The best of times, the worst of times

Retirement offers more time for theatre, art and foreign holidays - the only downside is arthritis, writes Eugene McEldowney.

When I was in my 20s I used to think that 30 was old, 35 was over-the hill and 40 was time to start looking at brochures for nursing homes. I can still recall my horror when a colleague told me he was about to celebrate his 50th birthday.

To my ignorant mind, 50 was ancient. I watched him for weeks, half-expecting that he might keel over and turn up his toes before my very eyes. But he fooled us all and managed to live for another 30 years before dropping dead at a poker game with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a full house of aces in the other. And who knows? If only he had given up loose living, he might have lived to be 90.

Today I have a different take on things and it's not unrelated to the fact that I recently entered my sixth decade. I have long ago given up remembering birthdays, particularly those milestones that some greeting cards marketing genius keeps referring to as "the big 0". I don't like being reminded of the onward march of time. And even that phrase is inadequate because in my experience time has not been marching at all but has actually been rushing forward with all the speed of the Paris to Lyon express.

But you know, it's not as bad as it sounds. I recently escaped from that delightful madhouse that is The Irish Times newsroom into the blinding light of day. Someone in the higher echelons of the newspaper had forgotten Mr Micawber's maxim about income and expenditure, with the result that the company required 250 redundancies if it wasn't to go out of business. And if I wasn't first in the queue of applicants for what was euphemistically referred to as "the package", I was certainly among the first half dozen.

On my first day of retirement, I went into Dublin and spent the afternoon marvelling at the changes that had taken place in the city in the 10 years I had spent manacled to the night desk. I felt like Nelson Mandela after he had been released from Robben Island uttering the immortal words "free at last!"

That was the most obvious benefit I experienced: the fact that I had gained control over my life for the first time. My children had been educated, raised and were now making their own way in the world. Every day was my own, to do with as I pleased. I could lie in bed if I wanted. I could paint the house. I could start a new novel. In fact, my wife Maura and I went off for an extended holiday to Tenerife safe in the knowledge that the third world war could break out and I wouldn't get a frantic phone call from the office to drop everything I was doing and get back into work.

It was a wonderful feeling and it still persists. But I don't spend all my time lying on sun-kissed beaches. Indeed, one of the blunders I made was to take on more commitments than I could handle, in the mistaken belief that I had all the time in the world.

I have spent the last few months cutting down on engagements and attempting to re-impose some routine on my life. But I still find enormous pleasure in waking up on a sunny morning and deciding to take off for Malahide, or to brave the hazards of the southside to have lunch in Dalkey. All without worrying about whether or not the DART will get me into Tara Street in time for the evening news conference.

In the past 12 months I have been to the theatre more times than in the previous 10 years. I have visited museums and art galleries that I had promised myself I would see but never found the time for. I have travelled extensively and been to cities such as Granada and Seville. I have visited Las Vegas. I have spent a month in Paris finishing a novel.

I have always been interested in traditional music and singing and have become involved in the Howth Singing Circle. I spend several nights a week going to traditional events around the city and have made a host of new friends as a result. I am now living the life I always promised myself but never had the time for.

I realise anyone could do these things if they had the time and money. But for most of us, work intervenes. Retirement has been the golden key that opened this world to me and, in almost all cases, retirement is a prerogative of ageing.

Not that I feel particularly old. I think I have as much energy as I did when I was a younger man. I am physically fit and enjoy walking and cycling. Last weekend, for instance, I spent five hours with my friend Sean MacConnell exploring the Wicklow mountains above Blessington. The week before that, we climbed Sheefinn. I walk five miles a day, hail, rain or snow and only wish I could run the way I did until five years ago, before arthritis laid its bony hand upon me.

Ah, the arthritis! Well, there are some drawbacks to getting older and this is one of them, although it is not inevitable. Only 13 per cent of Irish people suffer from this complaint and they are by no means all older people. I have it in my knee and my shoulder. It's more an irritant than a problem and medical advances now mean that it can be controlled, if not eliminated. But I do wish I didn't have it.

People used to say: "With age comes wisdom". I'm not sure if this is true. I've met some very stupid people and they only seemed to get more bovine as time went by. But unless a person sleepwalks through life, they should at least pick up some experience. I suppose a sign that I am getting older is that younger people sometimes come to me for advice. The downside is that they often disregard it.

I read an article recently that suggested, with the advances in modern technology, there was no reason why people could not live to be 5,000. I must admit that I blinked at that. I'm not sure that I wouldn't get a bit bored after all that time. And I know for certain that The Irish Times pension fund would never hold out to it.

I try not to think about getting older, instead focusing my life on each day as it comes. I am content in my space and have few regrets, although missing the camaraderie of The Irish Times newsroom is one of them. But I also know that ageing is inevitable, just like rain on an Irish summer day. I will only concede defeat when someone offers me their seat on a Dublin bus, and so far that hasn't happened. Somehow, I doubt if it ever will.

When I was a wee boy growing up in Belfast in the 1950s, my mother always impressed on me the necessity to be considerate to older people. "Always remember son, you'll be old yourself some day, if God spares you," she would say.

To which I can only reply: "You were right, Mammy. As always."

Eugene McEldowney's forthcoming

novel will be published in the spring