Team Sport

I do not know how often I hear it.  People talking about getting older.  I guess I think about such things as that is me.  I never envisaged being 65.  I remember so well when a friend’s brother was thirty something.  I thought that was so old.  I had trouble getting my head around that.
Yet here I am close on twice as old as he was.  But what is said so often rings true for me.  People say something like, “my body feels older, but in my head I still feel young.”
That is the way it is for me.  What I find amazing is people talk of retirement age as the golden age of putting my feet up and relaxing.  There are some I know that see life that way and it is great to have the option of doing heaps or doing nothing where I want to.  But what I have found is the desire to do is just as strong aa it has always been.
I know I am slower and there are more things that present a danger to me.  I know the implications of say overdoing things are greater than they have ever been but the desire to do certain things is as strong as ever.
Maybe I am not the best choice of the half back in the football team these days.  Yet I remember as a kid there was the under 7 stone teams and the under 9 stone teams.  I was not ready to play in the open team, but I was ready to play in my wight division.
In a sense it seems I have gone back to that.  I know I am not ready to play in the open team, but I am ready to represent in my weight division.  To me there is a role for me at an appropriate level.  Open division is not the only game in town.  I represent many of my peers.  There comes a time in all sports when the baton is past on, but the one passing the baton has been asked only to do their job well.  The next person has the same role.
My role may have changed but it is just as important.  Teams are made up of players, water people, bus drivers, line markers and many others.  Each role matter and is important.  When one role is missing it is obvious, and the team on the field cannot represent to their full potential. 
I may not be a player on the field anymore, but maybe I can drive the bus.  An essential role.