Monday 2 January 2012

What's going to be your old-age sport?




My friends and I have had many conversations over the years about which sport we’ll have when we’re retired.  Okay, we never used the word “retired”, I think we actually just said “old”.  It was a fun thing to do when we ran out of things to talk about.  What will we do with our time when we’re living in a retirement village?  My sport of choice will be golf (already have my set - used them three times and most importantly, they’re powder blue).  One of my friends has chosen bowls.  Never, not once did we ever mention gliding.

This morning in the news was an article about an 80-year-old woman who is struggling for her life after crashing her glider near Banalla in Victoria (see details here).  The first thought I had after reading this article was “what an amazing woman!”.   My second thought was ‘I hope she’s okay’ and the third: ‘at least she was doing something she enjoyed’.  But seriously - gliding at 80!  To me that is inspirational.  I hope I’m still THAT active in 40 years’ time. 

I mean, I dive.  I have a diving ticket and The Architect and I have gone away diving together and had a ball (most memorable moment: night diving with sharks).  But that’s now.  Will we still be diving together well into our twilight years?  We also ride, bushwalk and I occasionally run.  He rides a motorbike, plays golf and loves going for walks.   This morning’s article has reassured me.  It tells me that life doesn’t end just because you’re getting older.

Our next door neighbour is very active around his house and constantly working, painting, cleaning.  Just the other day he jumped up on his deck balustrades to “HAAAA!” at the bush turkeys using his roof as a race-track.  He would be in his 70’s.  God, I think if I did that NOW, my back would be out for weeks.  My back is still twinging from Christmas Day when I got out of my chair FFS.

But there are no complaints from me.  An active life is what I want now, and if I can extend that for as long as possible, that will make me one happy chicky.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Would love to hear what you think :)