Old age is a bitch, the indignities of life in the 30s; life measured by your job, car you drive, neighbourhood you live in etc.

Old age is a bitch, the indignities of life in the 30s; life measured by your job, car you drive, neighbourhood you live in etc.

By Silas Nyanchwani
The other night, while on a night out with family members among them some really two hot 20-year-old nieces, one of them said something that sent chills down my spine.

You know that feeling when you miss a step, or when your phone nearly falls down, or you touch your pocket you can’t feel it?

“We know men like you in a club. We look at you, and we can tell if you are loaded or not,” she said, referring to our age (me and my friend now in the unromantic phase of life-read 30s-according to Brabetts Bayern Munich in reference to our age.)

“If you are having one beer we will know you are stingy and avoid you,” she said before she disappeared to dance with strangers. Apparently, the site of several beers and a good mzinga sends the right message.

For the first time I noticed the gaping age difference. She is at a stage in her life where she is immortal. Young and old men admire her and she is on top of the world literally.

On my end, I am suffering the indignities of life in the 30s where life is measured by your job, the car you drive, and the neighbourhood you live in. Woe betide you if you succumbed to the pressures of your peers to look good and keep up with the Joneses.

Also, old age is here.

Whereas in the past we could go to KBC and drown warm beer, having cheery conversation before we went to nightclubs to dance on a single beer or Alvaro the whole night or drink some more if HELB had been disbursed nowadays, nowadays biologically it is not possible. Back then we would arrive in our rooms at 6 a.m. and after two hours of sleep, wake up and run errands before drinking later in the day.

Nowadays you can’t pull this move. A night in a club is so punitive given the noise and the stinky pheromones. Lately, I gravitate towards quieter restaurants where it is possible to have a conversation. I prefer staying at home reading or watching.

A few years back I used to put so much sugar in my tea and friends used to be shocked at my recklessness. Nowadays I am worried about the sugar intake, doctors have warned that I have to slow down on red meat and the tummy has grown to have a life of its own. It is ugly, I need money make it look attractive.

Old age is a bitch.

Here is what Philip Roth writes in his book, Everyman
“Had he been aware of the mortal suffering of every man and woman he happened to have known during all his years of professional life, of each one’s painful story of regret, of loss and stoicism, of fear and panic and isolation and dread, had he learned of every last thing they had once been vitally theirs and how, systematically, they were being destroyed, he would have had to stay on phone through the night, making another 100 calls, at least. Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.

And my lady, Nora Ephron puts it even better. When you are old,
“You take so many pills in the morning you don’t have room for breakfast.

Meanwhile, there is a new conversation about CAT scans and MRIs. Everywhere you look there is a cancer. Once a week there is some sort of bad news. Once a month there is a funeral. You lose close friends and you discover one of the worst truths of old age: they’re irreplaceable. People who run four miles a day and eat only nuts and berries drop dead. People who drink a quart of whiskey and smoke two packs of cigarette a day drop dead. You are suddenly in a lottery, the ultimate game of chance, and someday your luck wil run out. Everybody dies. There is nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds every day. Whether or not you believe in God…”

Ephron died in 2012, nearly ten years since writing this piece.

Some thoughts for the evening.

Mimi wacha niende nyumbani kucheza na kasichana.
Kesho pia ni siku.
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