All posts filed under: personal

Episode 3: From when do we count?

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How do you decide your ‘anniversary’ date with your beloved? Is it the first time you meet? First kiss? First overnight stay? Wedding? So many significant times to choose from! We didn’t meet for over 2 months since that first cheeky profile swing by in early October. But somehow I still hold that as a precious beginning (such a romantic fool I admit). So today (Sat 4th) is 5 months since the hello… But we didn’t meet in the flesh till just before Xmas; would that be a more realistic date to celebrate? So much unfolded between October and December… And as crazy as it sounds (even to myself, tough cynic of a Crab that I can be sometimes), I was definitely already ‘feeling the love’ by the time we met. Even typing that makes me laugh out loud! After SO MUCH online dating, how the hell could I actually fall for someone I never met?? We’re all warned aren’t we, about online scammers, and doomed internet romances; we roll our eyes don’t we, thinking …

Prepare to lie. Prepare to buy. Prepare to die. Part Three.

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No one wants to die right? Unless you’re in intense pain, physical or psychological. We all know we’re going to die eventually, although a lot of time, effort and money go into denying that. I’m sure we all hope we die peacefully, in our sleep, in good health, aged over 90… Or the majority of us anyway. I turned 50 last year, as I’m sure many of you have too. There comes with this birthday a realization that I’m probably more than half way through my time on this earth, and certainly the most energetic, adventurous, undefeatable half. Now my back aches if I try to camp & sleep on the beach, plus I feel the burden of mortgages and school fees cramping my style if I get the urge to up and travel to South America on a whim for example. Oh how the freedoms and vitality of the youth is under-appreciated by them! Now that I’m half a century old, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to do many things I dreamt of …

relationships, online dating, raising a teenager, over 50, positive ageing

Prepare to lie. Prepare to buy. Prepare to die. Part Two

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We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving (yet) in Australia, nor do we have Black Friday. In 2016, more than 154 million Americans shopped either online or in store, according to a National Retail federation survey from CNN, Nov 27. They spent $1.9 billion online on Thanksgiving Day and another $3.3 billion on Friday, according to Adobe. In 2014, total spending for the 4-day Thanksgiving/Black Friday holiday weekend was over $50 billion. In 1994, I travelled through Indonesia with a flatmate from Sydney. We went to Sumatra, way off the beaten track then, and got terrible ‘Bali belly’ the day after we landed. It was the morning of an all-day bus ride up the island, and my period arrived too. So there I was, losing all my bodily fluids explosively from all holes, sitting on a crammed bus where we were the only white faces, driving further and further off into the unknown. We literally staggered off the bus that night and collapsed into a small family guesthouse, both of us thinking we may die. Of course we …

Prepare to lie. Prepare to buy. Prepare to die. Part One

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Following on from my last post about childhood and Mum Down the long lane, I woke up this morning and thought about the lies I learnt to tell from a very young age. ‘Yes, I’m fine’. ‘Yes, this dress is nice’. ‘Yes, I’m enjoying this birthday party, thank you for coming.’ I was taught so easily; coached at daycare, by my parents, by books about good little princesses. As a sensitive child, learning to tune in to others around me, I quickly figured out that it could hurt people if I told the absolute truth, so I didn’t. Perhaps your experience is similar? One of my earliest memories is crystal clear, and can only be mine (no prompting with an old photo, or someone else’s version of what happened). I’m almost 3 & a half, being taken to visit my new little brother in hospital, as he’s just been born; I’m assuming Dad took me. I remember walking into the room, and approaching the single bed. Mum was lying there, cuddling him as he lay …

Down the long lane

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My mother, who lives in England, turned 80 on July 4. From Australia, I had organised a 3-day weekend get together in an old farmhouse on Dartmoor for our closest relatives, meaning 13 of us met up to celebrate. I hauled myself over to the UK, begrudging all those people who sleep easily on planes. Still, four good films in a row aren’t bad going. A couple of weeks before I left, I treated myself to a massage. As usual, I wondered why I don’t do it more often? It was such a lush experience, with hot white towels softly lowered over me, and warm wheat-bags resting along each limb, feeding the air with that fresh bread scent. No tinny dolphin music, just silence. It was in a private home, so no exterior noise, or impatient clients waiting outside the door for us to finish. The masseur created a wonderful sense of nurturing, with her deliberate, knowledgeable movements, and I sank into the experience. I’d had a horrible cough for a few days, so I …

Poetry and knives

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I saw this poetry on Facebook today, and it made me sweat. It happened live last night in Australia, and thank goodness my friend Kelly shared it early, so it exploded into my morning. Now it’s Trending all over the place, and rightly so. Kate Tempest ‘Progress’ poem Someone in the Comments called her a mediaeval prophet, and I think that’s perfect. She is completely embodying her passion, her skill, her need to communicate. I love her. So young, and so smart. Did you notice the tweet ‘Kate Tempest reminds us old farts that we stopped maintaining the rage’? Brilliant, and true. So I’m nearly 50, and just missed being a dreaded Baby Boomer, slipping quietly into Gen-X instead. I don’t think I’m particularly materialistic, although I enjoy my I-phone, and laptop, but I don’t think they rule my life…and sometimes I do indeed take Dylan Thomas’s advice: “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light…” If …

Blog tales for the Over 50s with positive ageing, dating & relationships

When your teenage son asks if you’re a feminist

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‘Yes. Absolutely 100%. Totally, dedicated, committed, Yes!’ I replied. He shrugged, in that gangly, wide-collar-bone way so many teenagers have, and said: ‘Yeah, so am I; it’s just obvious isn’t it?’ My heart nearly burst with pride, and my eyes teared up over our cereal bowls. But I kept my cool, and made a casual remark about how great it was he thought that, and what a shame he wasn’t running the country entire world (he often teases me for my over-enthusiasm; I really don’t know what he means). That was last year. Yesterday, on March 7 2016, the day before International Women’s Day, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) released their updated report ‘Gender Pay Gap – Over the Life Cycle’, which sums up its findings with this nugget of shame: “Australian women are financially disadvantaged at every key stage of their life: in childhood, at the workplace, through pregnancy, motherhood and as a carer, and in retirement.” This is why I’m a Feminist. I care about financial equality because we live in a …

If shit goes down, I dance

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Sometimes I feel the buzz of the energy in my head so loudly, I want to shake it out. So I do: I dance. I dance 5Rhythms in my bedroom, in the lounge, at the big Hall with a hundred other bodies, or on the empty early morning beach. I’m posting this right now, eating a piece of toast, then going to dance. And I just came across this poem by Jewel Mathieson: We have come to be danced not the pretty dance not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance but the claw our way back into the belly of the sacred, sensual animal dance the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance the holding the precious moment in the palms of our hands and feet dance We have come to be danced not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance but the wring the sadness from our skin dance the blow the chip off our shoulder dance the slap the apology from our posture dance We have come …

Intentions

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So the year has ticked over. And I must confess: it was the first New Year’s Eve celebration I ever slept through. Is that it? Am I officially ‘getting old’? Is it now a downhill slide, from choosing to be asleep in my comfy bed more than any wild partying offers? To redeem myself, I got up at 5, and drove to the most Easterly point of Australia, in Byron Bay. Specifically, to the lighthouse on that point. There was a steady stream of cars and people heading the same way, yet the Parking Fairy graced me with a miracle ‘rock star’ spot for my car just in time, so that I could slip onto the blanket my friends had saved for me at 5.25, ready for the 5.30 ceremony. There was crystal bowl sounding, chanting, and a meditation for global peace. Baskets of crystals offered everyone the chance to hold a piece of tangible focus for our intentions for 2016: As the first rays of the sun sang out, we were singing over and …

Home for two weeks today, and had a visit from my [dead] Grandma

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The jetlag has gone. The season of European winter, chilling my bone marrow, has gone. The tangled history of my childhood and youth has slipped more than 10,000 miles away again. My quiet heart yearning for France has been replaced by the delight of my dear friends, cute home, happy cat, and humid, tropical lifestyle in Australia. Son ‘15’ and I are having a little break from each other’s company (till approx. January 2016 he reckons), which gives me back the freedom I’d missed to just be Me: read, write, garden, walk on the beach at sunset, all without speaking, or providing for/tidying up after a teenager. Bliss. Can you tell there’s a ‘But’ coming? I remember learning years ago, on some college communication course, that anything positive you’ve said is then negated by the use of the word ‘But’ afterwards… So everything I’ve said above is actually true, AND YET I’ve also felt misplaced. Rebellious and resentful even. Coming home here is like coming back to your Mum’s house when you’re 23: you’ve been …