Whenever we Kiwis strive to excel at anything, there's always an armchair critic waiting to snipe, says Deborah Coddington.
In this decade I shall become a superannuitant, and next month I'm but a whisper away from another big birthday. That I plan to celebrate in enormous style. No coy denial of the big Six Oh for me. Already we seek a capacious venue where friends, champagne, fun, and food will mix.
Funny thing is, I don't feel old until physical work around the vineyard defeats me and I realise my arms, once strong enough to haul thoroughbred horses to a standstill, are growing scrawnily weak. I blame my medication, of course.
A journalist friend, young enough to be my daughter, modelled what she deemed her "age inappropriate" dress on Facebook. Oh, the cruelty of youth, innocently flaunting such loveliness in the ravaged face of ageing hacks like me. At least we can comfort ourselves that one day she, too, will look back and realise that 42 is not, in this day, too old to wear a strapless black dress.
And what, exactly, is "age inappropriate"? I found it very difficult to take this comment frivolously, having just attended the funeral of an even younger journalist, Helen Bain, former press gallery member, Dominion Post feature writer, John Tamihere's press secretary and biographer, and at the time of her death, communications manager for Forest and Bird. Three months past her 38th birthday, Helen was killed crossing a swollen Wairarapa river on her horse. She touched the lives of many, as was evident at the overflowing service.
We often spoke of going riding together. One day, she said, she'd bring Evo to Martinborough and we'd take our horses over the hills and river flats. Helen had the perfect life; her death, too soon, was age inappropriate.
All the things we mean to do, and then suddenly it's too late.
The day before Helen went, noted Wellington publisher and lovely man, Hugh Price, shuffled off this mortal coil, aged 80. I still have his email with an invitation to visit and discuss a book I'm researching: "I have a few suggestions - do you ever come to Wellington with time to call on us? A conversation could be more comical than an exchange of letters! Cheers!! HUGH PRICE".
I procrastinated too long. Now the lines from Herrick's Gather Ye Rosebuds haunt me, but I doubt I'll manage to cram more into my haphazard life.
But despite the disadvantages, there are wry comforts in seniority. A new book enjoying success purveys grandmothers' hints. I am not a grandmother, but advice given, for example, on baby care, was everyday practice when I had my kids.
Without the luxury (or not) of disposable nappies, babies were always held "out" or on a potty after a feed (breast, in private of course), then left bare-bum to roll around and kick. These days you'd think mothers had reinvented the wheel.
And yes, you do mellow as you age - or is it just happiness that stops me from "going into orbit at the drop of a hat", as Lindsay Perigo used to call it?
Thankfully, I'm too old to care that a good friend is not speaking to me because I offended his ego in a story I wrote for these pages a few weeks ago.
But before I'm completely senile, I must buy Mike Dillon's book on Lisa Cropp, and re-learn journalism at the feet of the master.
At my age, you grow resigned to the fact whatever you do, it's never good enough. There's always an armchair critic who can do the job much better, if only you'd step aside and give them a shot, especially when it comes to writing a column, editing a newspaper, or - especially - hosting a talkback show.
Sit behind a microphone with 20 minutes until the ad break, no phone lines lighting up, and you'll know the true terror of running a talkback programme.
New Zealanders will always proffer negative feedback rather than positive. It's the way we are - why we like black, and drink ourselves into oblivion.
It's why a beautiful 42-year-old woman thinks it's age inappropriate to wear a sexy black dress.
- HERALD ON SUNDAY
