“Middle age is when you have stopped growing at both ends and have begun to grow in the middle.” I had just delivered a speech at a Toastmasters Club in Saudi Arabia. During the break that followed, a young daughter of a Toastmaster who had attended the meeting as a guest, came to meet me. My face beamed with delight, as I was anxious to receive her comments. “That was a very good speech, Uncle.” She was smiling as she conveyed her sincere appreciation. My full-moon face swiftly shrunk like a wilted flower. The last word of her appreciation came as a bolt from the blue and that was the time when I first sank into my midlife blues. It was the beginning of those ‘intimidating Uncle calls’. My face invited widespread attention from the mirror in the days that followed and I still continue my vigilant watch against those tiny lines that secretly invade my face. Nowadays, whenever I smile at a good girl, she thinks that I am her father’s friend.
Middle age is that time of life when each passing day makes you feel two days older. That is when you feel that Saturday night is the same as Monday morning. That is the time when you wish there was some other way of starting the day than by getting up. Even when you wake up in the spring you feel that you are not springy. You discover that your memory is shorter, your experience longer, your stamina lower and your hairline higher. You think that anyone going slower than you is an idiot and anyone going faster than you is a maniac. I recently celebrated my 40th birthday. I have now stopped looking forward to my next birthday. I think the only time in life we like to grow old is when we are kids. Kids are often introduced as, “He is only two and half years,” or, “He is just one and half years old.” I don’t know why we elders avoid that precious fractional element while mentioning our age. Maybe it is true that, “Life begins at forty.” Well, life not only begins at forty, it begins to show as well. But everything else begins to wear out, fall out or spread out. I asked my friend, Sunny Jacob, “What are the symptoms that indicate that you have reached this middle menopause?” “Well,” Sunny coughed and said, “PGR, there are three signs that you are middle-aged. The first is your failing memory. Well, the other two, um… I forgot!” I then knew that Sunny was not lying about his age.
Midlife is the period of many economic and emotional crises. That is the time when your children leave one by one, only to return two by two. You are not bothered about where your spouse goes, as long as you don’t have to go along. That is the time when you want to see how long your car will last, rather than how fast it will go. It is then you start switching off the bedroom light for economic reasons, rather than for romantic reasons. You start moaning that you get less for your money every time you go to the barber. You suddenly realize that money really matters, and you feel that every cent is a dollar in waiting. But when you try to save it, your children blame you by saying, ”Papa is stingy.” If you don’t chase it, your wife complains that you lack ambition. If you spend it, you are termed as a spendthrift. Your home becomes the setting for a daily rehearsal of ‘war and peace’. Finally, everyone blames it on his marriage and concludes that marriage is not a lottery; because in lottery, you at least have a chance. This year on the 4th of September, my wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. As usual, I went to a gift shop in Jubail to buy an anniversary present for my wife. I met a smart Saudi there and told him that I wanted a nice anniversary present for my wife. He had a good look at me and asked, “May I know how long you have been married.” I said proudly that I was celebrating my thirteenth anniversary. The Saudi pondered and said, “Siddique (meaning friend), our bargain counter is in the basement.” I saluted him for his understanding of the middle-age mentality.
Middle age is the time to ponder over the reciprocal relation between health and wealth. You have money to burn, but the fire has gone out. Your daily dozen becomes weekly once, and you are afraid of it becoming weakly once. But you earn some status symbols in your health profile. Your life has become too sugary and that is shown even in your blood. You now attend many birthday parties and appreciate the wonderful butterscotch cake, but lack the will to eat it. You have withstood all the pressures in your life only to boost it on your Barometer. You surely now stay in shape, and ’round’ is the shape .A heartache that was sweet in your youth, is now a bit painful. You finally seek solace with a pacemaker. You now realize that caution is the only thing you care to exercise. You are even cautioned to slow down by a doctor, rather than by a traffic policeman.
It is also the period when you are more concerned about your looks than your outlook. As the cream of your life fades off, you puff up your face with more and more creams. Last week, when I was dressing up for a party, I told my wife that if anyone asks me about my age I am going to say that I am only thirty-five.
My wife said, “Don’t create an embarrassment for me.”
I asked her, “Why?” “Because, that way you will be going around and telling everyone that my younger son is illegitimate.”
Midlife is also the period of many ‘metallic’ jubilees. You have silver in your hair, gold in your teeth, lead in your bottom and silicon in some vital sites. Last week, a colleague of me poked into my mouth while joking and said, “Hey PGR, you have very fine teeth!” I said, “They are all mine, I have the receipt from Almana hospital.”
When my friend Bajpai returned from Paris, I asked him about Paris. As usual he said, “Wonderful,” and added with a sigh, “PGR, I should have visited Paris at least twenty years back.”
“You mean when Paris was really Paris,” I enquired. “No, when Bajpai was really Bajpai,” he replied. It proves that you don’t have to worry about temptations, because it will avoid you. I do not want to disappoint my middle-aged readers with my words. I only wish to remind you that the art of life is to stay in rhythm with your age, whether middle age or old age. As Victor Hugo said, “If forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age”. Age is a function of mind over matter; if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. It is your attitude to aging that acts as your mind’s paintbrush. The best way is to accept each dawn in the dusk of your life gracefully and march with a smile on your lips. Remember that we don’t stop laughing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop laughing. As Sister Mary Gemma Brunke has so beautifully written, “It is the old apple trees that are decked with the lovliest blossoms. It is the ancient redwoods that rise to majestic heights. It is the old violins that produce the richest tones. It is the aged wine that tastes the sweetest.” Well, my dear readers, you now know that fifty is the age of discovery…You just discovered that you are old. But to me, middle age is always fifteen years older than I am!
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