How often in your life do you get trends? You know the sort of thing... you haven't been invited to a wedding in years then suddenly three invitations come at once? Or every tombola at the school fayre ends in a number other than five or zero normally but one time, just once, you go and virtually clear every prize from the table?
Well this is what's happening to me right now. Not the prize thing, but a series of random yet interlinked events. One of these things is the sheer volume of friend requests and messages I have had on Facebook from people who were, quite probably, instrumental in shaping me into the person I have become today. These are people whom in some cases I haven't seen or heard from in over thirty years [dear God that makes me sound ancient] and some were in my life when I was a mere five years old and not since.
It's a strange scenario indeed. These are the people who played a massive role in my life back then and yet have been out of it for far longer than they were in it. I could paraphrase Shakespeare here but I'm not going to. This isn't just about mortality, theirs or mine, but about grounding. About not forgetting where your roots lie and why.
Am I the same girl that I was back then? Undoubtedly life has changed me physically. But spiritually? Emotionally? Morally? I am older but am I wiser?
Ask any of my current friends and they will tell you I am as foolish and as controlled by my heart as I ever was. And yet, there must have been changes too. Perhaps I am more cynical, less trusting than before.
This year I will turn 50. In an era that seeks to celebrate this milestone, I feel more inclined to take the stance of an indigenous American Indian. There is a feeling in my soul that my time is over, that I should perhaps take myself off to the hills, there to lie down in a thicket and await death, for I am clearly too old to be of use to anyone.
I accept that this is an extreme feeling and that perhaps many of you will not be able to identify with it. And in all honestly neither could I until now. But the more 50 looms, the more I fret. That said, I'm sure that once I reach that age, I'll get over this fugue, this feeling that I'm on the downward slope...
But do me a favour? If you have a friend who is coming up to their 50th, please, please, please don't keep telling them how many years you have until you get to that decrepit age. It really doesn't help. :)
Happy Reading. x
