Everybody desires to develop outdated, no one actually desires to be outdated. “This contradiction is absurd, the affected by it’s actual,” writes the German writer and literary critic Elke Heidenreich (81) in her new e book “Growing older” – and she or he does so with out whining, complaining or pity. Should you count on well-intentioned ideas from her, you will not discover any, however as a substitute you will see that clear statements: “As you become older, you bear the results for the whole lot you’ve got finished. However with that comes calmness, and also you understand: Most of it’s fully unimportant. Man ought to simply breathe and be grateful,” writes Heidenreich. She is a really comfortable outdated lady – however happiness does not imply leaping over tables and benches. “It is extra of a contented cheerfulness – and getting older is actually not a illness today.” Sure, and the way are you aware that you’re getting outdated? The writer additionally has a solution to this: “The glasses are getting thicker. You sit on the dentist extra typically. Your favourite jacket now not closes within the entrance. You weigh 70 as a substitute of 60 kilos, although you eat much less. The footwear have gotten extra snug.”
In “Growing older”, Elke Heidenreich repeatedly appears again on her life, with which she is essentially glad, though she talks about her joyless childhood and was not spared from strokes of destiny and sickness.
By no means misplaced curiosity in life
She had a lung eliminated at a younger age, overcame most cancers on the age of 60, however by no means misplaced her need to like and reside. “I fell in love typically and had two good husbands. Sadly, I wasn’t at all times fully devoted; in some phases of my life I allowed myself to be carried away by passions and amorous affairs.” Her present accomplice is the Hamburg pianist Marc-Aurel Floros and is 27 years youthful than her. “As we speak I typically see us older, comfortable grey individuals as nearly a sort of avant-garde, as a result of we do not need to reside with eighty-year-old males any greater than eighty-year-old males appear to need to reside with outdated ladies.”
How does she maintain match? “I be sure that I at all times have a canine with me, and I stroll him for 2 hours day-after-day. I do not do any sport anymore.”
Guide tip: Elke Heidenreich: “Growing older,” 112 pages, Verlag Hanser Berlin, 20.60 euros.
Creator
Barbara Rohrhofer
Head of Life and Well being Editorial Crew
Barbara Rohrhofer
