Life gets easier and better as you age...or does it?

As we get older our lives get a little bit easier and a little bit harder. It also gets a little bit better and a little bit worse. One thing you immediately notice is that your pool of friends begins to shrink. As the years go by, friends either move away or pass away. You see, as you age, the small pool of friends you have is very valuable to you. You have a lot in common. You often went to school together or university together or perhaps you worked together donkey’s years ago and struck up a long-lasting friendship. You subsequently spend time together talking about old times or even how life is treating you now.

You see, I believe the older you get the more you wish you had folk your age around you, for the very reason that you most likely have things in common or you share similar opinions and experiences, even if you don’t really know them. There's a sad part to this truth. That often the older you are the more alone you feel for the lack of appropriate company. You look for people to talk to about their day and about your day. They can often be strangers on whom you wish to offload. I know it sounds like an awful imposition but the truth of the matter is that desperate feelings can sometimes lead to desperate attempts to exchange words and in those situations often an age difference appears to be no barrier.

The person might be an 18-year-old or a 30-year-old. Moreover, there is another side to this. Often speaking to any Tom, Dick or Harry of a young age leaves you feeling flustered because of the lack of understanding, lack of experience and lack of eloquence on their part. Not all young people are intellectual or capable enough to have deep conversations. I've come across some lovely young girls and although they may be very young some are much older intellectually. That being said, getting older without familiar folk around you is very tough indeed because sometimes you're just desperate for adult conversation.

Certainly the internet and social media has made it easier for older people to stay in touch with their old friends but it's never the same as having that one on one meeting in a coffee shop or anywhere else. The older we get the more social media contact brings out our impatience. We want to and need to hear back as soon as we message someone but the waiting time is very frustrating because we often feel that our time might be running out. Or their time might be running out.

Of course, there is a slight upside to getting older with a slight downside to it as well, if that makes any sense. In some countries, people respect you more, the downside being that it’s not the case in all countries. And, at some point, you stop worrying about not being able to get a job or frantically applying for one, because you come to terms with the fact that you're at that age when very few employers, if any, will want to speak with you, and there are few expectations from your family to get one.

The slight downside to this, again, is that this is not the case in all families; some still have high expectations, especially if you’re a man. Some older folk don’t worry about their hair going grey but the slight downside here is that, although in some places, grey hair is acceptable, in others folk give you nicknames that you may not appreciate.

Been called a mama, aunty or uncle especially when you’ve never been one is often unwelcome. Some don’t worry so much about the wrinkles around their eyes or about putting on makeup. The downside is that, in some countries, if you don’t look your best, folk might think you’re a bit nutty. You also, to some extent, get to do what you want to you when you want to do it. And, finally very little rattles you because you've seen it all before, or you've seen worse.