Happiness of Age or Vigor of Youth

Which would you choose – if you could?

Would I trade the happiness of age for the vigor of youth?

It’s a question a friend and I have been back-and-forthing lately. Would we make the trade if we could, even though we both agree that we’re happier now than we were back then?

Yes, in a heartbeat! Even one of those irregular heartbeats I’ve developed lately – so make it one and a half.

But wait, isn’t this being ageist and unenlightened? Who would be so foolish as to forego the happiness of old age, even though the knees may pop – and other parts may not, at least not quite with the alacrity of olden times? Isn’t it a documented fact that the old are happier than the young – or at least we claim we are. And isn’t happiness what we want most at any age – at least what we claim we want?

I remember, way back when I was young – hardly 30 even – when an old man – he must have been 60, if a day – said one evening, as I encouraged him to join me at the current Austin hot gay disco, “There comes a time when a good night’s sleep is better than sex.”

I thought he’d gone certifiably insane. Back then NOTHING was better than sex – or at least nothing seemed more pressing, since even then I realized that much of the sex wasn’t really all that good. But it was SEX! And what could be more important?

He was a stodgy old Scot, so what else could I expect? I say “was” because The Google tells me he died in 1986, aged 73. That’s a long time ago now! More years than I was old when we met. What good did all those nights of sleep do him, I wonder? “What good is sitting alone in your room?” He still died. Might as well have gone sleepy into it. After all, as his fellow Brit said (Welsh, not Scot, but close enough): Do not go gentle into that good night/Old age should burn and rave at close of day...”

But then the guy who wrote that didn’t even make it to 40. He was still young when he burned out, so what the hell did he know about anything?

I realize, now that I do the math, that I’ve made it longer than either of them.

I still have a gift the Scot gave me: a Heritage Press edition of The Warden, by Anthony Trollope, illus. by Fritz Kredel. What could be stodgier than that? Though I guess I have to give him credit for having my number even then. I liked the gift, and still do. Have even read and re-read it. What can I say? I’m a Trollope fan, but don’t spread it around. Folks might start to think I’m stodgy too. Instead of the disco queen I’m now longing to be again. Trollope and trollop may sound the same, but oh what a difference an “e” can make, when it comes to your with-it (or not) reputation.

Even with the slight disappointment (or is it sobering) of realizing that I will not scale Matterhorns, much less Everests, in my remaining time, I must admit – to myself if not the world at large – that I’m more content than ever now. No, I won’t be rich and famous, or even either of them, but so what? It’s not as though even those last long, so what’s the point? Have you noticed how, when someone dies, even someone powerful or famous,  the world goes on? Don’t you suppose it will be that way for me and you too – no matter how rich or famous? Who now can name the second Pharoah of the sixth dynasty? Once the most famous person in the world – a god, even, and now anonymous to all but an Egyptologist or two, and even they probably have to look him up.

I remember times of aching loneliness when young. Part of that may have been because I grew up a virtual only child – with much older half siblings, though never in the house – some never even known about or met until well into adulthood – one, never met at all. And, not just an only child, but a gay boy and the son of a raging alcoholic to boot, both of which made making friends near impossible: no sharing who you really were for fear of disgusted rejection; no inviting potential friends over after school for fear of disgusting drunken embarrassment, or worse. It didn’t help in forming close connections.

I won’t lie to you youngsters – and couldn’t get away with it with the older of you even if I tried: as I grow older, I find my courage faltering sometimes, am sometimes swamped by fear. Sometimes fear of specific things, but more often abstract fear which, like depression when it comes, blankets everything. So it’s not all rosy fingered dawn (or blazing sunset) even now. Still, on balance, I’m happier now than ever.

But listen. Do you hear it? That siren call of youth? Who can resist it. Worth Botox; worth facelifts; worth injections of Swiss lamb placenta that Somerset Maugham, and others, were said to have tried as they grasped after fading youth. Ironic, really, since Maugham himself wrote: “It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, … and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.”

Well, Somerset, that’s rich, after the lamb placentas!

Don't look back, they say, always look forward. I see their point: at my age now it's not nearly as far to look, and my eyesight isn't what it used to be, so best not to strain it. But sometimes it’s hard not to glance back, at least – with longing.

A while ago, someone my age – or not much older – said to me, out of the blue: “I don’t remember time.” I have no idea what he meant; I’m not sure he did either. Maybe just one of those things said by sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly men with poor memories.

But time is one thing. Youth? I do remember youth, even if it’s just through that rosy haze of forgetfulness Maugham mentions. It seems as though it was only an irregular heartbeat ago, and now it’s gone – long gone – forever. Would I trade my happiness, peace, contentment of old age (never mind those bouts of blanketing fear) to be a youth again? No, of course not! That would be foolish. But do you know where I can get some of that lamb placenta – in case I change my mind? Not that I will, being older and wiser – but just in case.