mybiglifeshift

Better Than The Alternative*

I’m in my 60s and wish sometimes that I had done things differently. I wonder when I should retire and what I will do with myself then, whether my old age will be as wasted as my youth and middle age. I’m feeling old and tired and wistful as I look back over my life, and to my future. And it seems that everywhere, people are writing about ageing.

Magic

A recent court case in the UK found in favour of a free school, Michaela, whose famously ‘most strict school head in the UK’ was said to have instituted a ‘prayer ban’. The case was brought by a pupil accusing the school of a breach of her human rights.

Number One?

I’ve been seeing someone for about two and a half years now. I think he is the only man I have ever known who has not annoyed me, ever, in the least degree. We get on brilliantly, have a great deal in common and also much completely at odds so that I sometimes think we make an unlikely pair and wonder that he is interested in me at all.

Powerful Olfactory Memories

In a few short years the world has changed beyond recognition in a million ways large and small. So when I learned that my children (and their dad) were going to the funeral of their maternal grandmother’s partner and I started musing on the past, I was able to satisfy my curiosity in a way that would have been unthinkable until now.

What Is The Point Of Living?

A friend, when my boyfriend was in HK and I was in London, used to take me to things. We saw Debora Harry (Blondie) in concert. And various comedians whose names I forget, although one was quite famous. I miss that friend.

Small Kindnesses

Although I can get cross at the selfishness of fellow commuters, it has to be said that I spend more of my time thinking about how people are basically well-disposed towards one another, will help one another and exchange pleasantries (even if they are more often lost in their own phone or – like me – book) as they hurtle underground. I wouldn’t want you to think that I am a misanthrope.

Having Something Someone Else Wants Is Unbearable

I get it from my mother. I mean she would have given anyone the shirt off her back, she was the sort of person for whom the phrase ‘generous to a fault’ was invented, and she somehow managed to instil a similar martyrish attitude in me, starting with the fact that from the age of a few weeks ie before I can remember, when my two half sisters came to live with me, I was brought up not to rub their noses in the fact that their own mother didn’t want them and so while I had a mummy, they to all intents and purposes didn’t have one and would share mine. It was of the utmost importance not to be SELFISH.

The Age of Chivalry

So many, many women replying to that FB post who confess to having been in similar situations! So distressingly many who offer advice that essentially involves telling lies to spare the feelings of the overbearing bores who have foisted themselves on said women! So few who have ever simply said no, even if there are a few who perhaps in an esprit d’escalier recommend it to others.

Celebrating Self Harm

An attractive young woman entered the carriage. With a dyed bob and heavy makeup, she was wearing a leather jacket and a tartan skirt that ended where her legs began and these were clothed in off-white fishnet tights with huge gaping holes over her thighs. It was all very reminiscent of the punk look of my youth (and don’t they say if you wait long enough everything comes back into fashion?) She sat in the seat next to me and I went back to my book. When I looked up from it my gaze fell on her exposed upper thigh. At first I thought ‘stretch marks’ and was surprised, given how slim she was. But that was naive of me. Obviously she had been cutting herself, and her thigh was covered in silvery parallel lines, mercifully healed, the site of these injuries framed by the large hole in her tights. This – cutting – is surprisingly common but I don’t think I have ever seen it in real life before.