For whom the clock ticks faster

My psychic friend told me over an intimate dinner exactly when I’m dying. I cried for three days and didn’t talk to him for three months. That was 10 years ago – and let’s just say my time is running out according to his clock.

Not for me the “age is but a number”, please. I’m not stupid: I’m stiff in the mornings, my one knee packs up at the hint of rain and I blame my deafness on my sinuses. I know I’m getting older. Older, not old.

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My kids will tell you I’m an 18-till-I-die kind. I still tuck my feet in on the couch. But I prefer cross-legged flat on the floor rather than some sinking pillows. I still prefer bare feet, getting my nails dirty sowing my veggies and will sway those hips at the drop of I’m Strong Enough or The Time Warp.

I know I don’t want to be called tannie, no matter how respectful your mom – who, like mine, was old at 45 – brought you up.

That same mom who snapped at many of my boyfriends’ tannie: “I’m not married to your oom.” But unlike that wonderful mom, I’m not clinging to the sexy days: She died a raven-haired beauty; my hair is long grey and my only vanity is some bright red nails – even if it’s just to hide the gardening nails.

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So why does a “death date” upset me? And believe me, once it is spoken, it sticks to you like cheap perfume for years. It’s never my gran’s pleasant Lily of the Valley smell. It always smells … like death.

My rich friend opened my eyes to the why over breakfast yesterday: “If you know you are going to die in, say, three years, will you live your life differently?”

He will, I hear. He will blow it all: find a good woman (read: in bed) and travel the world; study astronomy to get a grip on the universe and then, for the final year, fulfil his life-long dream and buy a little cottage in England’s hidden gem Clovelly, set high on a cliff with no cars allowed and walk down to the harbour for fresh tea and scones every day. Sounds like a plan, I think.

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But what if death has a sting: the psychic is wrong and you turn a 100?