9th September, 2023

Earlier this year I celebrated my sixtieth birthday. I don’t like lots of fuss and my emotions approaching this birthday were decidedly mixed. As much as I don’t like to be the centre of attention, I do love a birthday and age has never mattered to me. But this year, in the run up, I felt an unexpected emotion. Guilt. It seemed perverse to celebrate a birthday as if it were an achievement when I’d done nothing at all to attain it. Especially when Tim didn’t even come close to reaching his sixtieth.

So I took the family away to the Isle of Wight. We’d had a couple of holidays there when the kids were little, so it held memories, but they were distant, dreamlike. And it was exactly the right thing to do. We had a house in Old Shanklin, just a two minute walk to the shops and a ten-minute walk to the sea. The weather was lovely, and I even managed to swim in the sea on my Big Day (although it was freezing cold and I say swim, but it was really only a duck under the water and a bit of frantic paddling my arms and legs).

My family spoiled me rotten. Best of all was a memory book that lovely daughter had spent months putting together. She’d contacted friends and family members and they’d added anecdotes and memories and basically they all told me how much they loved me.

Which was a rather lovely thing to do. This widowhood can be strange. For some time I’ve questioned everything about myself. I thought I didn’t belong, that I don’t have a place in the world. That I am unloved, and unlovable. It’s hard to come out of that way of thinking when it takes hold. My memory book was called ’60 Reasons to Love Janey’, and it made me cry.

Turning sixty changed so many things. Being surrounded by family, and reading through the memory book gave me an anchor, a reason to face the future. And to face it with a smile and confidence I haven’t known for years.

So what are my thoughts on turning sixty? It’s bloody marvellous!