Life in your 80s: ‘When I meet my friends, we have the organ recital, where we list our ailments and recount hospital appointments’

I will be 85 in August. It’s a sure sign of ageing when you start declaring your age unprompted. It might be because I hope to hear, “Well, you don’t look it”, or perhaps it’s just a sense of pride for having made it this far.

I live with my youngest daughter, her husband and their three children and I am so grateful for my intergenerational way of living. It makes life easy. I don’t have to do the shopping, wash the clothes or clean the house. While this is wonderful, on bad days a feeling of uselessness sometimes comes over me. I sit with my smartphone at breakfast and finish Wordle and the New York Times mini-crossword and look at the empty page in my diary. I hate those empty pages. I like to see something there, even if it is only a doctor’s appointment.

My housemates conscientiously urge me to take “my walk” and that is so good of them. Sometimes, I just don’t feel like it and reluctantly push myself out the door.

Walking has never been my thing. If I have somewhere to go I have no problem, pain in the hip or not, but it’s the mindless meandering around that gets to me. For long walks, I abandon my stick and use my new walking aid, a rollator. It’s a very swish affair and the other day a fellow older woman passing by called after me “I like your wheels”.

It’s a Swedish design called Swift – not that I go at a rapid rate but I can dream. It is a great help to me in navigating the pavements of Phibsborough, my eyes not being so good. I have macular degeneration, which is treated with injections every eight weeks.

[ Ann Ingle: ‘People don’t think about older people as exciting’ ]

My earphones are part of my ensemble. I listen to novels all the time and that is a joy and a distraction. So, with great works of art ringing in my ears and a steady grip on my new best Swedish friend, I walk out every day and might be gone for an hour if rain doesn’t stop play. I always survey my surroundings when I go to new places in case of trip hazards, and if the pavements are icy I never venture out.

Recently I had no problem walking to the Mater hospital, calling over my shoulder to my daughter, who was pulling my little case: “another great adventure”.

I had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was about to have my left breast removed. It never occurred to me that a woman of my age would require a mastectomy. I thought it only occurred in younger women but according to Breast Care Ireland, 36 per cent of breast cancer is diagnosed in women over 70.

The operation left me cancer free and ready to get on with life, albeit at a leisurely pace. I am a proponent of slow living. I don’t rush. A steady pace is essential to avoid the dreaded falls. I learned that the hard way. Climbing steps to reach something is out of the question. And heavy kettles. And pouring water into a glass can result in disaster because of my wonky eyes.

There are many things you give up doing in your 80s. Hiking up mountains, not that I was ever very fond of that, is out of the question. But you would imagine a simple thing such as putting on a pair of tights would be straightforward enough. Not any more. I struggled for ages the other day to get the second leg in and gave up in frustration. No more tights for me.

I feel nostalgic when I remember the excitement of the first pair of tights I bought in Madam Nora’s on O’Connell Street. It doesn’t matter. I can wear trousers and go bare legged when the weather gets warmer.

I don’t care anyway. I don’t think anyone really looks at me any more. Peggy Seeger’s song The Invisible Woman says it all:

I can’t recall when it first happened,

don’t know how I became so unseen,

when my tangible self was put on the shelf

these words on the label: has been.

[ Openhearted by Ann Ingle: A warm, witty voice and a sharp mind ]

Yesterday I went out wearing earrings that didn’t match. They were the same earrings but in different colours, one bright red and the other midnight blue. (I bought two pairs because I couldn’t decide which colour I liked the best and then lost one of each of them). Nobody noticed my mismatched earrings. Invisible woman, you see?

Anyway, I have decided I like the look and will continue to wear them on occasion to spice things up. There is an upside to not being noticed. It gives me a sense of freedom as Jenny Joseph puts it so well in her wonderful poem Warning:

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick flowers in other people’s gardens And learn to spit.

I am free to do as much as my old body allows. There is no job to go to, no children to mind and no responsibilities. I could sit and watch television all day

And would you believe, my opinion and advice is sought after on rare occasions. I find this gratifying even if it is only a daughter asking how to cook tandoori chicken or looking for the best recipe for sweet shortcrust pastry (225g plain flour, 150g chilled butter, 25g icing sugar and 1 large egg, all whizzed up together). Two of my sons invariably ring me at Christmas looking for my stuffing recipe. Not sure if they are just trying to humour me or if they really forget from year to year how to do it.

If you are lucky enough to live as long as I have, the sad fact is your circle of friends grows smaller. I make a point of meeting up with the friends that remain as often as I can. Before we get into our lunch we have the “organ recital”. That’s what Maeve Binchy used to call it. We recite our ailments and recount hospital appointments and then quickly move on to more important matters like the state of the nation and our families.

Spending time with the grandchildren is one of the great joys of my life. They don’t expect anything from me. I’m not invisible to them. Being a grandmother to 18 young people is a privilege. I play games and read stories to the younger ones and try to impart wisdom to the older ones. I want them all to know that kindness, love and gratitude are what matters most in our lives. That holy trinity will see us through at any age.

This essay appears in Well, You Don’t Look It: Women Writers in Ireland Reflect on Ageing, edited by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Michaela Schrage-Früh and published by Salmon