Is it time to accept that I am getting old?

My daughter often reminds me that I have worried about my age since I turned 40, and looking back now, nearly 30 years later, I can see how silly that was. I’ve always pushed myself, physically, intellectually and creatively and can see that being uneasy about my age has created in me a constructive sense of urgency. I have chosen never to be comfortable, but always on edge.

In a few months’ time I’ll reach the age of 70 and as I regain my fitness after recovering from surgery, wonder if now I really must accept that I am getting old and not push myself quite so hard? Yesterday I walked seven miles and the day before I had a tough gym session. Common sense says I should not ignore today’s muscle soreness, but have an easy day and maybe go to the gym again tomorrow.

Perhaps by way of compensation I am exploring how I could use the structure and discipline of a creative writing PhD as a framework to dig deeper into what makes Suffolk unique, and produce what would be my third book about rural life. The first, focused on the work of one writer, the late George Ewart Evans, the second, on our evolving relationship with soil, and so it makes sense to me that this should be followed by something deeper and more philosophical.

I am reaching a stage in life when physical decline is, however much I fight it, inevitable. Can new intellectual challenge and growth really replace the physical fitness that I know is going to start slipping away?