Edel Coffey: Age only defines us if we let it
Clinical psychologist, professor and author Edith Eger poses during an interview with AFP on May 7, 2019, in Lausanne. Pic: Richard Juillart
I find myself writing about age quite a lot in this column, not because I am obsessed with age or ageing, but mostly because it is a subject that people regularly bring up with me.
For the most part, I live in a blissful world of denial about my own age.
I young and I regularly fool myself into believing I young despite what my chronological age might say.
I call myself a millennial even though I am technically just outside the formal cut-off point for officially being one.
Still, I get meme references and I use multiple digits when texting on my phone so, as far as I’m concerned, that makes me a millennial, albeit a geriatric one.
I may not like what I see in the mirror but I find I can forget about it for most of the day and get on with doing the things I enjoy doing.
However, because I published a debut novel when I was over 40, I am often asked about being a ‘late starter’ or finding success ‘late in life’, which always makes me take fright because I don’t feel like I am ‘late in life’ and I certainly hope that I am not.
In fact, I feel like I am just beginning. Forty is the age when many male writers are just beginning and they are often simply referred to as ‘young writers’ rather than late starters.
Remember when the young writer Jonathan Franzen burst onto the scene with his novel ? He was 42 at the time and yet somehow was not finding success later in life, rather just getting into his stride.
I was thinking about this ageing lark again last week as I read about Rosemary Murphy, the impressive Dublin mother of 12 who is embarking on her lifelong dream of studying medicine at the RCSI at the age of 40.
Murphy was subsequently interviewed on RTÉ radio by Oliver Callan last Monday morning and she spoke stridently about how age doesn’t define her. I thought we could all do with a little bit of her attitude.
So many of us don’t get the opportunity to engage with our dreams until the circumstances are right and often that is only after we have been through whole other careers or experiences such as raising children or looking after sick parents.
Rosemary Murphy is a wonderful example and an encouragement to anyone who might be standing on the precipice of taking a first step on the path to achieving a big dream or goal.
I meet so many people in the course of my work as an author who tell me they feel too old to follow their dream of becoming a writer, to which I always say they are not.
We have never seen so many headlines about authors publishing their debut novels in their 60s, 70s and beyond.
Our age only defines us if we let it. Obviously there are facts that we can’t deny: Yes, our bodies will get old, weary, weak, or physically challenged in one way or another, but for many of us, our dreams will still be eminently achievable even with these diminishments of age.
For most of us, if we’re lucky, we can expect to live healthy lives well into our 80s. I recently met two doctors who had retired to embark on their dreams, one in landscape gardening, and the other in writing.
Many of us might not get to engage with our dreams until ‘late in life’, when we retire and finally have the time to dedicate to the things we love doing.
WHEN it comes to age, I take my cue from the great Edith Eger, someone I have referenced in this column before. Eger is a holocaust survivor, eminent psychologist, and author of books like and
The 95-year-old tells a story of how, when she was considering whether or not to do a PhD in her 40s, she couldn’t get past the idea that she would be 50 by the time she graduated. It seemed so old.
But a very wise mentor gently pointed out to her that she would be 50 anyway, whether she completed the PhD or not.
I love this story because it highlights the fact that age is happening to us all the time, whether we choose to pursue our dreams or not.
Wouldn’t it be an awful shame to deny ourselves the chance to do the things we want to do just because of the date on our birth certificate? I’d much rather try to do the things I want to do than worry about being too old to do them.
Even if I fail, at least I won’t be left with the awful question of what might have been or its sibling ‘what if?’.
Age is coming for us all. Why compound it by denying ourselves the joy of pursuing our hopes and dreams, whatever our age?
