A few weeks ago a group of fashion designers visited my friend in our apartment. They used to be colleagues in Saudi Arabia where they had worked for several years. Some of them are already forty-something, and are still looking for a career. I wondered why none of the visitors exuded the aura I expect from someone setting the standards in the fashion industry. Was it their age? Or the fact that at their age, however talented they are, they’re still struggling to have a career? My friend told me that despite the long and fabulous years of working in the oil-rich kingdom, these fashion designers have not been able to secure themselves financially.
As I walked out of the house that night, I suddenly feared the prospect of getting old. In fact, I asked myself, am I old already?
This question has actually dogged me earlier this year, when I was turning 32. As I had always heard when I was a kid from people who were at the same age as I am now, at this age one is no longer “in the calendar”. And then recently a dear friend celebrated his 32nd birthday; 30 + 2 he called it. As he himself said, he too is no longer in the calendar. During the party which he intended to be intimate and so only the closest of his friends were invited, I was fixing my hair in front of the vanity mirror when I noticed wrinkles on my face. I wasn’t bothered; I just thought why beauty and age travel in opposite directions.
In writing this and refusing to admit I’m getting old, I remember JV, an activist friend in college, from whom I heard that people in their early 30’s are still part of the youth movement. Or was it late 20’s that he said? But see, my memory that used to remember complex scientific names and absurd terminologies in biology now falters. And this gives me the creeps: am I finally saying goodbye to the days of my youth? Am I now crossing the road to join what young people see as ancient, antiquated, un-cool people on the other side? Am I still called a Youngblood, or already a Highblood? Well, I am certain the latter is not too far away. Medically speaking, I am already qualified for it. A few years ago, I was in a state of panic for having been informed by our company doctor my BP had reached 140/100. I had every reason to freak out: my father died of cardiac arrest when he was only 32. It was at that moment, when it dawned on me that that 140/100 could actually be a harbinger of bad health news, when I realized that I should avoid feasting on bulalo, balut, sisig, and chicharon, that I began to assess myself, looked back at my younger days, and wondered and feared if ageing is a thing I should look forward to. It was at that moment that I realized I cannot be blithely and recklessly young forever.
As some of my friends drifted towards the third decade of their lives, as some of my female schoolmates who chose to be wives and mothers earlier than most began to look either blooming or bedraggled, I thought if growing old is actually a gift or a curse. Why are there people obsessed in botox and facelifts and age-reversal therapies? And why are there people who prefer to age gracefully, wrinkles and age spots written all over their faces?
However, thinking of how much wisdom a person could have as he ages, why should anyone fear not seeing his age among those numbers in the calendar? After all, a calendar is only ephemeral; we hang it year in and throw it year out. But the wisdom that comes with the age equivalent to the number that we don’t see in it is imperishable. As wine tastes more divine as it stays longer in the cellar, so does man becomes wiser as he gets older. The scary part is that man is not wine. Therein lies the difference: the older the wine, the more it is respected; the older the man, the more he can get disregarded.
I had already spent so much time thinking and fearing how my life would be when I am 60, or whether I would be lucky enough to reach that age. Morbid it may seem, but I have also thought of cranes, wheelchairs, death. I have thought of diabetes, kidney failure, heart attacks, and Alzheimer’s. I have thought of how a social pension could cope up with inflation.
But why bother myself with these things? I should stop thinking of the negative forces that surround an aging man. I should look forward to getting old because I want to know if I would gain the same amount of respect that I give to my older relatives. I want to know whether silver grey hair and wrinkles could instantly exude command and authority. I want to know whether being given a 20% discount on most of everything is like hearing “You still look great and agile, sir” or “You need a walking stick”. I am certain I am not getting married, but I want to know how it feels to walk my young nephews & nieces to the park. I want to see if my money at that time would still be enough to buy them Haagen-Dazs. I want to tell them how it was to work in the Middle East. I want to see if Andre Agassi’s or Pete Sampras’ son would follow their fathers’ path and obliterate the records set by their fathers and the ones being set by Roger Federer. I want to see whether a woman could ever be President of the United States. I want to see if the Philippine government could still find a way to take this country out of the morass it is deeply buried in, or would continue finding ways to make it buried deeper. I want to know if the Filipino people could ever be wise and right in voting people that lead the country. I want to know what, after texting, could be Filipinos most common pastime.
I am ready to grow old, but feel I am still young, and while part of me wants to dash into an old man’s wisdom and sensibility, a part also wants to stay basking in the glorious, carefree moments of youth. I am at the age of being excited and proud to be, well, kind of old, but still feeling robust, ebullient, and carefree, of always having excuses to procrastinate. I believe that youth is an entity that will always run in our veins, no matter how old we become. While teenagers now address me with po and opo, I feel that I still share some of their idiosyncrasies. I still tap my feet when I hear Eminem, but I thank God dearly when I hear the sublime music of Mozart. The mirror says I am well-dressed in barong Tagalog and suits, in khakis and loafers, in crisp shirts and wool trousers, but I can also see teenagers throwing a look of approval to my new white sneakers. I joined in the search to find Nemo, but I also drove down Mulholland Drive. Not only in myself do contradictions of youth and adult exist. My Lola now enjoys watching over her grandchildren, but still occasionally gets a kick from Red Horse. My mom has recently become a granny, but still thinks she looks fashionably dressed in dungarees. You see, in every bespectacled and grey-haired old man, Peter Pan still exists.
I don’t mind if I’m getting older and older year after year. Honestly, I don’t even mind when my friends say I look like a high school – no, not student – principal. Wrinkles and laugh lines may give away the well-guarded secret that we keep about our age, and surgeons like Belo and Calayan are there to make us look younger than we are. But why should we marvel at the artistic side of science doing well to hide the truth about wrinkles and laugh lines? Don’t we find beauty in the bark rings that chronicle the age of a tree?
I don’t mind if I look old. I don’t mind if I survive time and become really old. I know that my soul would retain the energy of youth, despite being tired from the anomie that I see in the world. I just wish I could have the priceless combination of youthful drive and mature wisdom when I grow old.
And of course, I wanna have the money. Nothing is much creepier than a man growing old without a penny to spend.
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