Growing Old Sucks!

Day 64 of lockdown

Day 70 something

Wow! Time flies! I remember talking to a friend way back in Jan if she thinks that COVID would hit India hard. She said that she thinks it's like the flu and there are hardly any repercussions for India. And then she said that India would be left untouched as COVID seems to be spreading in a narrow band of weather. Of course, since I like to follow some smart people, I took her advice and decided that I don't want to be an alarmist. And then I forgot about it. 

Fast forward to today. 

We are on the 70th day of lockdown and quarantine and there is no sight for an opening up, at least, in Mumbai. Other parts, if I hear my friends and connections right, have opened up. I mean the government has not allowed things to open but most people are out and about. Public memory is incredibly short unless you are a celebrity :D

Anyhow. So, I want to rant about something that I don't know who to talk to about. Growing old. And things that are changing in me as a result of this 'coming of age'. 

Of course I am the biggest ageist I know of. All my life I have wanted to achieve things at a young age and of course I have failed at achieving any sort of success, irrespective of the metric you look at it with. The fears that I had when I was young have started to come true. Unlike my 25-year old self, I can no longer multitask. There was a time when I could juggle a million balls in the air and continue to add more balls. All the while balancing myself on a Yoga ball that is perched on a chair with one leg moving on a rollercoaster that is still functioning even when there's this biggest earthquake ever happening. Oh, I'd be sipping on to a can of Coke while that was happening. You know what I am saying? 

Now, at 37, I can NOT multitask. If I am writing this piece and there is some music playing in the background, I am distracted! To a point that I lose the chain of thought and what would take me normally 15 minutes to write, I take like an hour and a half to get out of my system! 

I know humans are not programmed for multitasking but I think I was wired differently and I could! I took pride in it. I could see that all the madness that I had surrounded myself with, was fed by the aforementioned million balls! It served me well when I was younger. Now, it's becoming an impediment! Even simple phone calls with people distract me so much that I can't recall conversations unless I take notes. And hence, I have started to take an insane quantity of notes. So much so that I need a person to manage those! 

The other thing that I was renowned for was my attention to detail. I was aware and I was perceptive. When I was juggling all those balls, I would know the colors of those balls. I would know about the scale of the earthquake and the trend line. I could count the pars of udti chidiya. I was the kind that would know the number of the cab I was in, the color of undies of everyone in the room, number of slides remaining in a presentation, and even the ongoing count of typos in a piece. And other such insignificant details! Nothing would escape my keen gaze. I was the one that checked and rechecked all copy before things had to ship! 

Now, I cant. I don't even know what I had for lunch the previous day. The memory is atrophying. Fast. More than that, attention is waning all the time. Like I am writing this, I am listening to a track and missing yet another track! Oh, any as I swapped the tab to change the track, I lost some 20 mins there. Sigh. 

The last thing that I want to talk about is that patience levels seem to be decreasing. I was the kind to be able to handle all sorts of muck thrown at me with a smile. But then age happened and the patience levels hit the rock bottom. To a point that in case a call that was planned for 8 AM does not start by 7:59 AM, I get jittery and sad and angry and scary and all that. I start screaming at people. And when I am reminded that the call was at 8 AM, I apologize so profusely that I spend the entire time on finding novel ways of apologizing to everyone who was cool enough to log in a minute before the call! 

And the last thing? You become abrupt with shit! Like this post. I am going to leave it here. See you guys on the other side. 

Chalo till next time. 

Over and out,

- The Old SG. 

Previous posts that I wrote during the lockdown are - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 19, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 45, 47, 57, 63