From The Editor: A numbers game

My mother thinks I’m 18 years old. I mean, she knows in her brain that I haven’t been 18 for quite a while, but she told me the other day that 18 is where she still thinks of me being. At least she realises I can vote.

I do this too, with the age thing. My sister is much younger than me and I always think of her as being around ‘a very grown-up 16’. She turns 28 this year. And I have friends who are younger than her that I have never confused with precocious teenagers. It’s like the people that we’re close to can only move forward in fits and starts. My grandparents – who died in their 90s a few years ago – are still only in their 60s to me, probably due to a memorable rendition of The Beatles’ ‘When I’m 64’ at my grandad’s birthday party. In fact we sang it several times. Well, perhaps I sang it several times.

Likewise my uncle must be 25 years old as I clearly remember him having a birthday cake with all of the numbers of the clock marked with candles in their appropriate places, twice – and one more for luck in the middle. And I have to concentrate to work out that he passed double that a while ago. It’s like squinting at those magic eye posters to acknowledge a family member has aged at all.

It’s interesting that it works in both directions, not just aged aunts swearing that you can’t be taking A-levels already, why it was only yesterday that Lego was your best friend. I know how old my mother is, but my gut will tell me to knock 20 years off that at least. So I won’t let her get older any more than I’ll allow my sister to.

In having my family play the background to life, they have become an extra-constant. And I have in theirs. Maybe it’s time we all let each other grow up just a little bit more.

Victoria Nangle
editorial@thelatest.co.uk