On Looking Older

I will be 59 this week. If asked to guess, I would estimate that most people who look at me would go for an age of 65-70. It has been like that for as long as I can remember, and I never really cared – until now.

I think the main factor in looking older than I am is my white/grey hair. My black hair turned white during my 30’s. My dad was the same, so I guess I inherited that from him. I started balding quite early too – for that one I think I have to thank my mum’s dad.

Perhaps there are other factors. Maybe I have what people call a lived-in face. There was a time, when I was travelling extensively with Shell, that I think I did wear out my body a bit more than most, and perhaps my mind too. And for many years I was married to somebody unfashionably older than me, and maybe we come to look like our partners in some way. At the time, I found it an asset, because there were fewer embarrassing questions for either of us to field about our age gap.

Lastly, I probably dress old. Certainly, I have never given a second’s thought to fashion, only to comfort (and price). Last week I selected new frames for reading glasses, and I stared at the wall and literally could not find an ounce of preference between any of the alternatives, so asked the assistant to choose (among the cheapest ones) for me.

Overall, I think this lack of interest in how I look has been a blessing, because I see so many people constantly stressed out about how they look, and giving themselves anxiety and emptier wallets as a result. Of course, this typically applies a lot more to women than to men, at least until the recent rise of metrosexual man. I can consider myself lucky that I’ve only been actively looking for a partner for a tiny fraction of my adult life. And somehow, looks seem to matter more to men seeking women than the other way around – just one of many injustices.

For a lot of my business career, looking older was actually quite an advantage, because with the assumption of age comes one of maturity, seniority, experience or reliability. I was always happy to play along with this. The turning point comes around 40, when those assumptions become coupled with other ones about resistance to change or lack of stamina. But, even in my forties, I was quite happy for people to make those assumptions, since they helped me meet my career goals of not having to move and being seen as some sort of wise mentor.

I might be wrong in my guess of how old I look, but I do have evidence. The first time somebody offered me a seat in the subway (actually, I think it was a tram), I was well under 50. I was barely over 50 when a cashier in a supermarket gave me a 10% senior discount without so much as asking me my age. Mainly, I have learned to accept such things and to embrace the advantages – who would not want a seat on a long subway ride?

Other evidence comes when people ask me what I do – always a difficult question in reality. Recently, there has been an assumption that I am comfortably retired, an assumption which increasingly represents the truth, but one which means people must place me well into my sixties at least. The first time I visited the old folks home as a volunteer, one of the residents asked me which floor my bedroom was on! And my most extreme example was when we were once having dinner with a (admittedly rather old) couple and the man asked me, in all seriousness, what I did during the war! He must have placed me in my 80’s!

But now I have a little confession to make. Every time somebody makes an assumption that I am 65 or over, a part of me hurts a little bit. I think it always did, but hardly enough to register, and the pain is still tiny, but it is there. So I have to work out why that might be.

I think one part is about an unstated project as part of my retiring at fifty. I retired then because I felt that work at Shell would not be fulfilling in my 50’s, because I thought I could be a better family person as a retiree, and because I guessed that life might have a lot to offer somebody who did not have a large part of their waking agenda mapped out for them. I also had a goal of being fit at 55 and a sneaking suspicion that long working hours and lugging computers around and sitting in cramped departure lounges were not the best way to achieve that. It was a bold move, one that few have the blessing to even contemplate, and to an extent that move has defined me for the last ten years.

By all realistic measures the move has succeeded. I haven’t gone broke, I have never once been bored or missed corporate life, I believe I have indeed become a better family person, and life really has offered up wonderful experiences. And actually, I reckon the fitness part has turned out right too: my joints felt better immediately, I have had few scares, last week I climbed a mountain more comfortably than I could have ten years ago, and I feel sprightly physically and mentally.

So I guess part of the niggling annoyance about my looks is that I might have hoped that the success of my retirement choice would become obvious to the world in my looks. I could look 60 at 50 and still look 60 at 60 and maybe even at 70! Well, that hasn’t happened. Maybe my looks have only aged eight years during the last ten, but at that rate I’ll have to wait until I’m 100 to look no older than my age.

Then there is a darker worry. Do people who look older really die younger? Is how old you look really a good indicator for how healthy you are and how close you are to the end? I suppose this darker thought comes through as a natural consequence of reaching an age when some peers become sick or even die and I start getting a few diagnoses myself. Then I hear my mum’s voice in my ear when I told her I was retiring at 50, dismissive and claiming that idle minds have shorter life expectancy. If there is one person in my whole life I have always want to prove wrong, about anything at all, it is my mum!

So I suppose I have to confess to fighting a small secret fight, the beginning of the (God willing) long fight against slow decline that we all have to face eventually. In my case, the fight is magnified by the secret wish to prove to myself, and to the world, that the brave decision I took was a smart one.

I think such a confession is a good thing. Those assumptions about my age can do less damage if I am ready for them and can anticipate their impact. I can build up the counter story: I feel great, even to the extent of climbing mountains and overtaking everybody at the swimming pool; I believe that if I was actually just entering my last full year at Shell I would feel a lot worse physically; and I know that in that scenario I would have missed out on so much in my 50’s. That counter story will only become more important as 59 becomes 69 or 79, no matter what my appearance may betray.

And the realisation has given me one extra chance to be kind to others. When I meet people now after a gap, I look at their appearance more closely than I ever did before. I don’t lie, but if they seem to me not to have aged, I go out of my way to tell them so. I’ve started noticing some very gratified looks in return.