A letter to my future self

So, here you are – twenty years from 2018. How is life these days?

I hope you are still well and active, because if not, it’s probably my fault. I should be doing more now, they say, if I want to have a healthy old age.  I always MEAN to exercise more but… well, you know how it is. Oh, and I’m sorry for all that chocolate I ate over and above what was reasonable. But at least I didn’t drink much.

Many of the people you have known and loved will not be around now. The world must be a sadder place without them. You are probably – barring miracles – an elderly orphan. Unless, that is, you are no longer around either. But I’m hoping you will still be here, enjoying the freedom to do the things that the elderly are allowed to get away with. Let’s also hope they haven’t locked you up yet.

You will still be proud of your wonderful family, I’m sure. I hope they’re looking after you well!

By now dear little Archie will be long gone. Do you remember the fun and laughter he brought into your life? You have probably forgotten the times he pooped on the carpet or chewed the furniture when he was a puppy. Just think of all the fresh air and exercise you would have missed if it wasn’t for him. You’d have been on that sofa for hours every day…

And old Sam, the Cat Legend. What a character he was! A proper killing machine in his young days. He took on anything that moved, didn’t he. Squirrels, ducks, sea gulls, birds of any size really. Not to mention mice and rats of course. Remember the time he fought a fox and won? And did you ever forgive him for being sick under your bed?

I don’t suppose you find it any easier to make decisions. You always could see things from so many angles! People called you indecisive. I like to think you could see the bigger picture. Not always an advantage though.

They say you miss going to work when you are retired. I find it hard to believe, but I guess you know if that’s true by now. Unless they have moved the retirement goalposts so much that everybody works until they are 90. I wouldn’t be surprised.

I hope you are still able to get out and about and take your camera with you. Please say you aren’t sitting alone somewhere fuming about split infinitives and bad spelling or spitting feathers over the younger generation.  Are you keeping up with technology? It’s enough of a struggle already, I can tell you.

I can’t imagine what the world is like for you. Change happens so fast.

Do tell me you get hooked up to virtual reality when you go into a care home in 2038. So much more fun than sitting in front of daytime TV.

Perhaps from the misty distance of time you will look back and remember how things were. Maybe you will have learnt not to be too hard on yourself. Not only to think kindly of other people but also to be kind to yourself.

Let me tell you a story.....

 

Me and my welsh dresser

When I was in the Sixth Form we were rejoicing that we no longer had to wear the very smart brown and 'Champagne' uniform that we had endured for the previous 5 years. We could now wear our own clothes so we immediate felt like grown ups, even though we were literally still at school.

You didn't have to give me an excuse to express my creative side, to what I hoped was my smock top, cheesecloth, arty look - flowing clothes and hair, wooden beads, long skirts. I thought I looked different, I aimed to look different, and my day was made when my English teacher Miss Pritchard said something memorable to me. We always called her 'log legs' which was uncharitable, but accurate, and we always surmised that she had lost a fiance in the war with most of the other teachers at our all girls grammar school. She was on the verge of elderly and wore beige - cardigans, tweed skirts and thick tights with brogues. We were perhaps a little unfair to her, and now I am all grown up and middle aged myself, I would value a chat with her but she has long gone...

One day as all the girls were streaming out of the classroom, she called me aside and said quietly;

'I would have loved to be able to dress like you...'

There was a wistful look in her eyes that was the first realisation that I had that what we see on the outside of people isn't always what is going on inside. I decided that I was going to stick to my guns and dress as I liked because I had sort of got a blessing from old log legs, and I felt an affection for her for the rest of my school days. So I started to make more of the long skirts that I couldn't find in the shops; one memorable one was made out of striped yellow/cream/orange heavy woven material that I believe was made for curtains. I felt a bit farmwife-housey in it so I went for the complete look and made a huge cook's type apron out of an old white bed sheet. And this is probably what sparked my dream....

I was in a large long kitchen at a farmhouse table. Down each side of the table were 3 children, a mix of boys and girls, and we were baking together. I wiped my floury hands on my big white apron and looked up. There in the right hand corner was a lovely huge welsh dresser, full of china...

When I woke up, back in the reality of sitting my A levels in a Kent suburb, I just thought it was a nice dream. And it was.

However....

About 15 years later, after I had married and had several children, I was in my 28 foot long kitchen with my 6 children standing and sitting around my large kitchen table. We were making bread, and as I wiped my floury hands on my apron, I looked up. There in the right hand corner of the room was my lovely, large cream welsh dresser. Ever since then I have taken my large welsh dresser from house to house and it is the one piece of furniture that I never want to get rid of.

Spring hygge - my way

Winter has taken a long time to say goodbye this year. It’s spring at last, so it’s time to put away the cosy throws and furry cushions and think about opening a few windows.

Goodbye to hygge and all that?

That’s what I thought until it came to my attention that it’s possible to hygge all year round. Spring hygge? Sounds a bit unlikely, so I did a bit of research…

Apparently, what spring hygge boils down to is taking pleasure in everyday things. This is something I feel I do pretty well anyway, thank you very much. 

I found suggestions for brightening up your surroundings:

Lighter fabrics and colours.

Fresh flowers! 

Bring the outside in!  

A fairly instinctive reaction to spring, I think...

OK, so I’ll get out my bright yellow tea towels and pick a few daffodils from the garden.

‘Get out your spring cushions’ 

Well, I actually DO have spring cushions! The only thing is, they’ve been out since last spring because I couldn’t be bothered to store them over winter. 

I might just wash them – it’ll have to do.

Spring cleaning was another idea. 

I don’t know why this is touted as something new, as it used to be a traditional thing. I’ve always loved the idea of a massive clean up, but somehow I have never actually done it. As someone once pointed out, thinking about cleaning is much more pleasant than actually doing it. Besides, daily life has a habit of getting in the way of spring cleaning. 

Does anybody still do it these days?

Eventually this line of research came to a halt when I found a serious suggestion that I might hygge-up my spring by making pink champagne macaroons.  Now let’s not get silly!

Next I discovered that hygge is now supposed to be SO last year. Or maybe even the year before. 

‘Lagom’, I’m told, is the thing for this year. Another Scandinavian concept which means ‘just the right amount’. It’s all about moderation, creating balance and having enough stuff but not too much. Some people seem to think this is all very worthy but not as much fun as hygge. I can see their point, but surely the one doesn’t rule out the other?

The next step in my research led me to an alarming-sounding concept called...

Death Cleaning. 

I was afraid this meant spring cleaning until you drop from exhaustion, so I almost didn’t look any further. But all it means really is sorting out your stuff and planning for when you are no longer here - slimming down what you leave behind so your children don’t have to clear up after you. Probably a good idea, and also means you aren’t burdened with too many ‘things’ in retirement and might possibly get round to enjoying yourself.

Basically, a fancy way of saying decluttering.

Anyway, I’m off now to pick flowers and wash my cushions…

Basket case?

Finally we have moved house. It has been a long drawn out process, but a few interesting things have come to light as a result.

Now, I have been all fired up about decluttering, downsizing, streamlining etc. I thought I was on top of it. I was so ruthless with my hoarding tendency, getting rid of my excess possessions. I’m free! I thought. Now I can travel light through life, no longer weighed down by ‘stuff’.

And then… all these baskets were found when I came to pack. I felt like an alcoholic whose secret empty bottle stash has been discovered. And those baskets in that photo weren’t all of them either.

I’ve always had a weakness for baskets. I find it SO hard to part with them. But, honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with them all. There just isn’t room now. I have managed today to part with my three least favourite ones. It’s a start. I had no idea I had a basket addiction! I mean, how ‘normal’ is basket hoarding? Hard to say as there are no official statistics for this.

Another thing I learnt about myself is that I’m not quite as sentimental as I thought I was. The day before the move I was in pieces as the removal men dismantled my home around me. But this was the lowest point, and I was lucky enough to have my youngest son there as a shoulder to cry on (actually maybe I should say I cried on his elbow, given our height difference, but that sounds really weird).

Moving day itself wasn’t as emotional as I thought it might be. It was a bit difficult to manage the animals while the stuff was being taken out of the house and the doors had to be left open. I tried to do things while taking the dog around with me on a lead, but - trust me - it doesn't work! So I decided to go round to Mum and Dad’s for a cup of tea. Mum gave me a wise piece of advice when I told her I was feeling a bit emotional. “Don’t look back”, she said. “Do what I did when I left our home in Kent for the last time. I walked out of the door and didn’t look back.”

So, when it came time to go I did likewise. I’d had ideas about being the last to leave, wandering through the empty rooms that had echoed with the laughter of my children and all that sort of thing. In the end I was the last to leave, but I felt much more pragmatic than I expected to. Besides, there wasn’t time for sentimentality. For a start, the cat was going frantic and had had diarrhoea in his cat carrier and I was thinking how on Earth I was going to deal with it.

I went out of the front door, closed it behind me and put the keys through the letterbox. And I didn’t look back.

Archie wonders what is going on

I haven’t looked back all week either. I don’t think I will now. I feel at home here already, and although we have lots to do to make it fully ours I haven’t missed the old house at all.

Many things that I do…

I left it till my early 40’s to decide what it was that I wanted to do for a job. A job for which I got paid that is; not my ‘life’s work’ of being a wife and mother. You might think middle age is an odd time to start University, but for me it worked well, mainly because I had got to an age where I didn’t particularly care what people thought of me, but mostly because I had a home help to look after the kids on my frequent trips to London. This lady was a gem, my friends, and I couldn’t have done my degree without her. Women make the world go round more smoothly.

Of all the things that my day job involves, one of the things I like doing is making medicine. And one of my favouritist things is making capsules. I have a jar of powdered herb, a capsule making machine, and iPlayer which I have doing the rounds of Radio 4 dramas – most recently That Was Then with the brilliant Rosie Cavaliero.

In my Pharmacy room, I can sit all alone and concentrate on the scooping of powder, the filling the machine with empty capsules, the tamping down and popping out and let part of my mind follow the drama while going through the repetitive [but calming] motions of fill, tamp, pop… We all need a bit of calm in our lives and medicine making demands it. I’m not rushed, I don’t make mistakes, I do a good job. This calmness is more important when I mix up tinctures, only then I don’t listen to BBC dramas, no. I need my full concentration to check the right herbs, and amounts and prescription details. Filling a specific prescription like this is never repetitive, it is a more creative activity and focuses my mind on the person who will receive it and the problem that they have that I am trying to help solve.

And now I teach Pharmacy at the School of Herbal Medicine, I hope to pass on to our students the art and science of making plant medicine: when it is done properly it is safe and effective and we need more people to know how to do it…

www.schoolofherbalmedicine.co.uk

Can I let this go?

Moving day looms in the very near future and time left to get things organised is running out. When I was younger I was all over this sort of thing, but not these days. I’ve been picking away at sorting stuff out and now things have to speed up a bit.

Every day the truth of the phrase ‘The more you have, the more you have to look after’ hits me with a fresh impact.

I am faced with sorting all the random unnecessary stuff I have been lugging round with me for years. It’s been taking up precious space, taking up time and cluttering up my mind. I know I am not alone in this. So many of us go through life collecting things that we don’t actually need or have ceased to need. Then one day, maybe when you’re trying to fit stuff from a four-bedroomed house into a two-bedroomed bungalow like I am, you ask yourself - Why? What am I keeping even half of this stuff for? Who is going to treasure any of it when I’m gone? And who is going to be stuck with the job of sorting it all out? Not a small task as things stand at the moment.

My biggest weakness is for the sentimental stuff, but I’m prepared to stick up for that, at least in moderation. I treasure the things my children have given me over the years. Also selected highlights - mostly the bits that made me laugh - from their school work. Oh, and I can't throw away their brilliant pictures, can I? I’ll be hanging on to those things because they mean something to me.

With a large family, though, you do have to be selective about what you keep. Perhaps most precious of all are the things my children have written to me in cards and letters. I was very proud of myself when I hit on the idea of sticking them all in a memory book which is so much more organised than piles of cards and papers which might get lost and anyway look very untidy. Of course the project of actually getting this memory book done has been ongoing now for a few years while I ‘don’t have time to get round to it at the moment’. And why don’t I have time? Well, like I said, the more stuff you have, the more you have to look after.

Now, when I've gone who is going to be interested in a pair of Bambi bedroom curtains circa 1955? Yes, the very ones that hung in my bedroom when I was a toddler. And for quite a few years after, I seem to remember. I have them with me still. I can’t remember why.

Or my tiny little party dress, also from the 1950s. I have that too. 

Again I can’t remember why. Its so long ago I don't actually remember going to any parties wearing it. But it’s too late now, it has to stay. Along with my first school exercise books, just in case I forget that, aged 6, I made butter at school by shaking creamy milk in a jam jar, or that my baby brother's name was Simon and he was one year old.

Ok, so I’ll keep a couple of boxes of old treasures in the loft. But all other superfluous stuff WILL BE GOING! If I find stuff that I don’t need but has nothing wrong with it (my biggest hoarding category) I will find somebody who does need it or take it to the charity shop. Junk will be going to the recycling centre. Genuinely un-recyclable rubbish (yes I do have some) will go in the bin.

I have a vision now of a life where clutter is at a minimum, I have what I need and nothing that I don’t need. Where housework is kept to a minimum, but the home is cosy, tidy and clean. Where I can enjoy simple pleasures without spending a fortune, and we can get up in the morning, put a picnic and the dog in the car (but not too close to each other!) grab my camera and say – where shall we go today?

Tomorrow I am 61, but I've just got used to being 40...

I've just got used to being 40 tho'

How does it happen, eh?

Time rolls by and just as soon as you have got used to the fact you are middle-aged you are pushing at the door of being old. Have you looked in the mirror recently and been surprised at what you see? That's not me, honest. That sagging face surrounded by the wispy grey hair, where did that come from? The age spots on the back of my hands have appeared so slowly that when I noticed them fully grown one morning it was with with some shock: when did they get here?

A young guy said to me recently [and I quote] 'Your age is quite old...'

You wait, buster!

So now I have the time to follow any pathway in life I so desire - I don't have the time to see the pathway to its end. So much to do and so little time. At 61 I may have 10 years of active work left in me, you think? Crikey! What did I do in the last 10 years? I did hear of a woman in her 70's who was signing up to do a PhD, and she can't be expecting for it to reap financial rewards for the rest of her life - she's not going to land a position with that qualification that will earn her back the money she has spent on attaining it, so why do it?

Because life isn't about money, is why. It's not just about training for a particular job, or upping your skill set to be more useful to prospective employers, or performing better at your job. You can learn new stuff just for its own sake, just for the deepening wisdom pool you carve out for yourself, just for taking time to learn something worthy...

I know I took my degree late and didn't finish till I was 50, but should I have done it earlier? Should I have taken time out [so much time as it happens] when most of my kids were small and I was pregnant/had a baby/toddler/so many little ones?

Nah. I know I'm old mature, but I seem to have the best of both worlds. I have a large family and now a profession. Now is the time when I can concentrate; not during sleepless nights and through wet beds and school runs. So, I may not have time left in my life to climb any ladders to the top, but I don't want to.

I've trained as a Medical Herbalist, I help run a training school and I still get to hold babies when my kids produce some each year. I've not done so bad.

So, at 61 I can say I have no regrets. But looking at that photo, maybe I ought to visit a hairdresser...