On Turning Sixty

The other day my maid who’s been with me for a year asked me how old I am. I told her to take a guess. She said 45? I started to giggle, and told her to look again at my grey hair which I’ve recently stopped dyeing/ colouring. She turned around and said that is no indication .... one can become prematurely grey. I told her I had a daughter 29 years old and that I'd just turned sixty.

She wouldn't believe me and thought I was joking. For that minute I felt really good, she’d made my day! Maybe I didn't look my age but certainly not 45!

Sixty sounds old but I don't really feel it, actually it's hard to believe I am that old ..... how did it happen? Of course I don't want to be called old, neither do I want to age fast.

I am not saying that things will not change or will remain the same from now on, in fact I think about the future a lot and what is in store for me. More is yet to come. I still have two daughters to be married, and then hopefully to be a grandmother … and still in the transient stages of settling into a permanent home myself.

This is life.  We are transient anyway so why want permanency? Very philosophical ... a trait that comes with age.

Having reached 60 I definitely feel grateful. I am much more confidant, optimistic and outgoing than before, specially as a child when I was serious, anxious, withdrawn. You should see some of my old photographs, I rarely smiled!

The gamut of experiences, most of all the higher education I got changed me as a person. It opened up new ideas and exposed me to the options of different ways-of-life.

Though I never made a ‘bucket-list’ I've had quite real fulfilling years so far.  But now for the years to come I’ve started hoping for some different things (which I hope happen in the next five years) at least :-

1. To be physically fit: to be able to continue my walks and yoga and keep in reasonably good shape, and not worry about belly fat!

2. To become more spiritually inclined: pray more, do pranayama and meditation ….which means a lot of self-disciplining.

3. Have a more minimalistic life. To get rid of all the clutter and keep only bare essentials ..... eat simple food, smaller meals.

4.  To help my husband open the old trunks and sort out all his parents’ stuff lying in storage for years! To offload all my stuff to my girls, like my jewellery and clothes.

5.  To acquire some of my husband’s organizing skills. To be able to spend more time with him and do some travelling together ...

6.  Catch up on a lot of reading which I missed doing for many years.  To have leisure time.

7.  To see both my daughters happily married and reasonably well-settled and content in their lives.

8.  To be content myself.

This list makes it look like life is only beginning now. My husband who's also turned sixty around the same time … I hope he's in sync with me on this, all these serious points would become more fun.