Enjoy while you can...

We (hubby, son-and-heir, Temi and I) sat watching the athletics a little while ago. It was a Saturday, the big night for the World Championships in London. Bittersweet. There had been much hyped-up publicity and loads of advance warning of when the two greatest star athletes, Mo Farah and Usein Bolt, would run. It was to be their last respective races. The very last ones. Rather sweet really: the announcements kept Mo or Bolt-time (“Mo-time minus 28 minutes” as a running footer at the bottom left of the screen) to make sure everyone knew when to look. Though not at the same time obviously. Then Mo couldn’t make it past an Eritrean gentleman and looked totally gutted to “only” claim silver for the 5000 meters (I wish...). And a little later Bolt collapsed, injured, unable to complete his part of the relay and scuppering Jamaica’s chances entirely.

Well, well, well… we had grown so accustomed that these giants wiped the floor with the opposition that to see them falter was painful. I felt really sorry for them both, though one of the BBC commentators (cannot remember names – it’s like traffic wardens, they get younger and younger…) put things in perspective when she rightfully claimed that it didn’t make a sausage of difference (or words to that effect) because their legacy was safe. They had proved so many times they were the greatest that it really didn’t matter what happened on this night. These pearls of wisdom were, I think, uttered after Mo’s race and before Bolt’s. A good thing, in hindsight, as things were to get worse.

However, get to the point woman!

It’s a bit like that for all of us really, except with a lot less bling on lanyards hanging around the house. In our twenties, we have no idea who we are and there’s a lot of experimenting going on, if we’re lucky. In our thirties or forties if a late developer like me, some of the rough edges have been knocked off and we’ve settled into a routine. Hamster-wheel comes to mind. We think we know who we are. Then in our fifties we are used to a bit of respect and knowing where we fit in life and work. And then bingo! Whilst we’re preparing to go out in a blaze of glory (or quietly if that way inclined) Something Unexpected comes up and shakes the living daylights out of us. We’d planned to retire on our terms, and are being put out to grass, feeling dumped unceremoniously. Way before our time. Or forced to work longer, just as bad.

So the moral of the story is…

Enjoy everything while it lasts, particularly friends and family while they’re still around, and learn to let go. The golden people who have just gone a little over the top of their game are showing us the way. There’ll always be a new wave of young whipper snappers looking to take over what we thought, delusionally perhaps, rightfully ours. But as staying at the top takes more and more energy, they’re doing us a favour. Time to step back and admire them. We were like that once… 

Temi doesn’t do “let go” but this is one of her ways of enjoying the members of her pack (as you can see in the sadly grainy picture, my photographing skills could do with a bit of improvement).