Note to younger self
There is no wrong side of 40 or 50 or ...
What are you still doing today that would surprise your younger self?
Top of my list is playing ball hockey. I've loved the sport since first picking up a stick in childhood. It gives me so much good stuff: fun, friendship, cardio, a link to my Canadian roots.
But if you'd told my teenaged self I'd still be playing at the age of 57, I'd have scoffed and asked what you were smoking. Why? Because I used to be a card-carrying member of the cult of youth, convinced that aging was all about loss and decline, that later life was a hellscape of decrepitude and dementia, that only freaks of nature could play sports beyond the age of 40.
How wrong I was 🤦🏻♂️
Turns out there is no such thing as the wrong side of 40. There's just the side you're on and what you choose to make of it. I chose to keep on playing ball hockey.
Three years off my 60th birthday, I play the sport of my youth at least once a week. And I love every second of it.
Last year, I played for Team Great Britain at the Legends World Ball Hockey Championships in Canada. (Legends = age 42+)
This year, I played my 14th season for the London Jets (Division 1) and my first for Windsor & Slough Knights (Division 2). (You can now play at more than one level in Britain.)
Of course, I’m not the same player I was 30 years ago, or even 10 years ago. I don't have as much stamina or running speed, but my hand-eye coordination is the same and my reading of the game is sharper. Which means, among other things, that I can still win a big face-off versus Team USA in a World Championship:
I can still hold my own in Division 1, especially when we play on smaller surfaces. In Division 2, I won the point-scoring title this year. Most of the other guys in the Top 10 are aged under 30:
The thing about aging is that you evolve along the way. That means adjusting your expectations and adapting your style – in sports and in life in general.
In my youth, I was a pure goal-scorer, sniping from every angle, always waiting for someone to feed me the ball. Nowadays I prefer the role of playmaker. Nothing brings me more joy than setting up a teammate. Which may explain why I’m the only player in that Top 10 list to rack up more assists than goals.
This jibes with a deeper existential shift that aging can trigger. Some call it generativity or gerotranscendence. Whatever the label, it boils down to the same thing: in midlife we can start feeling less obsessed with personal glory and more inclined to work for the greater good.
That said, a little personal glory never gets old …
Moral of the story: if you look after it, the human body can deliver fine service long after its peak. Especially when married with experience.
Many of the Silver Shields, the elite military corps that served Alexander the Great in the fourth century, were over 60. They attacked first in battle, carried out special missions and undertook forced marches across the desert. Gaston Phébus, the 11th Count of Foix, died at the age of 60 on his way home from a bear hunt in 1391. A year later, John Hawkwood, an English condottiere, took part in a jousting tournament in Bologna at the age of 72.
Today, thanks to the longevity revolution, more and more of us are channeling the same never-too-old spirit. Look at the burgeoning army of people running marathons in their seventies, climbing mountains in their eighties and cycling cross-country in their nineties. Welcome to the age of the centenarian sky-diver!
Of course, not everyone will be able – or even want – to emulate these evergreen athletes, but thanks to better nutrition, healthcare, technology and understanding of how we age, all of us can now aspire to keep on keeping on deep into later life. You don’t have to win awards, break records or make headlines. It’s enough just to move your body in ways that make you smile.
Because one way to age well is to carry on doing what you love for as long as you can.
Right, that’s enough pontificating for now. Time to suit up for tonight’s hockey game …
Damned inspiring Carl!
I've always been a very moderate gym-rat, fitness more than fun, but since turning 60 I have learned to lean in and gear up. Only discovered the word 'sarcopenia' at 60 (age-related muscle loss), and the fact that fully 50% of women 50+ in the UK have osteoporosis. Prevention is my new mantra. I'm probably fitter now than i've ever been. Lots of strength training, yoga, and walking (aided by a new puppy on her way to us next month!).
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a ballerina. That dream didn't come true, yet I have danced my whole life, and have no plans to stop anytime soon.