Last Saturday, I went birdwatching, poked the rose bushes, visited a garden centre and then listened to a podcast while my husband batchcooked. “Ha ha, I am so old,” I texted a friend, recounting this. That “ha ha” meant: “Look at my young-fogeyish affectation; see how old beyond my years I act.” But after sending it, I realised that no “ha ha” was necessary: all these activities are wholly age-appropriate, indeed bog standard, for a 48-year-old.
I didn’t think I felt younger than my chronological age, a phenomenon known as “subjective age”, explored in the Atlantic recently. It related how a study of 1,470 Danes revealed that people over 40 consistently feel about 20% younger than their actual age, while people under 25 feel older than they are. The prevalent, fairly basic theory posits that the over-40s are in denial about ageing; the journalist suggested it could be an optimistic expression of how much living we feel we still have to do.
