A few days ago I turned 44. Usually I quite enjoy the countdown to a birthday in much the same way as I did as a child. I look forward to the day, presents, a party and all those little excitements that elevate it into an occasion.
Apart from my 40th, when I threw a big party for 40 guests at a restaurant, my birthdays are generally low-key — supper at a favourite restaurant, a great bottle of wine and presents.
This year, however, I was in need of major cheering and so celebrated with friends and family over Greek lamb on the spit.
Getting older is difficult — the aches and pains of beginning-to-age cartilage and joints, the early-morning stiffness that takes that much longer to go away with each passing day and an accumulated fatigue of having lived 15 660 days or 375 840 hours or 22 550 400 seconds.
I don’t mind the emerging grey hairs, tiny age lines or a less-than-upright bust line. There is an enormous industry churning out potions, pills and machines to slow down the creeping deterioration of age and, while I can, I shall fight at all fronts to keep the ageing at a respectable distance.
What I do mind about getting old is the loss of innocence that hard-won experience robs you of the hopefulness of untested youth. Do you remember when life was still a mystery to be discovered, an unfolding panorama of grand Technicolour dreams, of starry-eyed romantic notions of the future? I’m not so old that I don’t remember how I felt as a 14-year-old poised at the cusp of womanhood and life.
Everything was in the future — a great career, a home, travel; the love of my life, children, stardom and one could hardly wait for each passing day to live the experience of growing up.
Perhaps the saddest thing about youth is that we don’t truly appreciate the wonder of being young, of not having arrived at the destination.
We are so impatient to be grown-up that the joy of being a “slightly blank” slate, or housed in a body that can skip and hop and contort itself with absolute nimbleness is lost on us. Instead we hanker to be grown-up and making our own decisions.
Yes, youth is so lost on the youth. As a teenager all I wanted to do was be an adult with no one to answer to or make decisions for me. I wanted to be a woman, working at my brilliant career and calling the shots personally and professionally. And now: I just want to be free of the responsibilities of adulthood. I don’t want to make life-or-death decisions, worry about retirement investments or climbing the career ladder.
Life is perverse or, perhaps more accurately, human nature is. We spend our lives setting and achieving goals and yet, once attained, it can all feel empty and meaningless. As adults we are on a treadmill that dictates what we do. Society prescribes for us the supposed meaning of life and the measurement for success.
The chances of breaking the mould, finding one’s own truth or one’s own measure of life’s success are limited. We are all subject to the conditioning, imbibing the propaganda from childhood. “Satisfactory will go to the factory” was a dictum in my house as academic diligence and achievement was enforced through the gloomy spectre of being a poorly paid worker ant in a clothing factory.
In our community there is a huge emphasis on achieving professional qualifications and a high-flyer lifestyle. The stress of being a success is all-consuming.
I was terrified of failure or of not amounting to much.
At 44, I struggle to understand why that was all-consuming. Money is important in so much as it buys one peace of mind, a roof over one’s head and puts food on the table.
I wish someone had told me to travel and see the world.
We are only young once and age brings a certain trepidation that is the result of hopes shattered, dreams unfulfilled, and so we look at the world with far more tired and jaded eyes.
I would have loved to experience some of the pleasures the world has to offer young people with a backpack instead of three suitcases, a sleeping bag out under the stars instead of an overly air-conditioned hotel for the rich.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not knocking the trappings of success. I just think that real happiness has nothing to do with money. We are fed the notion that if we do all our parents ask of us, study hard, get the right job, marry well, we will be automatically happy.
The truth is that nothing can ever protect us from pain, the loss of innocence, heartache and the million other routine obstacles we navigate.
So this birthday I took some time to make decisions about the future. It’s never too late to reinvent oneself. While I still have a few good years left, I intend to be happy or at least content and that might mean letting go of the need to be something, say and do meaningful things. It might just mean re-embracing the child in me and listening to that voice that says it’s OK to just be.
Gita Pather is chief executive: ochre relationships, Ochre Media