I AM NOT INVISIBLE!

And I hope I never will be, though people tell me that the older you get, the more invisible you become!

Maybe it’s the grey hair turning white that means you seem to stand out less, but older people tell me that as they have grown older, they have increasingly felt that people notice them less, listen to them less, pay attention to them less. And that’s not a good feeling!

By the time you read this, I will have enjoyed another birthday! Just a number, they say, as do I – though an increasingly big number!

Yet, like everyone who notes the rolling of the years, we remain the same people inside with the same fears, anxieties, hang-ups; the same hopes and dreams – perhaps a little modified by realism – but still capable of wistfulness and idealism, aspiration and ambition.

There are still places to go, things to learn, people to meet – there is still love to find, and hope to sustain; there are changes to dare, and laughter to shake us to the very core.

And the number, however large and surprising to us, matters naught – to us!

What other people do with that reality is another matter! What assumptions, prejudices, caricatures, awkwardness they bring to the encounter with us is their issue.

As for those in riper years, or at least ripening years, we will continue with all of the above – we will laugh, reflect, grow and mature still further. That process, however unsettling and uncomfortable, continues and in it all we hope a little bit of wisdom grows, and tolerance too!

So as grey melts to white, I hope I don’t become like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat and start to disappear bit by bit, till only my smile is left...

And as for the loyal readers of the Courier, if I may paraphrase the Beatles: “Will you still need me, will you still READ me, when I’m 64!?”