Why is it that those in their twenties believe that anyone who is 30 and above is on their way to the grave? I ask because last week, a (much) younger colleague and I were discussing a story she had in mind, only for her to describe the interviewee as a “44-year-old cucu...”
And no, she did not say this in jest, she was dead serious. Where she stood, those in their 40s were old people. Old people on the verge of retirement and at risk of conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis.
Amused and taken aback at the same time, I couldn’t help asking this colleague, “Did you just call me a cucu?” You see, I’m nearer 44 than I am further from it. Anyway, she burst out laughing and said, “Gosh, you’re in your 40s?!” as if it is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.
In an effort to make me feel better, I assumed this is what she was trying to do, she assured me that I didn’t ‘look’ my years, so I had nothing to worry about. I have never been so tickled in my life. Here I was telling myself that life does, indeed, begin at 40, yet here was someone who believed that I was on my deathbed, that I was living on borrowed time.
It reminded me of a comical conversation my 10-year-old daughter, (she is the family comedian) initiated some time back. Out of the blues, she asked, “Mum, how old are you again?”
When I told her, she said, her tone conclusive, “So you will be a cucu by the time I join high school…”
She said it with such finality that I found myself walking towards the nearest mirror to determine just how much I had aged.
Anyway, that conversation with my youthful colleague took me down memory lane to when my friends and I were around her age and how much we looked down on ‘older’ people, namely our teachers, parents and other older relatives who we thought were backward and clueless. I mean, who wears such clothes? And would someone die just because we missed a class or did not do an assignment? (rolls eyes…)
Also, what is so wrong about ‘going out’ on a Monday until the wee hours of the following day? Sure, there is an early morning class on Tuesday and we’ll probably sleep through it, but so what? It’s not like the world will come to an end, will it? (rolls eyes again…)
‘Old’ people were so boring it hurt. Of course it never occurred to us then that one day we would grow ‘old’ too, and that the young people who replaced us in youngness would put us in the same bracket with dinosaurs. Oh, the folly of youth!
On a serious note though, were I to be given the option of going back to my twenties, I wouldn’t take it. I have many good memories of those years gone by, but there are also a couple of bad ones that I wouldn’t care to relieve. The fact is that life was never meant to be static, it is supposed to evolve, and you with it.
I also believe, and I’m talking from experience, that every stage in life comes with its own advantages, its own perks, even that ‘old’ age phase, especially this phase, where you’re likely to be financially stable unlike the frustrating hustling phase of the twenties when you were perpetually broke. Wouldn’t it be a shame not to partake of these perks?
What’s that? Did I hear an ‘Amen’ from my fellow 40-somethings? And to my younger colleague, “Mzee ni wewe…”
The writer is editor, Society and Magazines, Daily Nation. Email: cnjunge@ ke.nationmedia.com
