Turning 60: older, wiser and finding myself – part 2

As I age

25^th January

Holidays are important to me. They are the time I switch off from work, and I go away at Christmas as it’s a quiet time for my business and I also want to escape the family emphasis. I’m estranged from my children and it hurts much more at this time of the year.

As this is my birthday year, I’ve got a lovely trip planned a small ship sailing around the Indian Ocean. I’ve personalised it; we are flying out earlier and spending time at a beach in Dar es Saleem and at the end spending time in Mauritius rather than fly home. We were going to book an all-inclusive resort, but these are so expensive. Instead, we’ve booked an apartment, and a car. The apartment is 41 per night. So much cheaper and more enjoyable, we will get to see more of the country.
Whilst searching I also looked at Thailand and we could get an amazing apartment with a great shared pool on Koh Samui for just 21 per night. So, we could go for around 200 per week, makes you think that this might be worth doing another winter.
When we work a full-time job with perhaps just 4 weeks holiday, we are happy for the fly and flop to holiday but for me it is all about the experience. But I’m not sure I want to have the pace of our holiday to Australia (33 beds in 42 nights) and going for a few weeks to one location at 200 for the week, knowing how cheap food is sounds a great option.

28^th January

Today I learned that someone I know has a husband, aged 45 who has just been told he has MS. I’m also working with a younger client whose dad died last year while she had just finished university. We never know how long we have and that’s one reason we are living our lives for now, you never know how long you have.
Too often people make plans for when they retire – when we retire, we will go on that holiday, learn to do but sometimes it never happens. So, we aren’t going mad and spending all our money, but we are making sure we invest our time and money in things that will make good memories as we never know if our health will allow us to do things in the future.

1^st February

This past week we’ve been to the cinema almost every day, catching up on films. We’ve also chosen daytime shows, most of the time we are with older people, and I think as we get old trips to the cinema, especially when you have a monthly season ticket like us is great, it gets you out of the house, into the warm and gives you something to talk about. You can take your grandchildren too!

2^nd February

Dance class tonight, and this is such a great way to keep our brains active and to build a social life. One of our teachers has had health problems and his hips make it difficult to show his steps, but we understand, and he is an inspiration. It must be so hard for him though, and I know that he is waiting for a hip op.

I’m catching up on sharing my diary … I’d planned to write every day, but there are not always things to say.

What about you? Do you keep a diary or a journal? How are you finding it?