The choice about ageing

I’ve been going to a weekly writing group during my month in Scotland. It’s a group I found on the MeetUps app (which is a great resource for solo travellers / digital nomads looking to meet locals on their travels).

The group is called Shut Up & Write and I think it must be some kind of global franchise because I went to one in Stockholm when I was there earlier in the year.

The concept is simple, and perfect if you’re just passing through because you just turn up at the venue - a restaurant on a Monday evening in Stockholm and a cafe on Sunday mornings in Aberdeen - say your hellos, then everyone gets their laptops out and you ‘shut up and write’ for an hour. 

Afterwards there’s the opportunity to socialise with the other writers, and I’m still in touch with one of the writers I met at the Stockholm group, so it’s a great way to make new friends too.

A couple of weeks ago I stayed on for a coffee with a couple of women who’d come to the Aberdeen group and we dived straight into a rich conversation about life and the world and all The Big Important Stuff.

It got so impassioned at one point that I joked that Shut Up and Write had morphed into Stand Up and Shout.

One of the women was the same age as me (54) and the other was in her early thirties.

The 54 year old was a successful businesswoman with a great dry sense of humour, and the thirty-something worked for a charity and was at a kind of crossroads in her work life, unsure of which direction to take.

We both gave her some advice based on our own life experience and afterwards when she thanked us she said, ‘It’s so inspiring to meet women like you who are doing such interesting things and living life to the fullest in your 50s.’

It felt really great to think that the way I live my life (as a home-free, solo travelling writer for anyone new here) could be an inspiration for younger women and it got me thinking about the whole topic of aging.

We live in a culture that doesn’t seem to celebrate aging at all - especially for women - and I know that it can be really difficult when you reach certain milestone ages, especially when you notice changes in your body, which happened to me big time when I reached 52.

Ever since I was a teen I have loved to run. 

To me, running = freedom.

Whenever I was stressed as a teenager I’d pull on a pair of trainers and pound the London streets where I lived - for hours sometimes.

This continued into my twenties and when I became a mum I’d drop my son off to playgroup in my running gear and off I’d go, music pumping in my ears.

Over the years running remained an integral part of my (almost) daily routine. It made me feel fit and strong as well as free, and I loved the runner’s high I’d get afterwards. I used to joke that my morning run was like taking a natural anti-depressant. 

But then, in 2022, at the age of 52, I noticed that my knees were starting to really hurt when I ran and I’d get horrible twinges in them whenever I climbed stairs.

A running friend had just had to have a knee transplant so I knew that maybe all the years of pounding the pavements were starting to take their toll.

As an experiment, I took a break from running - and my knees felt way better. No more pain and no more twinges.

I went for a run again - and my knees started to hurt again.

So I stopped running and started going for walks most days instead.

I love walking, but it wasn’t the same mentally. I really missed the feeling of exhilaration and freedom - the runners’ high. I put on a bit of weight and felt sluggish in the mornings. I ought to add here that I have an autoimmune disease called Hashimotos, which attacks the thyroid gland and can make you prone to chronic tiredness and sluggishness. I’ve had it for twenty years and it was only once I stopped running that I realised how much it had helped with that too.

I started feeling really down about getting older and I remember having thoughts like, oh well, it’s all downhill from here, which obviously made me feel even worse!

I’ve written quite a lot about how 2022 was a pretty crap year for me - a lethal cocktail of empty nest syndrome, post pandemic fall out and hating the place I’d moved to during one of the lockdowns. Losing running was like losing my natural anti-depressant but…

Then I decided to change everything.

First of all, I decided to do some travelling.

I was so invigorated during my first solo trip - a month in Eureka Springs in the beautiful Ozarks - that I started putting on some banging tunes and dancing around my airBnb every morning when I got up.

As I danced I’d lose myself in gratitude for my life and my health and my body. It was so much fun!

And so a new morning routine was born. Instead of getting up and going for a run, I’d get up, do about 15 minutes of yoga and then dance for another 15.

By the time I hit the shower I’d be buzzing from a dancer’s high - and my knees didn’t complain at all!

I’d found a new natural anti-depressant. And by the time I decided to give up my home and most of my belongings to travel while I write I felt fit and strong again.

I remember feeling so proud when, on arriving in Paris, I was able to carry my suitcase and a backpack up a massive flight of stairs from the Metro without a problem. (My suitcase was so heavy with books and notebooks and laptops that a grown bear of a taxi driver would later cry ‘ooh la la’ when he tried to put it in the boot of his car!)

So, when last week, the thirty-something Scottish woman called me inspiring at 54, I realised that it was all down to a choice I’d made.

I could have chosen to stay feeling sorry for myself when I had to give up running. I could have chosen to believe the thought, ‘it’s all downhill from here’ but I didn’t.

on a hike in beautiful Scotland

I chose to dance and downward dog my way into a new source of joy and a new way of being.

I chose - and choose - to embrace my age. And when you think about how many people tragically lose their lives way too soon, isn’t it a choice we’re so lucky to get to make?

I heard on a podcast the other day that people who get excited about ageing have a much longer life expectancy. Another reason to embrace getting older.

Instead of seeing getting older as something to feel bad about, why not see it as something to feel excited and proud about? Why not live your life in such a way that younger people are grateful, because you help them to see that it isn’t all over at 40 or 50 or beyond, and that actually, the fun is only just beginning…

Until next week - when I’ll be back in Ukraine and hoping to have some very interesting people and things to write to you about - let’s keep choosing to embrace our one wild and precious life for as long as we have it.

Siobhan

My next novel, The Resistance Bakery, (featuring WW2 spies, the Paris Resistance, forbidden love and mouth-watering pastries!) is available to pre-order on Amazon now and here for just £1.99 / $3.99. HUGE thanks if you do!