I realised quite recently that when I got married, my mother had not even turned 50. She reached that milestone two years later, but looking at her pictures from that period, one can easily mistake her for a much older lady.
She had several strands of grey hair that she refused to dye, and, in fact, I had to escort her to the corner beauty parlour on her 50th birthday for her first hair-colour appointment because she was too shy to visit the place on her own.
Once there, she almost changed her mind, and I had to do a lot of reassuring during the entire procedure. But basically, after that one trip, she gave up on trying any subsequent treatments, and decided to become a geriatric much before her time.
However, all individuals of her generation were like that, and they did everything too early; graduated from college early, got married early, had kids early. Therefore, by the time they reached their half-century mark, age wise, they had accumulated such a vast array of experiences that they were not quite willing to do anything other than retire. The result was that they declared themselves old much before they actually got old.
Compared to those young-olds, my peer group comes across as the old-young. We are over 50 but not yet elderly. Research states that, by 2100, the ratio of 65-plus folks to working-age people will triple.
The Economist magazine claims, “In the rich world at least, many of the old are still young. They want to work, if more flexibly and they want to spend money too. The current binary way of thinking, seeing retirement as a cliff edge over which workers and consumers suddenly tumble bears little relation to the real world. Governments and companies should take note. Finding a word to describe youthful old age as a distinct phase of life – how about “pre-tiree” – might sound like a frivolous exercise, but it could have as powerful an impact on attitudes as the emergence of ‘teenagers’ in the 1940s.”
Right! I love the phrase “pre-tiree” which is so much better than “retiree”. The former is an ongoing active phase as compared to the passivity of the latter one. It is both encouraging and energising and does not compel one to make any drastic changes because of one’s chronological age. ‘As long as one is able to do something, one should carry on doing it’, is the mantra.
It holds true for the post-tirees too who are busy doing nearly anything and everything while they are fit and healthy to do so. This includes accessing the social media networks, being obsessively active on Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and in certain cases, even campaigning for re-election in the Presidential race for the White House!
To explore the concept, I invited my best friend home for coffee. She cancelled twice and, at the third prodding, she finally came over.
“Guess what? We are now the pre-tireds,” I told her.
“I also feel very tired,” she agreed.
“Not tired, pre-tired,” I emphasised.
“What is that? Tired before tired?” she asked.
“We are at the prime of our youthful old age,” I explained.
“Old age is old; how can it be youthful?” she questioned.
“It is our new stage of life, see?” I willed her to understand.
“Aha,” she nodded knowingly.
“Got it?” I raised my eyebrow.
“Yes, we are the new tired,” she sighed tiredly.
By Nickunj Malik
|| features@portugalresident.com
Nickunj Malik’s journalistic career began when she walked into the office of Khaleej Times newspaper in Dubai thirty-one years ago and got the job. Since then, her articles have appeared in various newspapers all over the world. She now resides in Portugal and is married to a banker who loves numbers more than words.
