How it all began

First I stopped working. I didn’t think of it as retirement as such because naturally I’m far too young for that. It was more like ‘resting between engagements’ the way actors do. Although my husband had decided to take early retirement and really had no intention of going back to work, I felt that I wasn’t quite done with paid work. Why I felt that the world still had need of my skills I don’t know because I would be hard pressed to define exactly what they are. Soft, bordering on flimsy I’d say. So I thought I’d just take some time to travel a little, pursue my hobbies and sort out Brexit.

Then a few months later I turned 60, which, strangely, I find quite appealing. I like even numbers and although I can’t deny that 60 is hovering in the foothills of old age, it still doesn’t seem very old to me. I do realise that a person’s perception of what is old increases with each passing year, but still 60 is somehow satisfying.

What I hadn’t realised was that my current life would remind me so much of my 20s. I am feeling the same sense of freedom and possibility now that I did then. In many ways I’m less free – I have a resident husband, adult children, older parents and a creaky house to maintain – but I don’t have the responsibility of going to work every day, so perhaps it evens out? Or maybe it’s to do with hormones. Not that I have the raging hormones of a young person: I think my hormones are a bit more sedate.

It’s the new sense that anything is possible that has really struck me. Obviously not everything is possible – I won’t be training as a doctor or winning an Olympic medal, but I never did want to do those things. The challenge is to come up with ideas of what I would like to do and maintain enough momentum to actually do them.  But no lists – too daunting and too much like work.

I’ll be off then to start on some serious idea development, which, to the uninitiated, might look like drinking tea and eating biscuits.