Let's talk about ageing....

Whether you are young or whether you are old, each stage in life has it's advantages.
Personally I like getting older. Yes, yes, you might not at all agree, at least not now, maybe at the end of my story.

Your childhood is precious and passes too fast. Impatience is part of the growing up. Particularly when you enter puberty. That stage that you are 13 coming up 30.
Parents talk rubbish, are embarrassing, don't understand you, are old fashioned and above all, extremely meddlesome.
You never sigh so often and so deep as in your teenage life. Neither will you ever roll your eyes as often. After all 'been their, done that', you know it all much better as a modern child of old fashioned parents who - sigh slash eye roll - do not even take the effort to understand you.
Although you consider yourself being an adult, you can't wait to grow up even faster and the proverb 'youth is waisted on the young' isn't meaningful to you.

You rush with big steps into the real life of earning your own money and living in your own apartment or house.
Whilst you overthink this all being that hasty teenager, you completely forget that adult life comes with loads of responsibilities. From doing your own laundry to paying your bills and TAX. From 8 to 5 jobs or being self employed with much longer working hours, to being woken up by impatient children at unearthly hours. And everything in between of which you suddenly realize your parents did it all without you even knowing or caring about it.

Well.... welcome to the world of the grown ups!

My memories of my childhood are care free and full of love, laughter, warm long summers and winters full of ice and snow.
My memories of being a teenager are confusing, upset hormones, heartaches, misunderstandings. Besides love and shelter of course. The proverb  'too large for a serviette and too small for a table cloth' was very appropriate. The one minute I felt confident and the next minute totally unsure.

I could not wait growing up and leaving it all behind me.

I also disliked the institute 'school'. No, I was not stupid and perfectly capable of learning but as I just said, to me it was an institute that locks you up for most of the day. And during my youth, children still went to school on the Saturday mornings as did most people work on the Saturday mornings.
Maybe it has to do with  being an introvert. If I couldn't remember staring out of the windows instead of concentrating on my fellow students and teaching material, the remarks in my reports still tell me.
All I wanted is being somewhere on my own, not surrounded by other people.

I was brought up in a lovely family with one brother but many other young people flocking the house sharing meals and laughter. I liked it at times but also had a small space in the garden where I could hide to enjoy solitude.

It changed when I had a job I truly loved: being a receptionist/telephonist and regularly a hostess on exhibitions. Surrounded by hundreds of people but I loved it. This is where my self-confidence evaluated to normal standards.
And suddenly being the non-official-adopted foster daughter of a Yorkshire couple helped a lot too! Being part of the British way of life made me complete. But this is a different story...

We now arrive in our twenties, a steep learning curve towards our thirties and still it can not go fast enough. You still make mistakes (did I know by then that making mistakes is part of learning and learning is equal to developing and that is what you need to do until your very last breath), you hate making mistakes because you see yourself (finally) as the adult you should be.
Society is demanding, so is making a success of friendships, relationships, your job and last but not least your marriage.

Looking back, these twenties and thirties did not differ much: you have loads of energy to cope with all your plans and mental growth. You learn to cope with the responsibilities you definitely were not aware of in your teens. Loads of energy to make your life successful.

Then come the forties, not for everyone but yes, for me the life changing era.
The end of the marriage, the start of a totally different life with totally different expectations and opportunities. Challenges.
And although the divorce, Cancer and several operations, self employed, part time jobs elsewhere until an 80 hours per week job with travelling within Europe, I still had the necessary amount of energy to live a life like this.

This is also the stage in life you realize that being just you and being at ease with yourself, doing the right things in life and being honest, is the true base of your life. Nothing more and nothing less.
The opinion about me of people who passed by in my life, has never been of much importance to me. I was brought up with the intention to be a nice person and a personality, not the 'go with the flow' and not a 'part of a large group' person. And you will agree that 50 different people have 50 different opinions about you. You can not please them all, that is simply impossible, a waste of energy which can better be spend on those who are close to you with mutual respect.

It is in this stage of life you learn where your priorities are. Or even better: with whom. You have the energy to learn this and paying it attention. You are half way your life (technically spoken) and want it to be good with no worries about things you can not change. You learn to turn the unchangeable nasty things into good things. And slowly you grow towards your fifties......

Photo: Ike Roelfsema Photography

You might not realise it at first (fifty sounds old though, middle aged....) but this is the stage in life you can be just you. You will notice, whatever you do - being silly or seriously, dancing in the streets or jumping in pools getting soaked, or up to your knees in the mud during a refreshing walk - youngsters smile and think "That is a silly person but who cares, she/he is old anyway". Where the elderly people think "I wished I could still do that. And who cares, she/he is still young! Such a blessing!"
With this in mind, make the very best of this stage in your life! Live it to the full and stay responsible.

I am more than happy to say that this feeling is still appropriate at my current age, I can not speak for beyond early sixties. Though I do have lovely close friends beyond seventy who do not only share this view on life but who still 'dance in the street', who are energetic and active, who enjoy being who they are, being alive and kicking. Still discovering new challenges in life....

Ah.... life! It is still a party but it is yóú who has to put up the decorations!

Cheers!!!

Helen