It seems yesterday, but in fact I have not written on this blog for much more than a year. Almost two years, when I come to think of it, at least!
I have been busy in the meantime though. I changed job a gear up, have buried my second pug, have been divorced, have turned 50 (why did nobody tell me that 50 is such much more fun than the drab 40ies??), have said good bye to friends who moved abroad and are being sorely, terribly missed, have met wonderful new friends and cousins, have been trying to rush around Europe to see friends and family and now I have on of my boys finished at university, a second already gone for a year, my daughter starting in September her last year in school and my home population therefore is devoid of dogs and shrunk to a mere 50% reporting to duty for the shopping-at-the-supermarket-carrier-service.
Life changes, and rightly so. I woke up this morning and thought: this cannot go on like it did. I am 50 now, most probably over the first half of my life ( touch wood, the old body is ailing but coping, and I wonder if I ever will loose those horrid kilos again - anybody out there for giving me some sort of encouragement?) is over and if I sit quietly - almost never - in a corner and stare at not existing goats in my garden, then the thought persistently coming back to my poor fluttered brain is that I still have so much to do/see/write/meet/get on with and wonder how to fit all those bucket-list things into a very busy life?
Then you will ask: what on earth is she busy with? Children on their way out and seemingly promising to turn out well, job secured and happy with, settling into old age comfortably, surrounded by friends and family - what is there to be busy about?
Of course I am off the hook with the baby business. I see it all around me and have started to campaign ferociously to give all the support needed to those young mothers who must do it all: having the babies, obviously, but also having a job and being the wonderful wives they have been chosen for in the first place.
But then, I think, why not starting to do some serious lobbying for the girls MY age???? But telling them what? To use every possible opportunity to get a babysitter?? Not really - and to do what??
The fact is: Now is the time for the Gap Years of The Older Woman (which age should we start with?)... no toddlers around for the moment.
Ok. This thing about campaigning for "The Older Woman and Her Handbag" needs some more thought and most probably more time, which I do not really have, considering that I had to restart a life with two dogs, four children and a nonexistent career a couple of years ago. But it might be a start already to get back and take the Red Handbag out of its dust cover, and looking into it, adapting it perhaps a little bit for the "Safe Side of The Fifties." Or better "The Right Side of the 50ies"!
So, I do not promise anything. But the fun of writing, as I do now, with a hot cup of coffee (please note: not a mug, but a huge wonderful swimming pool of a Wedgewood Edme Plain Cup!!) is so real, that I endeavor to get back to this blog more often. If someone out there reads it or not.
Cheers!!!
Jola
