Yesterday I Was 50. Tomorrow I’m 80. How Can That Be?

Introduction

Yesterday I was 50 years old. I had work to do, decisions to make and years ahead of me that seemed almost too numerous to count. Tomorrow I will be 80. I know that thirty years have passed, yet part of me still wants to ask where they went.

Of course, it did not happen overnight. There were birthdays, changes of job, family occasions, ordinary Tuesdays and countless mornings when I got up and carried on. Somehow, all those days have folded together. I can remember being 50 more clearly than I can remember what I did three weeks ago.

The Long Days and the Short Years

A day can feel remarkably long when you are living through it. You wait for a telephone call, sit in traffic or count the hours until an appointment. Then you look back across ten years and struggle to understand how they passed so quickly.

At 50, I would probably have laughed if somebody had told me that 80 was just around the corner. Thirty years sounded like a substantial part of a lifetime because it was. I could have made plans for them, filled a calendar with them and calculated how many working weeks they contained.

What I could not do was hold on to them. Time did not suddenly speed up, but my memory kept only a selection of what happened. The days that looked ordinary while I was living them have largely vanished, leaving a handful of moments to stand in for entire years.

The Person in the Mirror

There is another strange part to growing older. My appearance has changed gradually enough that each day’s reflection seems familiar. Yet a photograph from thirty years ago shows a person who looks unmistakably younger, even though I remember being that person.

Inside, the change is harder to see. I have learnt things, changed my mind and accumulated experiences that the 50-year-old me did not have. Still, I recognise his thoughts and his sense of humour. He does not feel like a stranger whose life I read about in a book.

Perhaps that is why a birthday with a zero on the end can be unsettling. It forces two versions of ourselves into the same room. One says, “I was only 50 yesterday,” while the calendar insists that three decades have gone by.

What Happened to All That Time?

Some of it went into work. At the time, projects, deadlines and problems demanded attention, and each seemed important enough to fill the day. Looking back, it is often the people beside the work that I recall most clearly.

Some of it went into family life. Children grew older, formed their own lives and perhaps had children of their own. I watched these changes happen step by step, but photographs can make them look as sudden as turning a page.

Much of the time went into things nobody would put in a biography. There were shopping trips, meals, repairs, conversations and days when nothing much happened. Those days were my life as surely as the memorable occasions were. They have not been wasted simply because I cannot recall each one.

Does Time Really Feel Faster?

The years may seem shorter partly because fewer events are entirely new. Childhood is full of first experiences, and the first day at a school or a new job can leave a strong mark on memory. Later life may contain more familiar routines, making several months harder to distinguish when we look back.

That is one possible explanation, but I do not think it captures everything. At 80, a year also feels different because I understand its value differently. At 20, I could assume there would be plenty more. Later on, that assumption becomes harder to make.

This need not turn every day into a solemn exercise in making the most of life. Nobody can treat a trip to the supermarket as a precious occasion. It may simply encourage us to notice the things we otherwise hurry past: an enjoyable conversation, a bit of good news or the pleasure of doing something we are still able to do.

What I Would Tell My 50-Year-Old Self

If I could speak to myself at 50, I would not tell him to abandon work, buy an expensive sports car or spend every moment contemplating the passage of time. He had responsibilities, and he had to live the life in front of him.

I would probably tell him to take a few more photographs and write down some of the stories behind them. I would tell him to ask older relatives questions while they could still answer. Most of all, I would remind him that the ordinary days he was trying to get through were not an interruption to his life. They were his life.

He might listen politely and then go back to whatever needed doing. I suspect I would have done exactly that.

Conclusion

Yesterday I was 50, and tomorrow I am 80. The statement makes no sense on a calendar, but it makes perfect sense to the part of me that still feels close to the person I was thirty years ago.

I cannot retrieve the missing days or slow the next ones down. I can, however, recognise that the years between 50 and 80 were filled with living, including the parts I no longer remember. Tomorrow’s birthday will arrive just as all the others did, one day after today. That may be the simplest answer to how it happened.