Thank you for getting this far. The way I see it — if you’re interested enough to click the About button on me, then I should honour that. You’re entitled to find out something about me.

I’m left-handed. I like the sound of trees. I live alone in a terraced cottage overlooking the sea. I have a family, but my first rule of writing online is: respect their privacy. So I stick with the ideas and questions that come into my head, and write about those.

Old beyond age

In my book The Journey from Heaven, the angel telling the story says: “I am a child now, born anew into the world of physical things. I am old beyond age.”

I feel that way sometimes. Not everybody gets to be old, and it’s a privilege as well as a — sometimes challenging, yes — life to be lived. I enjoy the camaraderie of it, the sharing. After my “rushed to hospital with chest pains” incident last year (I’m still here, and will write about it sometime), a friend said to me, “You’ve joined the heart club!” Which I suppose I have.

Am I a child now? Life is fun too, or it can be.

I don’t worry in quite the same way that I used to, now that nothing can be “early-onset” any more. As for death itself — nah. Don’t have time. I did enough thinking about that in the Emergency Department last year.

Not today (touch wood). Some day. [Say everything that needs to be said. Be “right-relational” with everybody. It’s liberating to put those thoughts in their proper place.]

And there’s a freedom in, one, knowing what I know about life, and two, knowing that absolutely nobody whatsoever wants to hear from me on that subject. Young people these days can manage without my “When I was young, we did it this way” monologues.

Some tribes have “elders”. Not this one.

I get to ride around on my [electric] bicycle, like I did when I was ten.

You know what they say about Purpose

I’m nearly 6’ 2” and I know exactly how much my clothes weigh, so I can take that much off any estimate of my weight. I like to say that I’m “differently thin”, although that line’s getting a bit old now. When I was young, we — never mind.

LinkedIn tells me that I’m taking a career break to be retired, although I’m pretty sure that I’m post-retirement. It occurred to me recently that writing stories on Medium, committing to doing that regularly, could work pretty well as a Purpose In Life.

You know how the wellness gurus go on about that? When you’re retired (post-retired), you need to find a Purpose In Life to replace work? Yeah, right. Although, come to think of it, I haven’t replaced work. My first job was a writing job and I’ve kept it up ever since.

I like doing this. I like writing, and reading, and clapping, and all the rest of it. There are interesting people here.

Making the right mistakes

If there’s an undercurrent of surprise in my life, it’s surprise that I’m enjoying life. I should be old. Being old had various connotations when I was young. Turns out that it’s not like that. It’s enjoyable — not all of the time, but being young wasn’t enjoyable all of the time either. It’s okay. It’s liberating. I like this.

No, I wouldn’t go back. No, I wouldn’t change much, if anything. I can see mistakes that I wish I hadn’t made, risks that I wish I had taken, words that I wish I had, or hadn’t, said, moments that make me cringe to remember them — but no. It’s all brought me to (and via) here, and here is okay. Have I done any good in the world? I hope so.

Bearing witness

Let’s see, what else? …your history, work experience, accomplishments, interests, dreams, and more…

History, check. Work experience, check. Accomplishments — I mentioned the family, didn’t I? And books. Fifteen years of volunteering on a crisis helpline. Interests — check. Dreams — aha!

Around about the time I started writing The Journey from Heaven, I did past-life regression. I was told that this is my first life. “It’s one thing to be on the outside looking in — you were challenged to try living a life.”

I think I was pretty hyped up at the time, with the book I was starting to write, and you can tell from the title what that’s about, but I remember that suggestion. Life is an experience not to be missed. Okay, I’m here.

Hey, look. The sun’s come up again. Let’s go.