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How is this possible?

31st March 2009 by Helena 5 Comments  

On Thursday someone I have not seen since 1990 showed up in town. Like most of my friends he is an investment banker and much richer than me. So it was no surprise that he showed up in a chauffeur-driven car carrying well-worn Louis Vuitton luggage. What did surprise me though is that he looked EXACTLY THE SAME as he did when I last saw him circa 19 years ago at a dinner party in London.

When I saw my best friend Iona in India l realised she was practically identical too. And I first met her in 1986. Actually she looks better now. She attributes her youthful appearance to plenty of time off and no children.

anti_ageing1.jpg

I didn’t dare ask these friends how I look for fear they would wince and say ‘well actually, you do look a bit rough, but not bad considering you’ve had three children and worked like a dog for 20 years.’ But is it possible that there is some part of our brains that not only recognises old friends, but ages them in milliseconds so that actually once we register who they are they don’t look a day older than 19?

Does that make sense? Possibly not. But if you’re confused imagine how I feel? Soon my friends will be younger than my children.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: ageing, blog --> Tagged With: possible

5 thoughts on How is this possible?

  • mimi says:
    31st March 2009 at 3:11 pm

    I think you’ve got it right, there’s a part of our brain that ages them, if you’ve got photos, dig them out and you’ll see that they have aged much more than you! Being an investment banker has to age you, otherwise why pay them so much? mimi

  • Lloyd says:
    31st March 2009 at 3:41 pm

    didn’t make it to a reunion of school friends last weekend. but was sent pictures. Realized exactly the opposite. They all looked tremendously old.
    Is there something wrong with me????

  • Paul Stanyer says:
    1st April 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Oh my God we all age but the process is kinder to some of us than others. Like you, I have worked like a dog – for over 20 years actually! – but I am on the cusp of turning 50 as are many of my friends, obviously. I agree with Lloyd (comment above), that with few exceptions I and all my mates have aged markedly. But then how can you be 50 and look 20? Why would you want to? And those of us who have enjoyed life via a ‘healthy’ mix of alcohol, tobacco, espresso coffee and sun rays etc may look our age, but then we’re blokes and in most circles we don’t have to live our lives trying to look youthful the way so many females in our celebrity obsessed culture are obliged to by the consciences of OK! Hello! and other such dictators of what passes for attractiveness (yes, including shallow husbands in some cases!). I am not defending blokes versus women or people letting themselves turn into lumps of lard, just observing what I see!

  • Julie says:
    2nd April 2009 at 1:04 pm

    I COMPLETELY understood what you said – and I am with you! Yes – I think our brain does conveniently age people accordingly so that we all still recognize each other even though todays nomadic lives take us to far flung places in the world. And thank god that is the case or we’d all end up very lonely when we never recognized each other :-). Aging is also a state of mind – consider a 70 year old who has the energy of a 60 year old, compared with one who is indulging themselves in advancing years… you find that the physical representation is also related.

  • Mariana Maya says:
    6th January 2011 at 4:00 pm

    I think we age the ones we don’t really care about and keep our friends timeless in our minds. When we see them we see our past with them.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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