Why Subscribe?
There are lots of reasons to subscribe to my eclectic, sometimes eccentric & curmudgeonly writings on my continuing journey into old age, they will hopefully resonate with you. I mostly go into the Rabbit 🐇 Warrens & Endings & Beginnings once a week, with the occasional bonus post.
I use my own photographs and paintings where possible. I always credit others work when I don't use my own.
I hope, as my Substack grows, to collaborate with other writers with similar and even differing perspectives of the growing old journey.
What Is It All About?
Rabbit 🐇 Warrens Section
In this section, I use humour, with healthy doses of cynicism, to cover relevant topics or recount parts of my journey so far. As a woman growing old. These days, I have more time to think and ponder my writing. The subjects I have covered so far range from the effect of ageing on perceptions of time to how our little grey cells develop over the years. No, we don’t lose them.
Rabbit warrens describes how I write from the seed of an idea to finally pressing the button to send and publish my post. I try to research and check my writing so often go down the nearest rabbit hole, into the badger’s 🦡 set, through the fox’s 🦊 den before finally surfacing from the otter’s 🦦 holt and pressing the list button.
Endings & Beginnings Section
As I grow old, I realise life can be grey, dark and even with the bleakest of black moments, where humour is difficult to find. As with many people, grief has sat on my shoulder a few times during my lifetime but has been particularly heavy over the last five years. My husband of 40 years died five years ago & my beautiful, force-of-nature daughter two years ago. My experiences are my own, each bereavement creating a different version of grief. I would never tell anyone how to grieve, how they should feel, or what they should do. But hopefully, by writing about my experiences, I can help others accommodate their grief.
Things Section
Things can include gadgets & gizmos, kitchen utensils, cars, holidays, books, podcasts, and anything that takes my, or more importantly, your fancy. It is random and sporadic.
Why Am I Writing on Substack?
The worldview of being old is often very negative—something I want to change. I am not young. I am not even middle-aged. I am old. Why shouldn't I be proud of being old? It is not a disease we should fear or hide from. Although, we can use potions, gadgets, make-up and other things to look younger. We can also try to lead healthier lives to improve our health. But we can not stop the ageing process from marching on. We cannot escape it so we should embrace it.
We should embrace the many advantages of growing old, having more 'me' time, choosing activities we enjoy, being wiser, being able to define ourselves, and being able to say aloud what we think within reason. Sometimes, I can be a curmudgeonly old woman. Other times, I can be humourous or sad and lonely. These states are no different to those felt by younger people, except maybe being curmudgeonly, but as we age, we understand them better and don't feel the need to apologise.
Who Am I?
Sorry for the scary photo above. A photograph of Mildred and Humphrey, two beautiful black labradors, would have been far more pleasing. Nonetheless,o that would hide me, which is not what these ponderings are about. They are about coming out, as me, an old person. I want to own my world and who I am as I age. There are many advantages.
The basics of me. I am in my 60s, at this point 66, a widow, mother, friend, sister, aunt, dog owner and retired. I ran a social housing policy consultancy for nearly 30 years. So yes, I would probably be described as a leftie, woke snowflake. I will never apologise for being someone who cares nor who is keen to improve the lives of others. I would also describe myself as a curmudgeonly old woman at times, a title I own. I am not perfect and have made many mistakes over the years. I learned from some, but unfortunately, not all.
Who I am is a fluid state. My persona shifts in a given moment depending on where I am or who I am with - walking the dog, in the shops, at a family gathering, talking to friends, putting the world to rights, curmudgeonly old woman having a rant or at home as the eccentric dog woman. There is a switch I use to change myself or even hide myself.
Where I am, and my journey here is different. I know I live in my little house, in a village near London, with my two big black dogs, Mildred & Humphrey and my son's French bulldog Bonnie, aka the boss.
How I got here seems like a daze. It was not where I planned to be seven years ago when my work was busy, preparations for retirement were in progress, my husband and daughter were both healthy and alive, and pandemics featured only in horror films. I have now lost my husband and daughter. I have lived through the global pandemic, which may be over, but life has changed entirely. The new normal for all of us is still forming.
The years of grief placed me in some very dark recesses, and if I am honest, those recesses will always exist. It is something I have begun to understand and accommodate. I feel it is only now I am returning to the real world. Substack and writing have helped me. Professionally, my writing was dry factual reports with no literary licence. Now, I can write in my voice, which is very liberating. To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
