On living forever

I’m very glad that I missed being one of the ‘live forever’ generation. Why would you want to? Yes, of course, being alive is an amazing thing, a privilege  and all that, but surely, with any party, no matter how much you’ve been enjoying yourself, there comes a time, perhaps as the dawn begins to rise a little beyond the curtains and the milk flat rattles along the street (if the area is lucky enough to have one, of course; most of the few milk roundsmen left seem to use open backed lorries: not the same at all) , when you find yourself thinking, ‘Had enough of this now, really: time to go home.’

(Not that I think that there is actually a home to which to go; I doubt that very much. I’m not expecting anything. If it turns out to be the case that there is, well, that’ll be a nice bonus, won’t it? No, I imagine that it’s going to be much as it was before I was born – a whole lot of nothing without my being around to be aware of it. Difficult to get one’s head round the idea, but I find it strangely comforting, like looking at the myriad stars above my head on a clear night and trying to grasp that there are numberless  more universes out there beyond them somewhere. How small one feels, how insignificant one’s worries are in the whole scheme of things – whatever that is. I find it  extremely comforting, don’t you?) 

Not wanting to live forever is mostly to do with my not wanting to get really old. What’s the point in it? Eat the right things, don’t smoke, don’t drink too much, live a healthy life, take plenty of exercise, make yourself really uncomfortable, bored and righteous if you must, but unavoidably, you will at last find yourself papery thin, arthritic and ancient and, odds are, parked up in a smelly armchair against the walls of some old people’s home, toothless, drooling, incontinent, probably immobile, over-medicated, unable to feed yourself or recognise your relatives, doolally. As I say, what’s the point? Much better just have a nice time avoiding as many as possible of the  things you don’t like and allowing yourself to indulge in a little of what you do.

No, I’m not a masochist; I don’t fancy a lengthy, painful death either, thank you, but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take..  If there is a God, I’d much prefer to pass away in my sleep or, failing that, a nice clean heart attack, please; that’d do me nicely.

The rest of it, well, aches and pains and things like that, but I suppose that mostly it’s because I’m getting fed up to the back teeth with worrying about my family. Denis and I once went to visit a very dear and older friend who was in hospital and, chatting as you do, I asked about her three children, who were then, like us, middle aged and married with children and, in their cases, several grandchildren. She sighed and took my hand gently. “Oh, darling” she said quietly – and I think there were tears in her eyes - “When do you turn away from your children and cleave to your husband?” I’d no idea what she was talking about. I think I know now.