Vintage Gemini

I celebrated my 65th birthday last month at Edsa Shangri-La Isla Ballroom with my whole company who gamely performed a terrific flash mob for me. It was simply the best birthday surprise ever!

How do I feel about being sixty-five? Not much different from twenty-five! I still love mornings which is the best part of the day (also means I’m still alive!), browsing bookshops, daydreaming, collecting stamps, procrastinating exercise, rescuing cats, enjoying the finer things in life and making people laugh.

The great thing about reaching the midpoint of my sixth decade is that everything has come into focus. Knowing my time is limited somehow feels liberating and makes prioritising quite easy.

Here are my new perspectives:

• • I do not feel the need to hold back on enjoying life anymore or the use of a bathroom scale.
• • I only want to be with people who bring joy and meaning to my life, people who are kind and accept me for who I am.
• • I don’t care what people think or say about me nor feel obliged to agree with everyone.
• • I have no tolerance for rude, entitled or unkind behaviour.
• • Choosing quality over quantity, value over price, easy over hard, laughter over drama, beauty over mediocrity, spontaneity versus overthinking simplifies my decision-making.
• • Making peace with the past, kindness, forgiveness and reaching closure suddenly feel urgent and important.
• • Knowing that my energy will steadily and surely go down as the years go by, I want to travel more and go through my bucket list before it becomes hard and complicated.
• • An unwelcome ‘visitor’ that I avoid is regret. I find gratitude a much better company and is always welcome.
• • Lastly, it’s true that our choices define our future. I have made many good ones in my life (founding Healthy Options is one) but also had some stupid ones with the resulting consequences. So the lesson learned is that while we are free to choose how we live our lives, we are not free to choose the con sequences. So choose well.