Diamond Wedding Estadão

I can now join the priority queue. I’m reaching the diamond jubilee: 60 completed summers.

If it were a historical reference we could say I am doubling the Cape of Good Hope. The first Lusitanian contact with the southern promontory of Africa leads to the term Cabo das Tormentas. Then, with the pressure of power in Lisbon, the new, softer name emerges. Will it be like this with me? Another encouraging fact: the farthest point of South Africa is Cape Agulhas. There is something new to discover.

Is 60 the new 40? 60 really is 60, with all its glory and disaster. I continue in the socalled “maturity with health”.

In practice: I have more time behind me than ahead of me. My house is much more attractive now. My bed is exceptional company. Watching a good series comfortably lying down has become my nirvana. I no longer need to visit the brand new three Michelin star restaurant that opened in a Ligurian village three hours drive from Genoa. Facing mandatory menus with foam and smoke? Never. I make my hard grain pasta at home with fresh tomatoes, basil, buffalo mozzarella and a drizzle of good olive oil with two or three people close to me. This is my three star paradise. This is my 60 year consciousness.

60 Photo: sferrario1968/Pixabay

The libido that exploded daily (and uncomfortably at 20) is now a slightly more remote experience. The wish to camp in the Gobi desert for a week without bathing was fulfilled. I love my shower passionately and I am happy under the jet of water in my home. For me, Marco Polo is losing a bit of momentum.

I’ve never been melancholic. What happens is the end of greed, the end of anger at things, the absolute rush that must have marked my existence. fear subsides. I already know that I am and will be incomplete, that I will not see everything, that I will not know everything. I accept the contingency of life and I know that beauty lies in its ephemeral nature.

I reflect that Shakespeare had been dead for eight years when I was my age. The cool thing about being 60 is thinking I’ll never be like him. I had and still have the privilege of reading it. That’s enough! I’m doing diamond wedding, still common money. In the end I convince myself that diamonds are of little use in the cold of life… I hope to be able to continue reading well when I’m 70.

And you, dear readers? Do you fear something when you see the terminus approaching?