evaluating myself at sixty
I picked up this book subtitled ‘women at sixty: a celebration’ for 50p in a charity shop. It seemed apt as I will be 58 next birthday. Anita Roddick has died already. Prue Leith is in there. Many of them I had never heard of.
Reinvention at 60 is a strange idea. It suggests you may lie about what goes before, but it got me thinking about how I would evaluate myself.
I started to think about if I had regrets about something I had not tried to do. I remember ducking out of catering for a shooting party when I was still at school and in my teens. I couldn’t cook and I felt inadequate. I wish I had had the confidence to blag it because of the experience value.
After that I have lost count of the top jobs I have tried for and failed including taking diplomat exams and failing (maths was my weakness). There is no job opportunity I wanted I did not have a crack at.
I am so glad I did VSO in my 50s to Cameroon and Sri Lanka whatever the emotional struggles. I tried and failed to get a paid director post in Ethiopia with VSO before I volunteered.
It would have been nice to find a partner who would have looked after me financially as well as emotionally. I have never met anyone who didn’t expect me to contribute 50:50 financially. My former husband was probably the most generous, but he still expected me to work full time. I look in amazement tinged with a degree of envy at some relationships, but then I guess there must always be a pay-off for dependency.
Having children was an absolute joy and I never felt they cramped my style until they were older dependents and I was financing them solo. That was a struggle.
I loved having Sean the horse, even though I had limited time to ride him and struggled with the finances.
I have done things I am not 100% proud of, but there was invariably a reason –usually relating to an emotional low and/or financial restrictions. If A N Other suffered it would have very likely been in equal measure to me. With my Christian beliefs I have to acknowledge my sin, but I can’t come up with a top five I haven’t paid for one way or another.
Up to this point in my life I always had plans. Now I don’t. It’s weird and a bit disconcerting, like I am not having plans because my time on earth is up. Maybe it’s because I have learnt to live in the present. I came across this article this week I thought quite apt. I can relate to these 5 lessons.