Still Becoming: Charlie-Helen’s Story

Five decades in, and I’m just getting interesting.

I wrote this piece to commence International Day of Older Persons on 1 October, as the campaign on GreyMatter (asked) is asking people a simple question:

Who are you becoming?

What I didn’t expect in reply to me reaching out (as I do), was a “yes” from EVERYONE, with you all responding to the questions I posed. I have ended up with so much gratitude for the journey we have been undertaking, the support and appreciation is incredible. I feel like you are now ‘happy to be seen’. It makes my heart sing. It has given me a bigger workload to get the articles online… but the variety, diversity, tenacity of responses are INCREDIBLE. I am thrilled of you all. Seriously.

For most of my life, I have been focused on what comes next ie. the next role, challenge, project, garden, event, home, relationship, opportunity… the list continues…! To be frank, it has been quite liberating recognising that life is an ongoing narrative to be lived, until it’s not.

I mean this in a positive sense.

Smiling at grief. Celebrating a life. Recognising the sense of freeing the mind of assumptions, perceptions and everyone’s expectations – the ‘what ifs’ if you like.

The ‘what ifs’ that stop us living.

Anyway, with this newly freeing thinking, I’m going to dedicate this year’s GreyMatter.StudioLife ‘International Day of the Older Person’ story theme to my friend Paul Gee.

He deserves a life celebration; he was a good friend who I met in my late 40s through my charity wine group and a big supporter of GreyMatter. He beautifully and passionately lived, loved, lost and lived again… until we did finally lose him. In the dozen or more years that I was friends with Paul, I witnessed a compassionate man who embraced life, including all its challenges.

In his final years, he had started writing his next chapter metaphorically; he was in his 70s , travelling in his campervan, working his print business online and never missing a beat! He lived large and was never one to settle, he did it his way. He was always there when you needed him for a chat though. Quite simply, a good bloke. He will be missed.

He passed on 24 August from pancreatic cancer. In the message shared by his kids, they said, being the eternal optimist he hadn’t written a final message.

But not to miss a beat, and keep it upbeat…

Paul said on 1 October 2024 International Day of Older Persons, “As you know I have recently turned 70 – I still work in my business and can’t think of a good reason not to. I believe I offer what newer print businesses can’t, plus I contribute positively to the economy.”

https://greymatter.gallery/2024/10/01/print-tragic-keeping-the-magic/

I guess, if we take anything from Paul’s life journey and his print tragic fantastic attitude, it’s to consider that as life evolves, endless possibilities surface that we should embrace. And we shouldn’t stop embracing. Ever! (I have his voice in my head as I’m writing this, as I know he’d say it).

Certainly, for me, age is part of my story, but it’s not ‘the’ story.

At 60, I’m still learning, creating, contributing, questioning and discovering. There are things I understand now that I could never ever have understood earlier, and there are undoubtedly things ahead that I can’t even imagine (you don’t know what you don’t know).

We spend a lot of time talking about ageing as though it’s a countdown. We measure years, celebrate birthdays, and worry about our health. But death is inevitable. When it comes, it comes. When we die is not our concern. Our concern, while we are here, is what we do with the life in front of us.

We don’t know how many pages are left in our story. None of us do. So why do we spend our time trying to work that out?

Perhaps that is what becoming means? ie not reinventing ourselves simply because we have reached a particular birthday, but continuing to grow into the person our experiences, choices and curiosity are shaping us to be.

We don’t know when our expiry date is planned, until we (metaphorically) fall off that cliff, so why do we live as if we do… why do we accept the narrative of decline and an expiry date?

I am still becoming my story. And so are you. Until we’re not.

Who do you want to become?

This is part of the GreyMatter International Day of Older Persons on 1 October campaign. Who are you becoming?

Becoming isn’t about adding more to ourselves, it can also be about letting go of the expectations. The should haves, and could ofs, or the versions of ourselves we thought we had to be, then discovering there is still so much life left to live!!

Still becoming.
#GreyMatterStudioLife

This campaign will run for the Day of Older Person and Active Ageing Week.