Getting older, and maybe (finally) wiser...

Exactly one week from today it will be my 34th birthday. This year it coincides with the Queen's diamond jubilee, which is quite nice in a "everybody's on holiday" kin of a way, plus there'll be a few jubilee ativities going on locally which will make the day a little different. I remember the Golden jubilee ten year ago quite clearly, predominantly as in June 2002, I'd only been out of hospital (following my accident) for 2 months, was very much still reliant on a wheelchair for getting around. My walking was shaky and with a zimmer, and I was still walking on tiptoes ( it would take another 2 months before I had an operation on my archilles tendon, allowiing me to put my feet flat on the ground). It was also a birthday that just over 5 months previously, doctors hadn't guaranteed I'd reach... It's probably this combined with the last few years, that have given me my perspective on ageing. I admit, that like most people once they hit their thirties, there's a bit of "oh my god! I'm so OLD!!!" in my thoughts, and each decade and mid-decade point seems quite scary, but there is an over-riding feeling of gratitude, that I'm so lucky to actually be here to celebrate getting old and decrepit! Nearly dying does strange things to your psyche (as does having two rounds of a potentially fatel condition), my priorities changed dramatically in December 2001, instead of taking life for granted, my main priority was first survival, and then getting healthy and strong enough to make the most of the chances I was given. None of us know when the plug on life is going to be pulled (oops; sorry, don't want to depress everyone!). THe truth is although I know my life expectancy has more likelihood of being cut short, I don't actually KNOW- I could just as easily beat this and keep on going 'til I'm 100, in the same way that in a parallel world, my life could have ended at 23 years old, when I was hit by a car... the fact is it DIDN'T. And it is because it didn't, that I owe myself and all the fiamily members and friends who worried themselves sick, that I try to enjoy as much of my life as I can. I don't really think in terms of longterm future much, but birthdays are a good landmark. My 24th was a landmark as the first one since the accident. The 25th was the first one back at university and the day I handed in my dissertation, The 26th saw me go from using two crutches to just one, the 27th saw me walking completely unaided... I've come a long way since then, and although my 28th birthday, 6 years ago, was spent in radiotherapy, by the time my 29th came around, I'd just got back from the safari holiday of a lifetime in Tanznia! I guess (the very long-winded!) point I'm trying to make is that getting older shouldn't be a cause of misery. Only people who've never had a single happy day in their lives can be excused from feeling that way; thankfully they are very few. If you really look back over your life, most people can remember happy times, be it just drinking with friends on a Friday night, getting agood result for a piece of work, or going somewhere you' always wanted to. I strongly believe we are all responsible to some extent for our own happines. There will always be bad things, like illness, that we cannot predict, so we owe it to ourselves to allow time to find things we enjoy and to do them! Okay, that's my little speech over; this time next week you'll find me stuffing birthday cake and raising a glass to my wonderful self!!