A Mayo Question: Is your age simply a number?

by Barbara Daly

Since I turned 50 late last year, age has been on my mind quite a bit.

This week age, or rather what people are capable of at a certain age, came to my attention several times.

It made me wonder whether age is just a number after all?

Is what we are capable of or allowed to do at any age more a matter of how determined we are rather than how old we are?

Joe Biden’s age and his mental acuity (or lack of it) was discussed on the radio and a guest Consultant Geriatrician was interviewed.

He acknowledged that octogenarians like Joe Biden could have moments of confused or slower reactions but that did not mean they were not capable of great and inspired leadership.

He made the very valid point that older people were generally more reflective and less impulsive in their decision making than younger people.

They had acquired qualities and experience that would stand to them and could even allow them to make a better hand of these important jobs.

Also this week I watched a fascinating documentary-drama on the American swimmer Diana Nyad who managed to swim from Cuba to Florida at the age of 64 years after five failed attempts, one of them in her twenties.

She was the first person to ever complete this arduous swim. Her perseverance and her determination that she would not accept failure or mediocrity in her life, no matter her age, got her there.

She would not allow anyone to convince her that her age was against her or that she might be too old to push her body so far.

As I huffed and puffed through a 5km run the following day and wondered how long my knee would hold out I felt slightly ashamed. I had almost talked myself out of running because of my age.

I have been considering going back to work full time and I have been applying for jobs in content writing/marketing.

For the first time in my life I wondered whether an employer might be put off by my age.

Some of the job descriptions sold themselves on the opportunity to join a young, dynamic, on-trend team and offered the chance to achieve a better work/life balance.

The tone suggested to me that their team already consisted of hip twenty and thirty-somethings. Their lifestyles and interests were in no way similar to that of a 50 year old mother living in rural west of Ireland! Would they want me?

It is easy to convince yourself that age matters. It is easy because that is what the world tells you.

Reach 50 years of age and the doors of opportunity for new employment or promotion, for sporting achievement, for travel, for romance or for just upping sticks and starting again seem to close to you.

The rules say you should be settled, stay where you are, do what you have always done and be content. That is all very well but what if that is not you? What if you want to make a change? What then?

Make the change and listen to no one. ‘What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?’ is a line from a Mary Oliver poem that was threaded through the Diana Nyad story.

Being 50 years of age is still being alive as much as being 20 or 30 or 80 years.

Whether you have one year or 30 years of that one wild and precious life left then it should be lived accordingly.