Just back from Mallorca with a tan. Of course, the tan means little as it will fade in days, but, like everything transitory in life, there’s a So What in my mouth. Anything on the outside of me is transitory, the way my wrinkles wrinkle, the clothes I wear, the shoes on my feet, the food I buy, the pictures on my wall and so on and so forth and fifth and sixth. What matters, what I bring home with me on the plane, the bus, the taxi, the train and the ferry is all held warm and precious within, and within is never transitory unless I choose to let it go. It thinks me.

With my son, his wife, their girls, their lifestyle from dawn to bedtime, I learned how they live. I watched the dynamics, the flymanics, the rise and lift of a life I will never live and never did. I am a generation away from such a life. My own knew zip of mobile phones, television, video games, pink duplo princess blocks, Ubers and datelines. It was simpler, yes, such a life, but also intensely frustrating as if we, still catching buses and fumbling for pennies knew somehow that the light would come someday. And it did. As I watched my grandgirls know their way around all of this, effortlessly, I happily sat back to watch. It was a bit like a movie, however I am content to watch it all unfurl. I don’t know the language of this new generation, this new country, but, to be honest, I really don’t mind because it gives me the chance to ask them questions and questions always teach the questioner, if that person is really listening. I never ever thought of myself as a paid up member of a previous generation but here I am as if blown in on the twist of a windshift. Just like that. I smile at the thought because now I have a choice. I can recede into curlers and pacamacs or I can pull out all my stops, thus allowing the starts to, well, start.

I set off with a bullish bravado, one I had to pump up every few minutes as if it was always threatening to deflate. It did take me a couple of days to reset myself, to pull my confidence up like Peter Pan’s shadow until it fit me like a second skin. I was happy to play safe whilst the girls were at school, their parents working, to stay home with the dog, the cats and the terrapin. But the urge is there like a slowburn in me, to rise to rise from who I was as a goodly wife to just me, even if that thought is terrifying; was terrifying. Once I ‘did it’ as my youngest grand girl would say, I had no way out of the didding it thingy. I am so not going to fail myself now, nor them. Apparently I have a future, something I never considered over the last two years. In fact I could see nothing but mist, curlers and bed by 7pm. My visit to Mallorca changed that. Not only did I ‘did it’, I also returned home with an inner smile because having stepped out of the sensible clogs of wifedom, I realise there are high heels out there. I doubt I will ever wear them but the sass they show me lifts my woman heart and I see now that it doesn’t matter how old I am, I can still show my outside with a new confidence and, better, the outside is teaching the inside of me. I may not understand this generation, nor its language, but I can enjoy it, laugh at my mistakes, watch them laugh at me and within that lovely picture frame, I can be present.

And this is so very good. My mental heels are on and I am walking tall with a thank you to my past, a smiling engagement to my present and (for the first time) a curious anticipation for my future.