A couple of days ago a disaster happened with my laptop. For various reasons, which began with the letter ‘s’ sticking, my laptop keyboard is no longer working properly. The first thing to do was to look out the insurance quote.

What? Surely not, you mean I didn’t renew the specialist insurance? Apparently not. Or at least I did it in my mind, but not on paper. Couldn’t even find a payment for it, so it must be true.

Oh well, the next step was looking at the house contents insurance. Ho hum. That is still ongoing.

But at least there IS insurance. If not, we would be looking at a big bill to get it repaired, or worse a new Macbook, which is a substantial expense. Basically, you hope you’ll never need insurance, but you have it just in case.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I was reminded of a different kind of insurance recently by someone who commented on my previous article, Grief With Relief.

I was struck by her reply, and it propelled me to be sitting up in bed one Sunday morning, tapping away, writing the first draft of this article.

Here’s what she said:

My husband has the mind and abilities of a four month old in a 69 year old body in a state mandated nursing home that does not cope with his multiple complex chronic conditions. He voted in the UK 2024 General Election. His descent into dementia has been early, fast and devastating. He doesn’t know who he is, where he is or what he is.

He never wanted medication to maintain a miserable existence, but the doctors insist. Neither of us has any quality of life.

There was no time for an LPA. He thought me being his wife was enough. We married in spring 2022 after thirty years together. He didn’t have problems then.

An LPA is a lasting power of attorney, the term used in England and Wales to describe the legal document that states who can represent you if you can’t for any reason determine your own healthcare wishes. Different countries have slightly different terminology, but they’re all referring to the same thing – the document that must be in place to give someone else the legal power to represent you.

In her comment, she said her husband thought being married was enough; she thought so too.

Several years ago, I also thought so. So much so that when I first heard at a lecture given by an estate lawyer that this wasn’t the case, I had to attend the same presentation again, in order for it to sink in.

• It does not matter if you are next of kin.

• It does not matter if you are the wife, husband or civil partner.

• It does not matter if you are the child of the person who cannot speak for themselves.

If you do not have a healthcare power of attorney specifying you as the attorney, you have NO LEGAL POWER. Just like the reader above.

This means the medics are the ones who get to make the decision about your dear loved one.

Just read that again. If you haven’t realised this, it’s pretty horrifying isn’t it?

Medical staff are supposed to take into account your thoughts, feelings and considerations, and many will, but even if they do, they are the ones with the legal authority to make the decision whether your spouse should have treatment or not, and if so, what kind.

This is really important. Red flag warning important.

You do not want to be in the same position as the reader above with the system having taken over and you unable, literally unable, to do anything about it.

And unfortunately you possibly could be, because research from Canada Life shows that four out of five adults (78%) in the UK have not registered a lasting power of attorney, including 77% of the over-55 age group. USA figures are similar.

That means that you and your partner could easily find yourselves in the kind of situation described above.

By the way, it is ALWAYS too soon to do this. It’s not something that many people actively want to address.

To do a power of attorney will cost you some money, at least the registration fee. If you don’t have savings to spend, then start saving now. I know there will always be something else to spend your money on.

But what you’re doing by putting powers of attorney in place is buying peace of mind, right now, that you will never in the future be in a situation like the one above.

How do you get power of attorney then?

The first thing is to make a decision you’re going to do it, and make it top of your priority list. Give yourself a deadline if that works for you, and take these steps:

1. Search online for ‘power of attorney’ and your country or state. Discover exactly what you have to do in your area. If you don’t have internet access, then contact your local citizens advice bureau. Follow their instructions.

2. If you’re in England and Wales, go here where you can do it yourself online.

3. If you’re in Scotland or N. Ireland you will need to visit a local solicitor and pay for this to be done. (Hint: shop around to discover the best price).

4. Start the process according to the instructions for your country.

5. Complete the process, and send it for registration with the appropriate fee.

Please, please, please don’t let yourself be caught out in the future because you think you haven’t got time, can’t afford it right now, are too busy, or any of the other reasons.

If I could do it for you, I would. But I can’t.

What I can do is talk it through with you live, which brings me to this:

A big thank you to all who responded to my email asking if you’d be interested in a monthly Ask Me Anything call - lots more of you said ‘yes’ than ‘no’, so here’s what I’m going to do:

I will run a one-off, free, live Zoom call on Tues 8th Sept where you can ask me anything about end of life planning. (Time: 5-5.45pm UK, 9am PST, 12noon EST)

That includes powers of attorney, which I will answer where I can, and refer you elsewhere if not.

I’m setting it up right now, this is just a heads up so you can put the time in your diary - look out for an email about this specifically (and if you’re reading this but not on my list, then please do subscribe).

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Looking forward to seeing you on the call!

Love

PS In case you’re wondering why I am so interested in this, I wrote a book Before You Go: The Essential Guide to Creating an End of Life Plan, and founded and ran a not-for-profit in this area for 8 years. More of my story you can read here

The one year anniversary of my husband’s death in 2011 found me in South Africa, visiting a friend. It had been a difficult trip, in floods of tears as I stayed alone overnight in Edinburgh before boarding the plane to Cape Town. This was the furthest I’d travelled on my own for twenty years.

Sometime later in that fortnight, sitting on my bed in the guest room, alone in the house, I tentatively looked at an online dating site. Just a minute or so later I slammed the laptop shut, tears bursting out of nowhere as I raged about the necessity to do this at all. It didn’t matter that the sun was shining, the sky blue and the warm air tempting me into their swimming pool. Nothing else mattered except the fact that Philip had died (that was not in our plans!) and nothing could be done about it. I was cross. Very.

Another year passed, with no interest from me in men, other than at some point writing a list of qualities I would like in a man, if I should ever get the opportunity to be with one again. This was a mad thing to do, as I couldn’t imagine finding someone who had been as wonderful as my husband – but I equally couldn’t imagine being on my own for the next 30 or so years (he died when I was 54). I scribbled them all down, then shoved it away and forgot all about it.

Sometime later, a friend prodded me. She had recently met her girlfriend through an online dating site.

“Jane”, she pushed against my resistance, “you’re still young, you can’t just stay at home and not at least explore what it might be like to meet someone again. What are you going to do about it?”

I could see she was probably right. So I plucked up my courage again, did a bit more research, this time without tears, and then created a profile on a popular site. Before the internet, at a party there might have been twenty men, and if I had met half of them, and then found one interesting, it would be good going. So I decided to set a target of ten coffee dates, just to get used to being around male energy again.

The story of those men (I never quite got to ten before giving up) is for another time, suffice to say I met some who were perfectly fine, but there was no spark between us; and several who seemed to be living on a totally different planet to me. It didn’t take long to get fed up with the whole process. I came off all the sites and focused on enjoying myself.

I wrote more about all this in my memoir Gifted By Grief, but by this time I’d come to a place of acceptance about what had happened. I woke one morning, and a philosophical outlook woke with me.

‘You’re okay now, deeply happy at a spiritual level. If you meet someone, wonderful. If you’re destined to spend the next thirty years alone, then that’s fine too’. I relaxed, and began to breathe in a different way about all this.

Why a horse was so important

Three days after this revelation that I would be fine no matter what happened in my romantic life, I found myself participating in a one-day workshop on Conscious Relationships. I’d been very reluctant, but another good friend had insisted, and I thought I’d have nothing to lose, and at least it might be fun.

In one exercise, I was described as a big glossy black, beautiful horse, mane flying, tail streaming out behind, majestic in her strength. I love horses, so I responded to this image very positively.

Later in the workshop the leader asked who wanted to work with her in the middle of the group. ‘Me!’ popped out of my mouth as I leapt from my chair in response, and before I knew it, I was inhabiting how that horse felt.

It was incredible – strong, I was moving with grace, fluidity and power, and I shouted “Why would I want to be with anyone other than someone who can be alongside me at this level?’

Indeed.

Ana, the workshop leader, suggested I put a photo of a horse on my dating profile to represent me. I laughed and forgot all about it.

Leaving at the end of the workshop, I popped into the Visitors Centre at what is now the Findhorn Ecovillage. Sitting behind a desk welcoming me was Richard, and next to him a woman whom he introduced as his (relatively) new partner.

“Yes”, she said, “We met on the Highland Dating website”.

You need to know that I’m the kind of person who likes synchronicities and ‘signs’ like this. To have dating mentioned in two different ways in the space of a few hours, when nothing had happened on this front for over a year, made me pay attention.

I looked up Highland Dating later that night, still somewhat reluctantly. I didn’t put up the photo of the horse, but I changed the text of how I described myself. Now it read:

I know it looks like I am a woman, but actually I am a strong, passionate, black horse in the prime of life, galloping confidently along the cliff tops, wind blowing through my mane, feeling the strength in my legs as my hooves pound the turf. I know in which direction I’m headed and I know when it’ll be time to slow down. As I gallop, my heart is beating faster, steam blows out of my nostrils and I relish the grace and beauty in my body as it moves. I love the freedom I feel. I love being outside. I love being me.

I pressed the submit button and resigned myself to another month of checking out various men with whom I might vaguely have something in common.

About three weeks in, I received a notification that someone had favourited me. I didn’t always look at these, but I pressed on his profile and liked his pic. I liked his profile even more. He’d been widowed, like me, and answered questions in a way that I found intriguing, especially the one that asked ‘Who or what do you secretly want to be?’ his answer: ‘I’m quite happy being me’.

I fired off a quick email to him, and went to bed.

What I didn’t know was that this man, Ian, had been idly googling to see what one did if one was widowed after 43 years. He’d come across a site where he could create a free profile by answering some questions. He liked the questions, so completed it, without realising that I (amongst other women) would be able to see his answers. He’d scrolled through lots of other profiles and had favourited the one of me (this was the pic I posted, one of my professional studio ones); he had been intrigued by the way I had described myself as a horse.

Switching on his computer the next morning, you can imagine how surprised he was to see an email from me.

We had a to and fro of emails over the next few days, altogether totally different in tone from any other email contact I’d had with an unknown man. There was just a feeling of ease, no pretension, no games being played. What a relief.

He suggested meeting up. By this time I knew it was important to hear his voice first over the phone (how did I know this? Because it had happened earlier that year with another man, who, when I heard his voice, I knew immediately it was not going to work, and I had to tell him so. That was difficult. But worse would have been me arranging to see him, knowing I wasn’t interested).

I insisted we spoke first, and emailed him my landline number (yes, we still had landlines in those days!) and suggested he called me over the weekend.

At the other end of Scotland, in Glasgow, Ian knew he would be away in his campervan that weekend and that lack of a phone signal would be a distinct possibility. In his words:

“I hate using the phone at the best of times but I thought I’d better ring her before I go away, I didn’t want this woman I was keen on to think badly of me for not getting in touch”.

In my home office, I had pressed ‘send’ on the email to him and then put it out of my mind and focused on work. So when the landline rang about an hour later, I thought nothing of it.

“Hi, Jane speaking” I had my formal work voice on.

“Hi, seijklnwoown, Ian, knerojknwnsiwaaadrao”. I could not understand a word that an unknown man was saying at the other end. Not one word, other than his name ‘Ian’. I could tell it was a strong Scottish accent, and I had dated two different Ian’s the previous year, neither of whom I wanted to see again. Plus I knew several other Ian’s in our local community.

“Sorry, do I know you?” I stuttered, feeling a bit embarrassed. Some more incomprehensible to-ing and fro-ing and finally, hearing the words ‘dating site’ it dawned on me that it was only an hour ago I had given my number to the Ian I’d been emailing through Highland Dating.

Well, I fell about laughing. I thought this was hilarious – and fortunately he did too. Because if he had taken offence at the fact that I had only just given him my number and then promptly forgotten all about him, that would have been the end of it.

As it was, we both had a giggle, he adjusted his accent to speaking ‘posh Glaswegian’, and we managed to arrange to meet the following Saturday evening

Contrary to all the advice I had been given, and give to others, we agreed to meet half way, but half way between Glasgow and Forres is in the middle of the Cairngorm Mountains. So he volunteered to drive to Aviemore, just an hour from me. After rejecting his suggestion of meeting at the busy mountain railway up Cairngorm itself, I cheerfully suggested a car park by a loch where he could park overnight, totally forgetting that it was Saturday night in August, lots of light until 11pm, but hardly anyone else would be walking round the loch then. In fact it didn’t even occur to me to tell anyone where I was going until much later on.

Nearing 6pm, driving into the car park, I positioned my car a short way from the only campervan there. By now my heart was thumping, as I walked towards the opening campervan door. There stood a man I recognised from his photo.

‘Omg, he’s gorgeous looking’ were the words in my mind, and a smile broke out on my face.

Two widowed people, meeting for the first time, it could have been awkward. It took a good two hours to walk round the loch, and our conversation was often about death. That could have been awkward too, but instead was a relief, that we could so easily speak of our spouses to each other. The irony of us meeting only because they had both lived and died was mentioned more than once.

He raised the question of food. I suggested fish and chips, eaten in the van. Apparently this was a plus point in my favour, him having nervously prepared to take me to a proper restaurant. (It was only in the fish and chips shop that I remembered I ought to let a friend know where I was).

That night, in my journal, I recorded this:

The Sitting Room Test, which he had passed almost immediately, was simply if I could imagine him in my minds eye sitting on my sofa in my living room.

And so began a distance relationship at weekends, with me going down to Glasgow occasionally on the train, and him driving up often to Forres. I developed a love of the city of Glasgow (canal walks, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the hustle and bustle of different nationalities, skin colours and accents); and he was catapulted into my large circle of friends, beach walks and small-town living.

Keeping my heart open ❤️

One of the things I’d promised myself before I met Ian was that if I ever had the chance to love and be loved again in this way, I would keep my heart wide open. I knew I hadn’t always been able to do this with Philip, and it had caused us some challenges in the marriage. So my tribute to Philip was going to be to do whatever it took to not close down and hide away on my own when things got difficult. Instead, I needed to sort it out and allow my heart to stay fully open to Ian.

Sure enough, the challenges came up within the first few weeks of what was turning out to be a proper long-distance relationship.

On the phone from Glasgow: “Make me a list of the things that need fixing in your flat”.

I laughed, but he insisted, “I’ll bring my bag of tools with me”. There were quite a few wee jobs that needed doing, so I took him at his word.

Later that weekend, tired and exasperated at how slow he was being with a computer problem, I heard myself shout, ‘Why can’t you do it my way?’ I proceeded to tell him exactly what I thought he should do. He listened. We agreed it was a good way to do it. I went off to make a cup of tea, secretly feeling pleased with myself. When I came back, he was doing it exactly the way he’d been doing it before.

I began to see that ‘talking this through’, while a common strategy in many relationships, and what I was used to from my marriage with Philip, was not going to work. So I took myself off for a walk in the woods, alone with my rampaging thoughts, my indignancy, and underneath it all, my vulnerability.

Walking surrounded by trees has always worked to calm me down, and so it did this time too. Half an hour after I was back, my mood had changed, I’d listened to my wise self, and understood I’d been busy trying to manipulate him. I let go of that, and opened my heart again. Meanwhile, he had noticed I was upset and had not only solved the computer issue, but put his skills to use by mending the toilet seat.

I laughed when I saw that. So gorgeous.

What about that list of qualities, written so long ago? I found it a while back. Ian has all the qualities I wrote down, bar one. Not bad, eh?

What was the one he didn’t have? It’s so inconsequential that I almost don’t want to tell you. But apparently at that time I was attracted to big muscles. Not any more – Ian is a slight build and although strong, big muscles is not part of his physique. Do I care? No! I am just delighted I have met him at all.

Keeping my heart open with Ian is still a regular choice, not just a one-off decision. Some days it’s easy. Some days it needs a walk in the woods. Always, I manage (eventually!) to meet him with an open heart, as he meets me.

We feel incredibly fortunate to have found each other, and been given a second chance at love.

Here’s a question:

How is it possible to have a close loved one die, be subsumed with grief, and yet have relief floating around too? Surely these two emotions cannot be companions? And even if they are, wouldn’t then guilt (for feeling relief) be lurking too?

Earlier this week I was having a meeting in a coffee house with myself, writing an article. A person I haven’t seen for years but had previously met at a business networking event approached.

“Sorry I didn’t see you the other night, because I wanted to tell you something. My mother-in-law has died recently after 4 years of dementia, the last two of those being bed-bound. It’s been an incredibly difficult time, I was so fond of her, and yet I felt such relief when she finally died. Grief with relief, is what I felt.”

We smiled together at that, both recognising a good title in those words. But not smiling as well, as we also acknowledged the way these two emotions really can sit together.

He then went on to tell me that because of the work I had done previously (my books Gifted By Grief, and Before I Go: The Essential Guide to Creating a Good End of Life Plan, plus the not-for-profit I had founded and ran for 7 years in this arena), he had felt confident to encourage his wife to find a good psychotherapist to help her with her grief (and relief).

My heart glowed. I love hearing how someone has been helped by my work, whether writing or coaching. It’s why I do it.

We parted laughing, with me thanking him for the topic of this post.

So back to the question of grief, with relief.

I remember when my late husband Philip was very near the end. He was in a private room in the NHS hospital in Aberdeen, had been moved there a few weeks previously. (At the time I thought he was there because I had requested the move; it took a while for it to sink in that it was much more likely they knew he was dying sometime soon).

After the doctor had said regretfully that there was nothing more they could do, I knew it would be only a matter of days before he died.

It’s possible those last few days might have been peaceful for him, except the medics couldn’t find the right combination of drugs to keep him pain-free as well as hallucination-free. It was extremely stressful to watch my lovely husband struggle with the effects of hallucinations, doing his best to interpret them as if they were real dreams (he had been a psychotherapist, so this was normal behaviour for him). The alternative was witnessing the effects of deep physical pain, not just from the stomach cancer, but also a massive bedsore.

In a strange sort of way I almost wanted him to die; I wanted him to be free of suffering, and for it to happen sooner than later. If he was never going to recover, why would I not want that for him? Knowing I would be bereft felt irrelevant.

So when he did eventually die, I was relieved. Not immediately, it took a while to sink in that he had actually gone (even though I was there and watched him take what turned out to be his last breath). But yes, I discovered quickly what it was like to be in the full throes of grief, with relief sitting alongside.

Did I feel guilty about the relief? No, not at all.

Did I find it easy being taken over by these emotions? No. In fact, I was knocked completely sideways by the strength of all sorts of feelings (see Gifted by Grief if you want to explore this more). Despite having studied bereavement and grief professionally, and having had some close friends die, nothing had prepared me for a precious husband dying.

It was awful. Awful. I don’t want to mince words here. And - I didn’t know at the time that I would come through this to a place where I could speak the words ‘gifted’ and ‘grief’ together. In fact, if you had mentioned that idea to me in the first year of grieving particularly, I would have been furious.

But life happened, experiences were had, discoveries made and I came to a place where I realised I was feeling ‘gifted’ by both Philip’s life AND his death. Weird, but true. Which is what propelled me to write the memoir.

I was reminded of all this when my colleague spoke so tenderly of his mother-in-law; it was easy for me to empathise and feel for him, as I had been there too, albeit in different circumstances. We had both been able to feel relief within our grief; guilt didn’t get a look in, because neither of us felt we were doing something wrong, which is the only place where guilt gets to grow.

So the question is answered.

Perhaps grief and relief are closer friends than we generally realise.

Love

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I gasped, and looked again.

Peering into the mirror, I focused on my cheeks. What on earth were those lines? I walked away, only to come back a few minutes later to double check. How could this have happened overnight?

It really floored me, this first discovery of these wrinkles, a few years ago. It took several days of coming to terms with this evidence of ageing in progress to be able to look at my face in even a slightly different way.

Meantime I found a photo of myself smiling when I was in my twenties, and everything harsh within me softened.

The grooves now showing in my cheeks were there all along, whenever I smiled. But they disappeared every time I stopped smiling, and so I’d never noticed them before.

Understandably, those repeated smiles over the years had made an imprint in my cheeks when my face was in repose. Hence what is now called wrinkles.

So I decided to make up a new meaning for wrinkles.

Here it is:

Wise Rare Inspiring Nice Kind Loving Enthusiastic Smiling (of course!)

Wise - because a lot more wisdom has been growing over the years I have lived (and hopefully I can look forward to more of it too, yay!) I trust that as you’re a reader here your wisdom is also growing too :)

Rare – because in a world of 8 billion people there is no-one else exactly like me. Or like you. Isn’t that quite amazing, when you think about it? It means there’s genuinely no-one else to compare myself to. What a dose of freedom that is! Affirming my rarity gives me confidence, and a little shot of joy too, when I really let go into getting my uniqueness.

Inspiring – often I’ve been told I’m inspiring (and I did win the Association of Scottish Business Women’s award for Woman of Inspiration in 2023). But actually I think anyone who is living their life authentically in any way, with passion and love, is an inspiration.

Nice – OMG that is a wee word that doesn’t always have a very good reputation, does it! But I was described as being nice the other day when I took the 9-year-old daughter of a neighbour up the road to groom my friend’s pony. We both had fun (so did the pony, whose eyes were half shut in a kind of blissful state as we untangled, combed and brushed her).

Kind – my mum always used to describe my granny, her mum, as kind, and I used to think it was a bit of a boring word, I couldn’t conjure up any excitement from it. For a lot of my years, especially my twenties and thirties, I’ve been into excitement. But as I’ve got older, I’ve thought differently about this quality. We sure need more of it in this world, so if I can reframe my wrinkles as representing kindness then that’s okay by me. It also means that in a world that has more and more ageing people, kindness gets to grow too.

Loving – after my first husband died in 2011, I promised myself that if I ever got the chance of love with someone again, I’d do my best to keep my heart open and loving (something I realised I hadn’t been too good at first time round). Mind you, it took quite a while before I really opened my heart to even the idea of there being someone else in my life. Anyway, I did get that chance, and I’ve been practicing keeping an open heart. (See next week’s post for how I met my husband, it’s an unusual story). Ah, so maybe that’s why the wrinkles seem to have appeared overnight – they are expressions of love! Well, it’s a ‘nice’ way to think about them, anyway.

Enthusiastic – I’m up for that, I say enthusiastically! This morning I was bubbling over with it. One of my private clients had finally managed (with my help) to get her will done and signed, and the next stage of her end of life plan completed. After it had bothered her in the background for years, she’d finally engaged me, and in just a few months we got there. The relief on her face was so lovely to witness.

Smiling – the late Barry Long used to remind his followers to ‘turn the corners of their mouths up’. It’s quite extraordinary how such a very simple physical movement can change your feelings; it’s impossible to stay down for long when your mouth is curling upwards at the sides. I’m not going to be stopping smiling any time soon, so instead I’ll welcome even more wrinkles and this new definition.

I’m just off to the mirror now to take a wee peek at these lovely indicators of all these words, and choose to feel good about myself.

How about you?

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Want to know a secret about me?

In the middle of the night, if I can’t sleep, I get up and watch First Dates Restaurant on the UK’s Channel 4. If you don’t know it, it’s people meeting on a blind date, filmed over dinner, with an update at the end on how they got on. Complete rubbish, really, but mostly uplifting and cheery — and when I’ve been lying awake fretting about something, watching other people being happy is a good antidote. It helps me go back to sleep.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I was in Bath, England a few weeks ago — the UNESCO World Heritage city — and we visited the actual First Dates Restaurant. I recognised it from the telly, it was full of old things suited to an ancient building. A cabinet of old books, paintings from long ago, a camera of dubious age.

And of course, being Bath, there were the Roman Baths, the honey-coloured buildings everywhere you look, and Georgian flagstones to pace up and down. I couldn’t get over the fact that I was walking the same pavements Jane Austen once traipsed along, between 1775-1817. I fell in love with her all over again.

It brought me back to the idea that we humans revere old things. Ancient trees (Bath has plenty); the remains of Roman daily life; and the famous people who once lived here, like Jane Austen (she’s the most famous).

So why don’t we revere old humans?

We do, a bit — David Attenborough, the late Queen of England, to name a couple. But mostly, Western society focuses on keeping ageing at bay for as long as possible, underpinned by the idea that getting old is a bad thing. Older people get dismissed as irrelevant, invisible, insignificant, often. We admire the ones “doing well for their age” and forget about the others.

It’s not on.

Why can’t we admire our older people the way we admire old buildings and old trees? Is it because they’re closer to the end — and the thought of death (our own, I mean) is too much to sit with?

I was catapulted into this situation the year before my husband died, fourteen years ago. Death hadn’t been much part of my life before that. Then there it was, in the form of cancer, warning us both that life isn’t infinite. It’s only possible at all because it ends.

Isn’t that amazing?

Statistics show that 100% of humans will die. No doubt about it. In a world with so much uncertainty, you’d think we wouldn’t flinch from the one thing that is actually certain.

But we do.

“Well, it’s better than the alternative,” people say of illness, as if death is the one thing to be avoided at any cost.

I’ve always thought it would be a big adventure, myself. Even as a little girl, I worked out death would probably be even better than being here on earth; and if it turned out to be nothing at all, I wouldn’t know about it, so that would be fine too.

I still believe that. Choose to believe it, actually. I don’t know. But living with that belief makes my time here much more enjoyable, and less scary.

But back to Bath and ancientness.

I was surrounded in that city by evidence of the humans who’d gone before me, thousands of years of plants, trees, fossils, and people. I pondered about our reverence of Jane Austen, who lived in a time where she couldn’t put her name on her own books without being cast aside by polite society. Her first editions now are highly sought after.

I wish we could respect older humans in the way we respect those first editions; the ancient trees of Bath, and those flagstones from so many years ago.

And still, I'm glad to be living now.

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Love

PS A huge thank you to all the new paid subscribers who have joined my Conscious Ageing Circle! The next intake for this will be in February 2027. Email me back if you’d like to be on the waiting list for then.

Recently, I posted a Note that’s had hundreds of comments, and they’re still coming in.

I was genuinely horrified that anyone could think of me as elderly, or that I might describe myself that way. From the comments, a lot of you felt exactly the same.

That reaction is what got me writing this. Clearly there’s an idea attached to the word “elderly”, and it’s not a flattering one. So here’s my take.

Elderly

For me, “elderly” conjures a stooped figure, perhaps with a stick, white haired, a bit frail, often needing help. Decline and dependency hover around it too.

I looked the word up. The Cambridge Dictionary calls it an adjective, apparently a polite word for “old”. Humph. Not that polite, not in my book, anyway.

As a noun, it describes a group of older people, though neither Cambridge nor Wiktionary will say what age that actually starts at. Not much help there, then. Wiktionary did offer “older adult” instead, which is rather pleasing to my ears, and apparently older adults themselves don’t much care for “elderly” either. My own research (your comments) backs that up entirely.

There’s a difference between “elderly” and “elder”

This came up early, when Wren Baker asked what’s wrong with being elderly, then went on to describe herself as an elder. Turns out there’s a big difference between those two words.

Elder:
My definition, as a noun: a word that commands respect and experience, honour, a position earned not just by the number of years lived but by the wisdom that shines through you.

It’s less about chronological age and more about how you’ve lived, and are still living. That’s why some communities call a whole section of their people “elders”. As an adjective, it works the same way, an elder statesman, a church elder, or simply someone older than you, as in “my elder sister”.

Elderly:

A very different animal. Here’s some of what it meant in the comments: dependence, decrepitude, fragile, wobbly, infirmity, inability, illness, needing to be looked out for, useless, needy, a burden to society, past useful, of advanced age, REALLY old people in rocking chairs.

(Oops. I have a rocking chair, and I love it. But I’m not REALLY old yet. What age is that, actually? Maybe always ten to fifteen years older than you currently are, as several readers suggested. I’m inclined to agree, unsurprisingly.)

Not a pretty picture, is it. Who’d want to be lumped in with any of that, as a generic label, let alone as a description for a whole group of people (”housing for the elderly”)? It’s just not okay.

What word do you prefer?

So if I’m not elderly, what am I? What are you? Here’s a few more of the words suggested in the comments:

senior, retired, olderish, old, crone, elder, in the fifth season, older adult, older than you were last year, youngerly, of advanced age, past middle age, been around for a while, experienced, evolving and still fully living, third ager, getting on, antique.

Judith Frizlen, who writes The Love Stack, suggested “entirement”, a nice reframe of retirement that could cover the whole of being older. I could get used to that.

I laughed at Gary Buzzard’s “baby elder”. Now 81, he wrote that he’s starting to feel his age more, and that he was pretty naive when he wrote the “best time of my life” stuff earlier on. He was a baby elder then. His advice: enjoy the moment.

And Diana gave me a definition of both words that I loved:

Elderly is an adjective that a short-sighted world has tainted, to describe slow, feeble, complaining humans who fear their inevitable death.

An elder is one who thrives with their gift of age, growing wiser day by day. We grasp each day as though it’s our last, using the wisdom of our years to power our tomorrows.

Being an elder

At 68 I can’t call myself young any more, or middle aged. So by that stark arithmetic, I’m old. I’m happy to say it. Trying it on, I notice the label fits fine. It’s just a fact. Not young. Not middle aged. Old.

There. Said it. And it feels okay.

Better than okay, actually, it feels like relief. (Nothing like admitting the truth to feel free again).

The next stage is accepting that word “elder”. I notice I’m not quite so keen on that one yet. But in Gary’s words, maybe I’m a baby elder - that feels more palatable right now.

The real trouble starts when we try to pin a number on any of these labels. Because why does it matter? Well, because past a certain age, and especially once others know what that number is, many Western cultures write you off. Dismissed, ignored, treated as invisible, and lumped in with every other word on that “elderly” list above. More on that in another article.

Age is relative

Of course it is. I remember being 19 and utterly convinced that by 25 I’d be a proper grown up, sorted, adult. Ha! And then, when you’re a child, every adult looks ancient.

It shifts by the day too. John Horton, turning 69 soon, admitted that some days he’s elderly in body and mind, while other days he’s a young whippersnapper on a mission. Tell me about it.

When I’m tired, I feel ancient. After a good night’s sleep, I’ve usually got my energy back and feel young again. (I’m open to being corrected here by anyone older than me, who might tell me the energy just steadily drains and a sleep no longer gives it back. I’m not there yet, though.)

And then, yesterday, in my gym class, I got a reminder of just how relative all of this really is.

A friend I hadn’t seen in years turned up unexpectedly. In the course of a quick catch up, she told me a friend of hers had been diagnosed with a brain tumour last Christmas, and died two weeks ago. She was 66. In the last three years, she said, she’d lost five friends and family members.

Next to that, whether I flinch at “elderly” or lean into “elder” stops mattering very much at all.

I remember this same jolt after my first husband died in 2011. For a good while after, when people told me their worries, I found I didn’t care as much as I once would have. In the face of death, most other things become irrelevant.

I don’t mind the idea of dying. I’m just not ripe for it yet. But the thing is, the grim reaper can turn up whenever it likes. That’s sobering, and it also makes being alive a good deal more alive. So next time I catch myself grumbling about something, I’m going to remember I’m lucky to be able to grumble at all.

There’s plenty more to say on this, not least about ageism, but that’s for another time.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this:

If you didn’t know your chronological age, how would you describe yourself? Old, older, ancient? Elderly, young, something else entirely? Let me know in the comments.

Love

PS. If you’re a woman who wants to keep having conversations like this one, in real life (well, on Zoom), my Conscious Ageing Circle for women is open for new members right now. Check it out here: https://www.janeduncanrogers.com/conscious-ageing-circle and let me know if you’d like a chat :)

On a Zoom call about three years ago, I saw someone had written ‘she/her’ after their name. I’d never seen that before, so I private messaged her in the chat and asked what it meant.

“As a cisgender person, I’m stating my pronouns to show my support for the non-binary movement”.

Cisgender? What? I had to ask her what that meant too. She was very polite, factual and explained it means your internal gender matches the sex you were assigned at birth.

I thanked her, and then completely ignored what the host of the call was saying for the next ten minutes or so.

Because I was reeling.

Somehow I’d reached the ripe old age of 68 without having to think about the word cisgender, or even the fact of its existence. And now, here was a Zoom call shouting it out to me.

My mind went haywire:

‘Oh for goodness sake, surely you’re either male or female, why do they have to make such a big fuss?’ (I’m not proud of this reaction at all; I’d never heard of the term ‘intersex’ at that point).

‘But it’s so difficult to use a plural term when you just want to talk about one person!’ (Though actually, we do this all the time without noticing. ‘Someone’s dropped their glove, I hope they find it.’ We just never clock it.)

‘But what if I get it wrong, I really don’t want to offend anyone’

‘We managed fine for years, why has it become such a big deal now?’

All incredibly judgemental and definitely not helpful.

It was my introduction to a whole new world, with a whole new vocabulary, which became much more personal very shortly afterwards.

It becomes personal

A friend shared with me that her daughter (as she was then) had sat their parents down one day and announced they didn’t want to be identified as male or female anymore, that they were going to change their name to a gender-neutral version (eg Alex) and the reasons why.

I was intrigued how it affected my friend and her husband.

“Well, it was a bit of a shock, but more than anything we were curious as to how this had come about, what it meant for them, and for us, and how we could support them.”

Curiosity was high on my agenda too, even more so as a couple of years ago my nephew in England had begun a relationship with someone whose pronouns were ‘they/them’.

I had the occasional chat with friends about it, but none of it translated into me making an effort to change the way I thought, and certainly not as far as making a stand and adding my own pronouns into my Zoom signature.

It bothered me that I had lived for so long, had travelled a lot, had many unusual experiences, and yet still found myself catapulted into a whole new world. I really didn’t want to be left on the sidelines if this was a ‘thing’ (and it is).

So when a local person was offering a training about this, I jumped at it. And what I learnt there changed something, and not just my email signature.

I’m so glad I attended that training.

I learnt so much. But primarily I learnt that from my point of view as an older person to whom all this is new territory, a decision needed to be made.

The decision

This is a decision to deliberately interrupt myself from categorising people into males and females, in my thoughts and my speech, and to start behaving more inclusively.

I say this is a decision because it reminded me of a similar thing with buying local, or shopping organically, both of which I like to do.

I prefer to support local businesses and shops if I can because I want to see the emphasis on our local communities growing and thriving, and minimising the apparent takeover by the big monopolies. It’s why I search online for the books I want, and then go and either find them in my local library or order them through the local bookshop.

I’m in the fortunate position of not having to count every single penny to make sure there are enough to enable me to eat, pay utility bills, and other essential costs. But even if I was (and I certainly have been in the past), I’m still clear it is a decision that needs to be made first as to what kind of lifestyle I want, or am aspiring to.

It’s the same with pronouns

So it seemed to me it was the same with pronouns, and what they represent.

The presenter suggested we could change our pronouns on our email signature and Zoom address, as a way of ‘usualising’ the fact that people are not neatly categorised any more into just male and female.

I’d never heard that word before either, but I quickly came to understand why it needed to be used instead of the more common ‘normalise’.

So for the first time I really took in how I could be supportive of the presenter, my friend’s child (nearly said daughter there, that’s how ingrained all this is) and my nephew’s civil partner.

I went home and added in my pronouns to my email and Zoom signature (she/her) immediately. It was a shock when I saw them the first few times; but I’m growing to like it and feel good about me supporting them in this way.

Plus, and just as important, I am correcting myself all the time when I use the incorrect pronoun to describe someone. Which is often!

Here is a great link if you want to know more, and a downloadable pdf graphic of The Genderbread Person too.

Last week, I attended my nephew’s wedding. Some of his and his partner’s friends were non-binary.

Standing in a woodland glade, sun dappling through the trees, handfasting ceremony and all — I realised I wasn’t thinking about pronouns anymore.

I was just thinking about how happy everyone looked; how happy I felt; and how wonderful we live in a world of delightful diversity and differences.

Love

PS I inadvertently switched off the comments on this post when it first went live, so that’s why no-one is discussing anything below. Oh well, you live and learn…

‘What is the purpose of me being alive after I’ve retired?”

That was the blunt question said to me recently. A friend just said it straight out, no dressing up. Not even requiring an answer, but rather one of those questions that needs space to breathe, while an answer finds it’s way to the surface.

It’s a good question. It’s right in your face, because when ‘who you were’ while you were working is no longer there, the whole structure that made you ‘who you were’ has gone as well.

The vacuum nobody warns you about

Many people arrive in their mid sixties, or a bit later, and recognise they need to retire. Some have to, because the role they were doing simply isn’t there any more. Others feel the pull of a private pension and the thought of not having to do anything, and that pull is too strong to resist.

(This isn’t quite my own experience, by the way. When you’ve been self employed for 35 years like I have, it’s a completely different thing. More on that later.)

But for many people, retirement means stopping the main job that earned them a living. Some carry on part time, because they have to or because they want to. Even then, a vacuum, an empty space, can show up. Time that was longed for finally arrives, but it turns out to be wanting.

Wanting

Wanting, because if you don’t have to set an alarm, why would you get up? And even if you did, when would be the “right time” to get out of bed?

Wanting, because when there’s nothing you have to do, the day stretches out long ahead of you, punctuated only by feeling hungry, wanting a cup of tea, maybe a phone call with someone, your body needing to move.

Wanting, because unexpected feelings can gather. Confusion. Doubt. A lack of confidence, of purpose, of relevance. A feeling of invisibility. This is especially hard if you’ve held a position of authority and power. When that’s stripped away, what are you left with?

Who am I now?

Were you ever only defined by your role at work? If, for instance, I can no longer say “I’m Jane Duncan Rogers of Before I Go Solutions”, how do I describe myself?

If your work lent itself credibility for you, or your job title was a short-hand way of letting someone know you were important, or you were attached to that role in a way that you now realise might have been a bit unhealthy, it all gets quite uncomfortable when you have to consider this question ‘who am I now?’

And what on earth do you say at a party when someone asks what you do?

“I’m retired.” A conversation stopper if ever there was one.

“I work part time as a ____.” Still defining yourself as a useful member of society, still contributing.

“Um, not much. I see people, I volunteer for a couple of charities, I’m working out what’s next.” A burbling, often associated with an apologetic feeling.

(I had a taste of this myself, despite being self-employed for most of my life, after I passed on the managing directorship of the not-for-profit I set up in 2016. I discovered that I’d been much more identified with that role than I’d realised, hence I spent a year dealing with a myriad of feelings before what eventually bubbled to the surface was a desire to write again, leading to the birth of Embracing Ageing).

What do you do?

Western society runs on that question. It really means “how do you spend your days?”, with the assumption that before retirement you worked, and the curiosity is about what that work was.

After retirement, the underlying question is actually exactly the same. How do you spend your days? Except now the answer is less thrilling than naming your old profession. Instead it’s a mumble about walking, reading, golf for some, grandchildren for others.

Mumble, because let’s be honest, there’s a shame or even just discomfort that can lurk in the early months, sometimes years, of retirement.

• Discomfort that a meaningful, impactful life has apparently come to an end.

• Discomfort that now you’ve got what you wanted, it’s turning out to not be quite what you wanted after all.

• Discomfort at not finding your way, despite being well educated, well regarded in your field, and desperate for time to do nothing right up until the moment you got it.

Because when “do nothing” finally arrives, and there’s too much of it, shame or discomfort can easily slink in the back door and start unpacking its bags.

So then what?

I said I’d come back to my own experience, so here it is.

I’ve never retired.

Thirty five years of being self employed means no role has ever been stripped away from me overnight, other than when I was made redundant in my twenties. The nearest I got to it was the experience in the year before I began this Substack. But I’ve watched people I love go through exactly what I’ve described here.

And what I notice is this.

The ones who find their footing again in retirement aren’t the ones who fill the day the fastest. They’re the ones who get curious about who they are underneath the job title.

Who were you before you were what you did?

I’m going to write that one again, because it’s easy to mis-read it:

Who were you, before you were what you did?

There’s not a quick answer necessarily to this question, rather, it’s a question worth sitting with. Because if you’re experiencing, or have experienced, the kind of discomfort or shame I’m talking about, then at some point, you lost sight of who you were without the guise of a role. Just like I did.

I’d love to know your responses. Did you recognise any of this? What got you through the vacuum, or what’s sitting in it for you right now? Let me know in the comments.

Leave a comment

Love

PS. This is the kind of chat we have in my monthly Conscious Ageing Circle (for women only). If you’d like more of that kind of quality conversation, then check it out here, it’s open for new members right now.

Excitedly, I told my friend that my husband and I were going down to Edinburgh on the train last Monday, to visit the Biba exhibition.

“Who’s Biba?” she said.

Gulp.

Here was our age difference, starkly highlighted, not something that normally occurs to either of us; but the fact is, I am 18 years older than her and she’s never heard of Biba.

I caught my husband’s eye, both of us giggling as we started to explain, not making a very good job of it.

(Just in case you don’t know, Biba was a fashion and lifestyle brand created by Barbara Hulanicki in the Sixties. It had arguably as much impact in the world of fashion as The Beatles had in the world of music).

But back to age, and one of the aspects of it that many simply shy away from, if not put their heads in the sand about .

It’s highlighted in this Biba story because of what happened at the exhibition. Held at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh (a world-renowned tapestry studio and vibrant centre for contemporary art, craft, and design), I was somewhat disappointed to see that the Viewing Balcony where we could see weavers at work was closed. The stairs up still looked tempting though, especially when our eye was caught by a sculpture.

Walking up the forbidden stairs, we paused in front of it, imagining how lovely it would look in our garden (not that it was for sale). Turning around, we saw an extraordinary piece of weaving curling up the stairwell:

As we were admiring this, a man came towards us, letting us know the balcony area was out of bounds. Nodding our heads that we knew this, he suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

“Wait a minute – are you something to do with Before I Go?” popped out of his mouth.

And my mouth dropped open in response.

“Yes, I wrote the book of that title”, I replied, with a look of surprise.

“I thought so! I’ve a great memory for faces and I recognised you! That was a wonderful book, your work in that area is so important” – and off he went, effusing about how crucial end of life planning is, how he used to work in the Moray Arts Centre near where I live, and had regularly come across what I’ve been up to in this last decade or so.

I, meanwhile, was still dealing with being flabbergasted.

What an extraordinary turn of events, to get us to bump into each other! How lovely to have my end of life planning work so appreciated (it’s not everyone who can see how important this kind of thing is; I’m more used to people turning their backs when they hear what I’m up to in this field).

We left and went downstairs into the main Biba exhibition, which was wonderful.

I never had any Biba clothes; during that era I was a young teenager, obsessed more with ponies than fashion, insistent that I was going to wear knee length white socks forever and never go near a pair of tights. Living in Belfast then, we were another lifetime away from London and the hot fashion scene.

That time had an impact on me though, and my husband’s first wife had had a Biba dress, so we were keen to explore more.

Admiring this dress, a tap on my shoulder brought me face to face with the young man from upstairs again.

“Here”, he said, and handed me his business card, “please stay in touch, there’s lots more discussions we can have, I’m sure”.

I was touched, all over again.

Who knows what might come of this connection? If it’s just talking shop about death with someone, that’s fine by me. If it’s something more, that’s fine too. Watch this space!

This story leads me into letting you know that after a break, I am working again privately with a couple of people who want to get their end of life plans done (but by themselves are just not getting around to it).

Yes, I know.

This is not part of ageing that many want to admit to, especially with the emphasis so often in the Western culture on how to postpone ageing (and therefore death) for as long as possible, whether by manufactured products or sensible life-advice.

But I’ve been working in this field for over a decade now, I keep being asked about it, and as I’ve never been afraid to talk about death, it often comes up in conversations with me.

And here it is again!

These people have hired me to be their (well-informed) companion along the way. As I’m also known for being able to help people take action, it’s a good combination. (If you’re someone who could do with some support in this area, then let me know, or take a peek here for more info).

In the meantime, ask your children and younger friends if they’ve heard of Biba. And if you have any Biba outfits or items, let me know in the comments. Add your pics, I’d love to see them!

Love

PS My Conscious Ageing Circle is being opened up again in August, look out soon for more info if you’re interested in joining us in monthly live, online, conscious conversations, with laughter, insight, (and droll wit occasionally), all on the subject of getting older…

Enough ‘trying to make it happen’.

Enough dithering about which draft to improve and get sent out this morning.

Enough feeling pressure to perform.

It’s time for a little bit of fun!

It’s A.A. Milne’s famous poem - which inspired me to write the poem coming after (not so famous).

The words came spontaneously last night, after a lovely day in the garden, a bike ride, and a bath. Amazing what happens when you let go, isn’t it?

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three,
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

A.A. Milne

When I was Fifty-four

Death knocked at my door.

When I was Fifty-nine,

I began to shine.

When I was Sixty-two

I felt brand new.

When I was Sixty-five

I was alive, alive!

And now I’m Sixty-eight

I’ve found a new mate.

…………

Seventy will bring

All manner of thing

And seventy five?

Even more alive.

Then if there’s more

I’ll be glad to the core.

For life is gifted

And I, I am uplifted.

(Especially after a day in the warm sunshine, pottering about in the garden. Here’s some pics of mine and other gardens nearby).

Enjoy your weekend, and see you next week!

Love

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Last week I said I was going to be experimenting with making some articles paid for, and the one last week (The word I’d never heard at 68 and what I did about it) was indeed that.

I was so delighted when two people felt they wanted, and were able to, commit to supporting me in this way. Thank you, you know who you are!

This week, the article is for everyone, so read on and discover how many gold stars you get!

8 (apparently) easy hobbies that slow brain ageing

(Inspired by an article in the I paper in the UK)

Well, it’s an attention-grabbing headline for sure. Fancy a bit of fun? I’m awarding myself gold stars for how many I am doing, feel free to do the same.

But before you read on, see if you can guess what these hobbies might be.

I bet you are fulfilling the first one already…

Okay, here we go:

Read fiction twice per week.

Twice per week? I read fiction twice per day if at all possible! So obviously that makes up for the other hobbies I’m not doing, right? 🤭 In the article above, the journalist writes that reading at least twice a week has been ‘associated with a reduced risk of cognitive decline for older adults”. That’s very good news, given reading fiction is a top priority for me. Gold star number 1 ⭐

Gaming is good for you.

Those who do Wordle, or other online puzzles could be streets ahead of me (I don’t do gaming stuff of any kind online at all). But actually, Prof. Catherine Loveday, author of The Secret World of the Brain, says that video games have “been shown to be good for mental health for many people because they’re so immersive. Sometimes there’s also a social element too. It’s not something we should see as the preserve of teenagers.” Okay, so Wordle, crosswords and other puzzles might just be a bit of ultra-processed food for the brain compared to more elaborate video games, but surely it’s better than nothing? Or maybe I need to open my mind to experiencing a video game and the mental challenges it brings. Suggestions anyone?

Practice a musical instrument several times a week.

This is another one I don’t do, I don’t play any instrument at all. Apparently this learning lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol. That’s a good thing because high levels of this hormone can interfere with attention. And there’s no doubt about it, to play a musical instrument requires high levels of focused attention. Prof Loveday says learning the piano will challenge you more than the guitar; and singing is a way of interacting with music that is cheap and fast.

I do belong to a choir, (The Accidentals) and learning the words and music is a distinct challenge. Actually, I can pick up the music ( I don’t sight read) fairly easily, but learning the words is a bit of a slog. I might find it easier now I know its like taking my brain out for a brisk walk. I think I’m going to be kind and give myself a star for this ⭐

Write a journal before bed

I’ve always written a journal, but it’s not before bed, I wonder if that counts? That’s a bit tongue in cheek, I realise, as I read on to discover that reflecting on what has happened in your day apparently supports your memory (that’s okay then, as I do that reflecting when I’m in bed and writing down what I’m being grateful for). I didn’t realise though that the act of writing with pen and paper helps my fine motor control; and that the analysing of emotions that comes with this kind of reflection is also beneficial. Well, I’m usually up for a good bit of analysis so that’s heartening to hear too. Gold Star number 3. ⭐

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Spend 10 minutes a day learning a language
If you knew that learning a second language would improve your ability to retrieve words, would you do it? That’s what Loveday writes, and it’s backed up by a study in the journal of Experimental Psychology that showed that learning a second language changed the thickness of the left inferior frontal gyrus, part of the prefrontal cortex involved in attention and working memory. Mind you, that’s particularly so in childhood, which most of you reading this will be very far away from. Hint - learning a language that you already learnt in school will make it easier. That’ll be Spanish for me then. (But actually I am not going to opt for this one. Got enough on my plate already).

Get knitting
Last winter I attempted to knit a small bolero top. I’ve knitted before and it has worked out fine, but this time round it was a disaster and I had to unravel it all. I wonder if the unravelling also counts towards the improved co-ordination and working memory that happens when actually knitting? In the British Journal of Occupational Therapy, a study of over 3500 knitters showed “a significant relationship between knitting frequency and feeling calm and happy”. I’ll have to dig out my needles again then, although it’ll have to wait until winter otherwise it will be competing with the garden…

Enjoy chess

No. I am not going to do this one. I have never been attracted to it, and the thought of it does not bring me joy, so in the words of Marie Kondo ‘if it doesn’t bring you joy, then let it go”. That’s it then, chess - you are not for me. But if you do like chess, then you’ll also like the fact that chess players had better cognitive reflection when analysing a maths problem, and greater focus on long-term outcomes than non-chess players (a tiny study of a total of 50 people, but even so). I’m not sure if this also applies to draughts, though, which I have been known to play.

Get out in your garden (or balcony, tubs, windowboxes)

I’ve saved my favourite for last (not quite - I began with another of my favourites).
Green fingers are it, apparently. And they don’t even have to be that green. Some studies have shown that levels of brain nerve growth factors related to memory were significantly increased after just 20 minutes of low to moderate intensity gardening, including digging, raking and watering. My memory must definitely be getting better then, as pottering about in the garden especially in spring time, is a must for me. (Secret - my first port of call in the early mornings is a tour round the garden, chatting to my plants, saying hallo, asking if they’re all right, seeing what they need. It’s almost like preparing breakfast for them). Gold Star number 4, then ⭐

So I got four stars out of a possible eight. How about you? ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’d argue that none of these are as important as simply enjoying doing whatever you are doing (the benefits of that are incalculable); but if your pleasure and enjoyment happen to coincide with these hobbies, or if you’ve been thinking about doing one of them, then this info is an added bonus to what you were already going to do. And perhaps a nudge to actually do it!

Now, shall I just go off and read my current utterly brilliant and engaging novel (The Maid, by Nita Prose), or pop out into the garden again?

See you next time, lots of love

Surrounded by majestic trees, their leaves fluttering in the gentle breeze, the heat of the sun on my shoulders was broken, thankfully, by their dappled patterning.

I slipped off my sandals; the long, lush green grass felt so cool. I had found The Glade.

It was to be the home of my nephew’s wedding, and my husband and I had arrived three days early to help with the organisation.

The Glade was stunning in it’s natural beauty, and housed a woodland kitchen, a cobwebby but perfectly functional compost toilet, and a cold tap. Blackened kettles on an ancient two-burner gas stove provided for the necessary cups of tea (we were in England, after all, famous tea-drinkers).

My eyes spotted several meandering grassy paths through the wooded area.

A swing hanging on long, long ropes from a tall branch, offering a slow movement backwards and forwards through the warm air.

The discovery of a secret spot by an overgrown pond, the air thick with mock orange.

Yards and yards of multi-coloured felt bunting awaited me in a bag.

Music was to be supplied by a generator, wanting stronger arms than mine to carry it from the car to the glade. Food was being provided for by caterers, but tables needed collecting, put up, and bright African-style cotton tablecloths unpacked.

These three days were going to be hard work. Yes, those days were hard physical work, but hard in another way too.

It dawned on me slowly, but finally landed on the day of the handfasting celebration itself, in the face of lots of young people (of course – the two getting married are in their early twenties).

But also in the face of a missing generation.

My brothers and sister were there. Their children were there too. But where was the older generation, the grandparents, the aunties and uncles? That’s when it hit me.

My husband and I WERE the older generation.

This showed up for me in having to ask one of my nieces to tie the bunting rope around a knobbly branch, the arthritis in my thumb not allowing me to tie a simple knot.

It showed up in having to ask for help with taking off three stiff jam jar lids. I manage this fine at home, but I have a jar opener to help me.

It showed up in feeling envious of the many young ones who dressed so flamboyantly, with brightly painted faces, and (apparently) brim full of confidence. At their age, I was shy, nervous and not at all confident, although I probably appeared so too.

And it showed up in a small flicker of embarrassment when I needed to ask for help.

I wasn’t quite ready to fill the footsteps of my parents.

But nor did I want to feel their absence.

They would have been bemused by this alternative type of wedding, would have lapped up the creativity in the outfits of the young, the unexpected playing of Nellie the Elephant at the end of the handfasting ceremony, the sheer beauty of the setting.

I lapped it up too.

But I also felt simultaneously bemused, thrilled, useful, enchanted, old, alive, needed, delighted, strained and just a teeny bit thrown off balance.

I didn’t feel ready to claim this space, even though it was clearly earmarked for me.

Perhaps it had arrived the same way the arthritis in my thumb had arrived. Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just little bit by little twinge-y bit, so by the time I really paid attention, it was already there.

Later in the evening I took myself off to the swing, set slightly apart from where the main party was happening. Simply sitting there, legs dangling, watching the festivities, was soothing.

With every long, languid sweep, the cooling air brushed against my legs. Above the music, the birds still chattered in the trees. The colourful bunting provided those dancing round the firepit with a cheerful backdrop.

My parents would have loved it.

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This weekend I’m at my nephew’s wedding in York, England - an alternative, DIY affair about which I will be writing next week, as I have rather soberingly realised my husband and I are the oldest people in this gathering. But in the background I’ve still been reflecting about this idea of retirement, so here’s my thoughts on this - enjoy!

What do you do? I asked the woman I’d just met at a local gathering.

‘I’m retired’, she replied.

It was a conversation stopper.

Almost as good as when I used to say, ‘I help people make good end of life plans.’ I’ve had people deliberately turn round and walk away from me when I uttered those words. They were even worse than when I used to say I was a psychotherapist.

Anyway, I felt mildly irritated, because when someone answers this question with those two words, there isn’t easily another place to go.

And actually, I realised, I don’t care that much about what someone’s role is. I want to know how they spend their days, or what lights them up, or occupies their minds and hearts.

So now I try to ask new people I meet things more along the lines of:

• What do you do that you most love?

• How do you spend your time?

• What makes your heart sing?

Because that’s what I’m genuinely interested in. Not what they “do”, which is often just shorthand for asking how they make money.

Not that any of this was really an issue until, according to other people, I myself became “retired”.

Personally, I didn’t think retirement had happened at all. I thought I had simply started receiving my state pension. But apparently everyone else interpreted this as me now being retired, when I was just ecstatic about getting a pension at all.

(I don’t know what I thought was going to happen exactly, but when I first received notification from the government that I qualified for the full pension, and that it would arrive every four weeks without me having to do anything, I was over the moon. Of course I’d been paying into the system all those years, and had made sure I contributed enough to receive the full amount, but somehow that had never translated in my mind into: “Goodness me. Money is now going to arrive regularly until I die, without me having to do anything for it” (hopefully). It felt like a gift. It still feels like a gift. And I feel genuinely grateful for it. I know for many people it’s nowhere near enough to live on. Me neither, actually. But I’ve also always made sure I had more than one source of income, so those are still there too).

What really fascinated me most, though, was how quickly other people changed their perception of me.

Suddenly I was being asked things like:

• ‘What are you going to do now you’re retired?’

• ‘What’s retirement like then?’

• ‘I hear you’ve retired — congratulations!’

I realised people were now seeing me as a lady of leisure. Almost immediately I was invited to join several committees, the assumption being that I must now have acres of spare time available for volunteering.

Which was news to me. Besides, I already volunteer in various capacities.

So my response has generally been: ‘I’m not retired. I work part-time as a writer.’

That tends to keep the conversation alive far better than the word retirement. It opens doors instead of closing them. People ask what I write about, how long I’ve been doing it, whether I enjoy it. The conversation can breathe easily again.

And this all links back to the article I wrote last week about being self-employed and lack of structure, and therefore never experiencing that abrupt hard stop many people go through when they leave employment one day and wake up the next without a job to go to.

Because the more I think about it, the more I realise the word retirement itself is part of the problem.

This word ‘retirement’

The word comes from the French retirer, meaning “to withdraw” or “go back”. In the 1500s it was used in military language to mean retreating or drawing back. Later it also came to mean withdrawing from public life or going away for privacy. By the 1660s it had begun to mean leaving one’s occupation. Around the same time it also acquired the meaning of “going to bed”, which may still be one of its more common uses today.

But in relation to work, retirement has come to imply something very definitive. A full stop. A stepping away. A retreat.

And I wonder whether that idea is becoming outdated.

Retirement due purely to age was actually abolished in the UK in 2011 when the Default Retirement Age of 65 was scrapped. People now can continue working, negotiate part-time arrangements, change careers, reduce hours, or reinvent themselves entirely.

And increasingly, that’s exactly what people are doing.

In my own life, having several sources of income has always been completely normal. I’ve earned money at different times through seeing clients, running workshops, writing books, royalties, online work, and now I include part-time roles taking minutes for organisations in that patchwork quilt of creativity. (Yes, I’m one of those strange people who genuinely enjoys taking minutes.)

So does that mean I’m retired?

Or not retired?

Does retirement only apply if you stop doing the one main thing that used to provide your primary income?

And what happens if there never was one main thing?

What does ‘retirement’ actually mean?

In rural communities especially, it’s very common for one person to be the local publican, the hairdresser, and the estate agent all at once. There simply aren’t enough customers nearby to sustain only one profession.

And nowadays, especially among younger generations, portfolio working is becoming increasingly normal anyway. Multiple jobs. Freelancing. Side businesses. Part-time employment combined with self-employed creative work.

So what exactly does retirement mean in a world like that?

Do you retire from all of it? Or only some of it? Or do you simply reshape your life into a form that suits your energy, interests and health as you age?

So perhaps a more useful question altogether, to my as well as everyone else, is not the assumption of: “When will you retire?”

But the much more curious thought of: “How do you want to live now?”

Because for many people, continuing to contribute, create, work, help, write, make, grow, mentor or serve is not something they want to stop or retire from. It’s just a part, sometimes a very big part, of being alive.

Of course health changes things eventually. Bodies slow down. Minds may too. Some people are forced to stop working far earlier than they’d like, while others continue well into their eighties or nineties simply because they love what they do, and can physically and mentally still do it.

But then that feels to me like a conversation about ageing, capacity and wellbeing — not necessarily retirement.

So I think the old image of retirement — the overnight transition from being ‘someone’ to being ‘no-one’, along with the assumption that you’ll now become a person totally dedicated to leisure activities alone — belongs to another era.

Because maybe what many of us are doing now is not retiring, or withdrawing, at all.

Maybe we’re simply rearranging the shape of our days differently.

I meet regularly with a couple of other women to discuss our businesses. We call it our MistressMind, inspired by the concept of a Mastermind as originally created by Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill. The basis of a Mastermind is simple: several minds together create a bigger “mind” that helps solve problems, address challenges and, of course, offer support.

We have a particular structure.

First, the kettle goes on. (Of course it does, we’re British!)

Then we do a short check-in while sipping tea (one minute), followed by a round of celebrations (another minute), then ten minutes of silent sitting. After that, we divide the remaining time equally between us, to use whatever way we want, leaving five minutes or so at the end to arrange future meetings.

It’s a structure that works well — and has done ever since my first husband and I started it locally, back in 2008 when we arrived here in Forres, North Scotland.

Yesterday in our meeting, when it was my turn, I found myself pondering a change in rhythm that I’ve noticed in my life.

Retirement takes on a different shape when you’re self-employed.

Mostly, people work in a job and then retire. For the generation likely reading this post, that has either already happened or is about to happen. They go from full-on working life to… not working. Overnight, often. (The Old Grey Thinker writes very well about this, by the way.)

I’ve rarely written about this kind of retirement because I’ve been self-employed since my early thirties, and it’s a very different experience from having a job.

I’ve always been in charge of my own time. I can work when I want to and pace myself as I wish. In theory at least.

In practice, it has sometimes meant working when everyone else works too — Monday to Friday, 9–5. But for the most part, I have been working from home for over 35 years, and arrange my hours to suit me.

I wrote my first book in 1997 (Choose Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, now out of print). That was in the days of word processors but not the internet; of typewritten letters, not email; of phone conversations, not texts or Whats Apps. I arranged my day to write in the mornings, undisturbed, and do everything else, including seeing private clients (I was counselling at the time) in the afternoons.

I had to be that disciplined with my schedule to make sure things got done, and I’ve continued like that ever since:

Monday to Friday:

• 9am–1pm for creative work and planning

• 1–3pm lunch and a nap (non-negotiable)

• 3-5/6pm meetings, clients and other commitments

There had to be flexibility within that, especially because working with people in America often meant evening calls too. As I got older, I had to make sure to take time off during the day if I was going to work in the evening. But the thing is, I could do that. I wasn’t tied, as an employee is, to the 9-5 timetable. (I’ve often wondered - how on earth do people manage without naps after lunch?)

Pension freedom

When you’re self-employed you’re hopefully doing something you love, so why would you want to stop altogether, as often happens in retirement? And especially not overnight.

But even if you do want to retire, it often means people simply do a bit less of what they love, then describe themselves as working part-time.

I know several psychotherapists who still see weekly clients, maybe not enough for a full practice, but still working nonetheless, keeping up to date, challenging themselves and helping others with their learnings, wisdom, and many years of experience. Similarly, I know tradespeople who work half days only; and other solo professionals who cut their customer list in half.

For me, things began to change when I started receiving my state pension. I’d never paid into a private pension (like many others in the UK), which I now realise was probably a mistake. (Hint: if you happen to be under 50 and reading this, I highly recommend paying into one — even a small amount at this age will make a difference later on).

What surprised me was not the pension itself, but what it represented: the possibility of working less. And if I’d had a private pension too, I could potentially have chosen not to work at all.

As it is, the state pension isn’t enough to live on in the way I wish to live, so I’ve created several other income streams too — Substack being one of them.

By the time I reached retirement age at 66, I was also in the middle of handing over the running of the not-for-profit organisation I’d founded in 2016. Ironically, that was the one period when I had actually been employed by a company, albeit for tax reasons. Gradually I did less and less work for them until, one day, I didn’t do any at all; at the same time winding down my individual clients.

That led to 2023 becoming my first year of what many insisted on calling my ‘retirement’. I never really related to that word, but it was true I was doing practically no work. It meant a year of living on very little. But in December 2024 I started writing this Substack, and since then I’ve considered it my ‘work’.

The funny thing is, I love writing so much that it doesn’t really feel like work in the traditional sense — not in the “I’d rather not be doing this” sort of way.

But during yesterday’s MistressMind meeting, I found myself wondering whether that rhythm I outlined above actually suits me anymore. And I asked myself a question:

If I’m not so disciplined and stop making myself work in the mornings, whether I like it or not, would anything get done?

I would have to trust myself to do the things that still need doing — writing, Substack marketing, admin and so on — at times when traditionally I’ve assumed I have less energy and less ability to think clearly.

And that’s what I’m in the middle of experimenting with.

A new rhythm which isn’t really a rhythm at all, because it relies on me doing what I’m motivated and inspired to do in the moment. It means not putting times to ‘work’ in the diary, and being willing to look ahead at blank weeks in the diary, not just days.

So far, I’ve noticed that when I’m genuinely motivated to do something, it happens far more easily than when I’m forcing myself into a schedule.

So perhaps the real question is:

Can I trust myself to follow a new rhythm?

Can I trust that the work will get done, that deadlines will be met, that I will get my newsletter out each Sunday morning, regardless of when it gets written? (I started it at 6.30am one morning, and I’m now back looking at it at 4.45pm one day later in the week).

It’s quite scary!

But it is an experiment. Watch this space.

And as always, I’m intrigued to know how you manage to get things done, now you’re retired (or not having to work as much, or like you did, any longer).

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I obviously didn’t have enough holiday time recently, as I am needing more space to think, create and look ahead (I didn’t do any of this on holiday, just spent hours and hours reading in the sunshine bliss!)

So instead of an article today, here’s a few pics to show you what we did in between having hours and hours to read, and a poem below.

What was I reading? Well, I do like a good page turner, especially on holiday. So I returned to an old favourite author, Penny Vincenzi, who wrote The Spoils of Time trilogy. Set from before the First World War onwards, it follows the fortunes of a family and their publishing business. I’m still on book 3, and have been learning a lot about publishing in the old days, not to mention social history, it’s fascinating.

Anyway, today, I wanted to share with you this excerpt from Donna Ashworth’s book Joy Chose You; it really spoke to me this morning:

Awakening

The older I get, the more I realise that all this talk of women having gone mad is actually just women waking up one day, smelling the coffee and feeling furious. Furious that they twisted themselves like a pretzel all these years trying to confirm to what others wanted them to be. Furious that they didn’t say no more, or - more to the point - that they didn’t say hell no more. Furious that they didn’t say yes more, that they didn’t feel they could put their themselves first. Furious that their feelings, their emotions and their desires were branded as hormonal all these years, as a lame excuse to fob them off and not face up to bad behaviour. And no, this is not menopause. This is called awakening. The older I get the more I realise that women are not going mad. In fact they are becoming very sane indeed.

It spoke to me because even though I am many years away from menopause now, I am still awakening, still learning to say no and yes more, and revisiting anger from my past with a new perspective. There is something bubbling away in the background about this; I’m not ready to write about it yet, but I will be, so watch this space!

Have a lovely week

Love

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You know when, despite years of experience, you still make a rookie mistake? That happened to me last week when I sent out an email, and the link to the poll didn’t work. You might have noticed.

Oops. I hadn’t tested the link.

Now that really is a basic error, so basic, I just had to laugh. Fortunately a fair few of you emailed me back to answer the question, and I really appreciated that. Thank you, and the end result is that the new offering I’m creating is still cooking, not quite ready yet! But you will be the first to know about it, of course.

Btw - there will be no article next week as I am on holiday in SW Scotland, woo hoo! (Unless of course I get bitten by the writing bug…)

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the article below and can come up with a euphemism or two of your own…

The One Word That Sends Readers Running

I reckon it was a word in the title that put people off. I used it last week and that article had the smallest email open rate ever in the last 18 months since I’ve been on Substack. It had the smallest number of likes and comments, too. Practically none compared to usual.

So what’s the word?

Death.

Gulp. There it is. Written down in black and white.

In the title of the article, the word was ‘dead, and the title was “I wouldn’t be seen dead in that!” Now arguably that could be said it’s not a great title. But I do think it’s not coincidence that the stats were so much lower than usual.

In Western society, we’re not too keen on this word, or any of it’s derivatives. In fact, many would say that it’s not okay to use it in ‘polite society’. Others turn away, refusing to enter a conversation that includes it. In 2015, I was advised not to use this word on the cover of my book (in the end, called Gifted By Grief), because it would put people off.

So why am I mentioning it again, I ask myself?

Well, here’s the thing. If you’re going to embrace ageing, you can’t really shy away from that what happens at the end of the ageing process, although most in Western society try very hard to.

It simply doesn’t work to ignore the one thing we know for sure will happen.

And if you’re someone (me) who writes a newsletter with the title Embracing Ageing, then you definitely can’t!

However, there are softer terms that can be used, and that may be more appropriate given the circumstances. I like to call a spade a spade, sometimes being a bit over blunt, but even I can see that there is a place for euphemisms for death.

But let’s pause a moment.

How do you feel right now, on reading ‘that word’ - death? I feel like this doodle I created many years ago, and which is still pinned up on my noticeboard.

But how do you feel?

What happens inside of you? Is your heart contracting, opening up, or staying the same? Are you flinching inside? Is there a turning away going on?

It’s great to notice your bodily reaction to this, because it gives information that will almost definitely be useful, if not now, then in the future. And of course it may change in different circumstances.

However, for many, it is easier to talk about end of life matters when we are NOT calling the spade a spade and using the ‘d’ word. So here’s some of the most common euphemisms I’ve come across:

• End of life – it sounds so much more palatable, doesn’t it? And yet as we know, an ending also brings a beginning. So maybe this is a more positive way of describing death.

• Kicking the bucket

• Pushing up the daisies

• Shuffling this mortal coil

• Becoming a root inspector

• Gone belly up

• Popped his clogs

• She’s a goner

• Croaked

• Sleeping with the fishes

• Turned their face to the wall

• Taking an all expenses paid trip aboard Stygian Cruise Lines

Do you have a favourite? Or one that’s not on this list? Let me know in the comments.

Then we’ll see what the open rate on this article will be like - do give it a heart, make a comment, share or restack it if you feel strongly that we need to be able to talk about death more cleanly, openly and honestly. Thank you!

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Hi there

From time to time, I write about death, and this is one of them. There’s a few reasons for this.

• I gave a TedX talk on How to Do a Good Death

  

• Spoiler alert - it WILL happen to you, whether you like it or not. I find this funny.

• I founded and ran an end of life planning company for 8 years, and have written Before I Go: The Essential Guide to a Good End of Life Plan (scroll down for all my books)

• It IS part of ageing, even though many would rather keep their head in the sand about this fact.

Basically, I am comfortable about this subject since my first husband died when I was 54 (nearly 15 years ago as I write) and I was catapulted into the juxtaposition of life and death.

Hope you find it useful reading :)

I wouldn’t be caught dead in that

This is such a common phrase, even if we just think it to ourselves, rather than say it out loud. Usually, it’s an invitation, if mentioned at all, to discuss why that is, what it is about someone else’s choice of clothes that is provoking such a strong reaction, or making us feel so strongly.

But I want to point you in another direction, by asking what WOULD you be caught dead in? In other words,

What outfit would be your number one choice when you go to meet your maker?

The thing is, in most countries in the world, all bodies are covered (although the legal requirement is simply that it doesn’t cause distress in any way). This means that for the most part, bodies are not going to be naked, regardless of whether they are going to be buried cremated, or disposed of in another way. Now you might think ‘well, I’m going to be dead so I don’t care what I wear’. Fair enough. But other people will care. And it may well give you some comfort now to know that you’ll be seen in your favourite shirt, colours or

So how about contemplating your ‘deathstyle’ now? And letting others know once you’ve decided? Here’s a few pointers about how, and why, to make a dead good choice (pun intended!)

Decide you are going to decide, instead of leaving it up to your family. About 1 in 4 people wish they had known what their family member had wanted before they died. When you think about it, would you leave it up to someone else to choose your clothes while you are alive? No! At least, not usually. So why when you are dead?

Leave clear instructions - it lessens the possibility of arguments. You may think that your family would be the last to argue about that, but here’s what happened in Ken’s family: “I was quite clear that our Mother had wanted to be buried in her nightdress, but my father assured me she had said to him in her last few days that she wanted her best dress to be put on her body. And my sister thought both were not right; according to her, our Mother had told her she wanted to be dressed in her artist overalls. We had a very tense time trying to reach an agreement that all were happy with”. Moral of the story: leave clear instructions.

Familiar clothes help the grieving. A dead body is not so often seen these days, but if you wish to have an open coffin, or for someone in the family to dress the body, or just to imagine what their body is dressed in, even if the funeral director does that job, then you deciding in advance of your death really helps. This applies to perfume or aftershave, and also make-up too.

Choose something that expresses your personality, as this in itself can bring comfort. President George W. Bush apparently wore grey novelty socks, Marilyn Monroe a favourite dress in bright green, and Michael Jackson was in full stage costume, including a wig, make up and the iconic white gloves.

Indicate if you want a funeral gown supplied by a funeral director. Many have a choice of gowns or robes – this can be a way around possible family disagreements.

Choose clothes that will reflect the service you want. That provides a sense of continuity, a continuation of the expression of your personality, and further comfort to the bereaved.

Loose clothing is much easier to put on. Frankly, whoever is dressing the body has a challenge as it is lying down and more difficult to dress. If it’s a member of your family who will do this, then make their life easier by choosing a loose fitting garment. You might double think about leggings, pantyhose, or anything that might have been hard to put on even while you were alive!

Choose something you have made, or was made for you. My first husband told me he wanted to be buried in his dressing gown. Why? Because I had made it for him. I was very touched by this, and it made a huge difference to me when I told the funeral director that was to happen, because it wouldn’t have occurred to me to dress his body in this, I would have chosen his favourite shirt and trousers. Knowing what he had told me gave me a tiny bit of solace at a very difficult time.

9. In the end, have what YOU want. If you can’t do this once you’re dead, then when can you? Despite all the above, it’s not unknown for people to choose superhero costumes, bikers leathers, and even wedding dresses. It can be anything that means something to you.

Here’s a few comments from social media about what others have done:

• Put me in my nice warm pajamas, no bra, comfy socks!

• We chose to have Daddy in his Class A Captain's uniform which he wore when he worked for the local fire dept. He looked as handsome as the day he wore it walking me down the aisle.

• My mother took his favorite tennis shorts and a T-shirt to the funeral home. 

• My mom looked wonderful (at 91) in the wine colored top we bought for her and I wish I’d have taken a picture.

I hope this has given you food for thought, and helped you to note down in your Death Folder (you do have one, don’t you??) exactly what you want. Or even if you don’t care what your body is dressed in, write that down. That’s just as useful info, although arguably saying you want to even just be wrapped in a sheet is helpful, as any decision avoids arguments.

If you’re up for it, let me know in the comments what you think about this.

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Ooh, I feel a bit nervous, putting this out there today. It’s very different from what I usually write. If you like it, please let me know, and why. And if you didn’t like it, please let me know too, and why! I want to learn :)

The Case of the Disappearing Eyelashes

Once upon a time there lived a Clump of Elegant Eyelashes. They didn’t know they were Eyelashes, they just knew they all lived together in a curved line, growing upon a healthy surface, and they often met another line from within the same family. When this happened, both lines bowed to each other smiling cheerfully, and then got on with their day, until it was time for the next bow and acknowledgment.

No-one knew why they were bowing, it was just one of those things that happened because it had always happened.

The Elegant Eyelashes described themselves as long, dark, silken and curved. They loved being like this, jostled against one another, having fun being as beautiful as they could be.

From time to time, they were doused in black, sticky stuff which was not totally appreciated, and where it came from, not one of them could say. But they survived each time, mainly because regularly they were also doused in a soothing, creamy solution that returned them to their gorgeous, naked selves. Overall they were thriving, and so didn’t bother too much about it.

The Hair Family

The Elegant Eyelashes Clump surrounded what was known as an Eyeball, which belonged to something called a Body. (aka a Human Being). All the Eyelashes knew they were part of a bigger family, that lived on this Body, known as the Hairs.

Depending on what type of Human Being you were rooted in, the family Clumps varied in density, location and type. This was also affected by the length of time the Human Being had lived. The Hair Family had several different Clumps, here they are:

The Happy Head Hair family could grow long and luxurious, swirling around each other, being blown by the wind, occasionally gathered up tight and enclosed into a cosy bundle. Sometimes, they felt cut off in their prime, but they knew what to do to grow long again, and just continued on their way, doing exactly that.

The Passionate Pubes were another category completely. Strong, wiry, all different lengths, they made sure they were separate from all the other families, entwirled amongst each other, and kept strictly to themselves. They also continued to grow, even when the snippers came for a visit.

The Cheeky Chin Clump were sparse. Not so much a family as solo individuals, they were keener on standing alone and proud, waving away as if to say ‘look at me!’ They chose only to grow on particular Bodies and thus were categorised by many as ‘special’. Sadly, they were often unwanted, and suffered from the indignity of ‘plucking’ as a result.

The Bushy Beard Clump, however, while growing in the same area as the chin, were a different type altogether. They loved nestling in, chatting away, nudging up against one another and cheerfully sprouting as long as they could.

They had an offshoot step-family, known as The Moustachio Lot, which was very similar but was called such by the Human Being, who approached the Beard with a strimmer often, so that sometimes only the Moustachio Lot could get noticed. Other times, the Moustachio Lot were so encapsulated by the Bushy Beards that they were hardly seen as different. And occasionally, on some people, the Moustachios only appeared in older age, sometimes along with the Chin Hairs for company.

The Excellent Eyebrows dominate the area of the Body known as the Face, and appeared to lord it over all else. They looked down over the Elegant Eyelash folk, sometimes shading them completely. They really needed to be kept in check otherwise they had a tendency to become one long line, a divide between the Happy Head lot and the Cheeky Chin or Moustache families. Hence the need for the strimmer there too.

Finally, there were various other Hairs and Clumps that planted themselves all over other parts of some Bodies, on legs, backs, underarms, bottoms, toes - honestly, they were cheeky little (or big) things, rootling in anywhere they could find an acceptable place to hang out.

The Day of the Disappearance

The Elegant Eyelashes thought they were the best. Understandable, perhaps, with a name like that. Framing the eyeballs beautifully was their main job (they thought). It was besides the point that they also had another function, from the Body’s point of view. They were show-offs, wanting to flaunt their beauty simply by being themselves.

But one day, an Elegant Eyelash went missing. This was not so unusual in itself, and those left behind weren’t too worried, it was part of acceptable, every day life. But when several of them, framing both eyeballs, suddenly were no longer to be seen, the alarm was raised.

The Elegant Eyelashes came together, bowing to each other, staying that way for several hours while conversing in their own special manner as to what to do. They were joined by the Excellent Eyebrows, clumped severely together as they (apparently) found it easier to think this way.

The Wise Elder Eyelashes, the very few who had stayed around for a long time, and were thus experienced in ways of the Body, pronounced.

''We believe this Body out of which we grow is changing at its roots. We believe that it no longer wishes to have as many of us around. Which is why our fellows have disappeared. Why they have done this without saying anything is more of a mystery’’

They deemed a search party be formed, to see if the absconders could be found in one of the other Hair Families. It set off later that day, and after a long trek up hill and down dale, amongst small forests of baby hairs, and larger ones to be avoided altogether (like the Happy Head Hair family), they discovered just one Eyelash Absconder.

It had transplanted itself. To be precise, it had joined the sparse Cheeky Chin family.

“Why did you leave us?” wailed the Eyelashes.

“It was time to go and gain nurture elsewhere. I can grow longer and steadier on my own, distantly connected to the few others in the Cheeky Chin Clump. I no longer need the support of the Eyelash Family. I felt bad about leaving though, so that’s why I just upped and left. Although I discovered that I’m not the only one to do so, I just happen to be the biggest one. There are a few others nearby, they just can’t really be seen yet.”

Despite much persuasion by the other Eyelashes, Eyelash Absconder could not be convinced to change its mind. As far as it was concerned, it was firmly planted now alongside the Cheeky Chin Clump. And it didn’t seem to mind that it didn’t have too many near neighbours. (That’ll all change soon, it thought).

The Elegant Eyelash brigade trudged slowly back up the Face, returning sadly to their old growing ground above the eyeballs. To their horror, even more Eyelashes had departed. But now there was more news.

“This time they told us they were leaving en masse”, spoke a horrified Elder Eyelash. “There was nothing we could do to persuade them to stay. They had even researched where they were going to stop next – the Ears, the Nose, as well as that dreaded Cheeky Chin lot. Some of them were taking their life in their hands and floating off into the air, not knowing where they would land”.

The Council Meeting for All Hairs

Sadness reigned. The Eyelash Elders called a Council Meeting for all Hairs. Wise words passed between them. After much discussion, they realised there was only one thing to be done.

Practice acceptance.

Immediately.

They suggested a ritual to acknowledge the flight of the Hairs that had already departed; an appraisal of what was left; and a gracious acceptance of their own lives, while noting they too might ‘disappear’ at some stage.

While this was not what any of the remaining Elegant Eyelashes actively wanted, they could see that this was the only way to come to terms with this event. So from that day on, the Ending Ritual was encompassed into their lives whenever an Eyelash was noted as missing.

One of the unexpected consequences of this was that when the Human Being noticed that the Eyelashes were leaving, and their Chin was being inhabited by more Hairs, they could also accept it.

And so The Case of the Disappearing Eyelashes became a normal part of the Story of the Body, everyone got used to it and then got on with being the best Hair they could be.

The job now was for the Human Being to practice acceptance of this state of affairs, something that many found more difficult than others. But for those that could, younger Bodies and younger Hairs grew up acknowledging the Eyelashes and all the other Hairs in the best way they could. Tending, appreciating, loving them with care, for as long as they were there.

The End.

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