Everything old is new again

I’VE been thinking a lot about life recently: how much we take for granted and how much we put off for another day that may not even come.
No one knows how long they have ahead of them, and what course their life will take, That is unless, like me, they have conversed with Gypsy Rose Lee number 395 on Whitby seafront, and have been told they’ll live well into their eighties.
One day, no matter how successful, powerful or happy we are now, we’ll ultimately just all end up statistics. Future generations will scoff at the fact we were once ‘sad’ enough to listen to Beyonce, and look at photos not only asking who the people were, but why they ever thought what they were wearing was fashionable.
I mean, when we’re old and grey, will be actually be grey? Will we still cut our hair short and get a perm, or will we try to maintain the choppy bob with highlights we’ve grown up with. My family always laugh at when I say I’m going for a blue rinse.
Sitting in the residential home (if they still exist), will staff put on a bit of Dido or Black Eyed Peas for easy Sunday afternoon listening? Instead of tea dances, will we still be going down the club to strut our stuff with Justin Timberlake and the Busted boys?
I’ve always been mistaken for being older than I am, something I have to admit I’ve always been quite proud of. But now it’s as if I’ve caught up with these age expectations and feel like a fraud who is forced to remind herself constantly just how old, or young, she is.
I came face to face with a woman who I recognised as me in fifty years time, on recent travels.
It was one of those journeys when I just wanted to keep myself to myself, trying to ignore the ‘ya ya’ student sisterhood sitting three rows behind. I was in the middle of a great book, which I was just pulling out of my bag when this lady started her tale.
I desperately wanted to get back to my story, but I was too intrigued by hers.
She’d always thought she would have the rest of her life to do the things she wanted to do like get married, have children, write a book.
Now in her later years, all she has is regrets. I insisted it wasn’t too late to realise at least one of her dreams, to write the book, and something in her eyes told me she didn’t really need me to tell her.
Her parting words to me were: “Don’t make the same mistakes.”
And then she was gone, as if sent somehow to pass on this message, Back to the Future style.
We are constantly told we live in an ever-changing world. But isn’t everything just a repeat of what has gone before?
In fashion this is especially evident — only last week British Airways reverted to its uniform design on the 1950s.
We’re all dressing like our mothers and grandmothers — something I have consistently tried to avoid for many years — but some of us are getting it very wrong.
Two high-ponytailed ‘clones’ passed me the other day, wearing matching bubble gum pink cardigans, pumps, black kicked-out skirts and neck scarves. They looked like extras from Summer Holiday. I felt at any moment Cliff himself would jump off the bus in front of singing Bachelor Boy, or worse still Darren Day would suddenly appear on the prowl for fiancee number what?
Music is also a-changing — or not as it seems. Less than ten years ago if you even mentioned jazz, a strange cringe-worthy glaze sweep my face. Now it’s everywhere and we’re loving it.
Starsky and Hutch are also back on our screens — OK so it’s not Soul and Glaser, but wow Owen!
Prince, Duran Duran, Elvis and Abba are all topping the charts, hairy men in rhinestone bejewelled jumpsuits are asking if ‘we believe in a thing called love’ — and we’re choosing Terry Wogan over Sara Cox. I am myself a Tog in training.
A little four-year-old friend announced recently that she’d split up with her boyfriend, but not to worry because there was somebody else she liked, quite a few in fact. Last night she informed me she’d taken him back. Taking the ‘life is too short’ theory a little too far me thinks.
Too many people live in the past. We have to live in the present and in doing so we’re living for the future. Live for the moment, take each day as it comes, accept love when and where you least expect it, and don’t put off for another day because you might never get the chance to see your plans through; you may never get to write that book.
“There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey not a destination. So work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt and dance like no one is watching.”