreamt I would be doing. I plan on going back for the longer version of the photography course in the new year and watch out for the new and improved version of my blog. Things are definitely getting better. 

Snail Mail

Yesterday, I received a letter in the post. It was sitting in the mail box, just waiting to be received! I took it out, noticing the foreign postage stamps with expectation. The post mark was 16th August - not bad for the much-maligned postal service! I brought it inside and sat down to examine it. I turned it around to see the sender's address - old friends from Paris. It's not often that I get snail mail that does not have an envelope with a window, and I intended to savour this one. 

Slowly I slit the envelope and removed the A4 page - writing on both sides! Our friends in Paris have resisted all attempts to "globalise" and jump onto the technology highway. Sometimes this can be frustrating as we could be in much more regular contact if they were at least using the email address that they do have. But what a pleasure to enjoy the dying art of letter writing! I can imagine them sitting down to write the letter - and usually all four family members write a few lines - putting it into the envelope once they are satisfied that they have said all they want, and then going out to post it. All that time they are thinking about us and sending us positive thoughts!

They were replying to a letter I wrote a while ago (I had to remind myself about the contents - but even that was a pleasure as I had sent them a picture of my son with Madiba and could replay that event in my mind). They said were going to have the picture framed and displayed for all to see. Now if I had sent that via e-mail, they would probably not have printed it out!

Sometimes life is so fast and everything is so accessible that we forget to appreciate the small events and the small gestures that make life so meaningful. So, take a minute - write a letter to someone - it doesn't have to say much, except that you are thinking of them.