Was I depressed?

Possibly. Maybe. Probably not. BUT I wasn't in a very good space.

 

You may have noticed that I haven't been around for a few weeks. The business we have been operating for the last 18 years seemed to be going nowhere and I was tired of banging my head against a brick wall. I couldn't see anyway out of it, but I reassured my business partner that I wasn't going to kill myself, because I never want to miss out on anything and I always want to see what's around the next corner. I just bumped into an old friend at the supermarket and remembered that he told me once that he had contemplated suicide and my reaction was to say just what I said above - I don't want to miss out on anything!

 

I think I was just temporarily depressed (I believe the real thing is a long lasting condition). I didn't want to do anything, didn't want to make any decisions, didn't want to go swimming training (the one thing that I LOVE to do) and didn't want to go to the gym or to go to work.

 

What I did do is MADE myself go swimming and go to the gym because of the social aspects of both and I think I read somewhere once that people who exercise don't get depressed or ill as much as other people do. It was hard work, but I did it.

 

Having just written that I have just looked up a really good website called Beyond Blue, which is the Australian National Depression Initiative. I found an article on depression  and exercise and it turns out that I did lots of the things that you are meant to do! Lucky me. I had probably absorbed the information from the TV advertising that the government does periodically.

 

It wasn't a very nice situation to be in and I don't want to experience it again. I can't imagine what the real thing would be like. Awful.

Double nickle

Today is the day - I am not only 50 something, or over 50, I am double nickle. 55! Me? Can't believe that. When I was in the US earlier this year, I learned the term double nickle. I didn't know what they meant at first. Apparently, a nickle is 5 cents, so double nickle is 55. Geddit? Took me a while.

 

What does it mean to be 55? My brain doesn't want to process any of it.

 

On the one hand, you could look at what a wonderful life you've had so far, all the things you've achieved and done and look forward to many more fantastic things to do.

 

On the other hand, you could look at all the things that you wanted to do and achieve and think that you haven't done any, or many of them.

 

Glass half-full or glass half-empty?

 

I am a glass half-full type of person, so I have chosen to look at all the wonderful things I've done so far and all the opportunities that I've had. I am well educated (Master of Organisational Psychology), went to an elite private school, never wanted for anything, was bright enough not to have to put much effort in at school (different story at Uni!), was good at sport and am lucky enough to live in the best economy in the world (Western Australia) in the fifth most liveable country in the world.

 

So where does a 55th birthday leave me? Grateful for the opportunities I've had and thinking I could make more use of them. I would like to sponsor a child through the Smith Family, but I really would like the child I sponsor to be an Aboriginal girl from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, but you can't choose your type of kid. You can't even choose what state they come from. I am still deciding what to do about that.

 

I did rescue a little dove the other day. I think he was kicked out of his nest so he could learn to fly, but he fell about four or five metres with a big thump right next to me. I took him to the vet, who kept him for a couple of days and then three days ago I had to collect him. I kept him in the garage for two nights and gave him flying lessons! I had to make him fly so his wing muscles would get stronger. He wasn't too keen, although he did it a little bit. When I can work out how to put the video of him on here, you will be able to see him.

 

Yesterday at lunch time, I opened the door to the backyard and when I got home he had hopped just outside the door. I tried to make him fly, but he just hopped a bit further away from me, so I left him alone. Luckily, where I left him was right under his nest. Later on he was still there. When his mother started coo-ing he got a bit agitated, but didn't try to fly. I can't see him now so I hope he is OK.

 

The little bird was my glass half-full contribution and I would do it again. I don't think I would do it because I am now over 50, I think it's just me.

 

What about you?

Rumours and gossip

What is it that makes nasty people nasty? Some of them spread gossip with the intent of causing trouble. I just don't get it.

 

A couple of nights ago, a man who was raising money for breast cancer research swam in the dark, overnight, from Rottnest to Perth. Some particularly nasty male (Doug) loves to spread viscious rumours and this one had me going on the escort boat. Then he raised the question of why was I sticking my nose into it. He has made a fool of himself before with the nasty things that he says and he did it again this time! He got the wrong Shelley. It was Shelley Taylor-Smith who was accompanying the swimmer, not me.

 

If he had stopped to think he would have realised that on the committee of the Rottnest Channel Swim Association I would be one of the ones who thought this guy was a maniac (I am scared of sharks, so why would you put yourself at risk by swimming in the dark) and that the Association should have nothing to do with it. Anyway, he never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.

 

Photo by sindorella

 

He must think of ways to discredit me all the time as this is just one in a long line of things he has done. He makes me think of the line by Wil Wheaton in the 'Big Bang Theory' where he says that he has rented space in Sheldon's head, for free! Sheldon spends his life worrying about Wil Wheaton and that just suits Wil Wheaton fine. If Doug spends his life thinking of ways to discredit me, it means that he is angry  with me a lot of the time. Actually, he is just an angry person, so if I get to him by just being me, I have rented space in his head for free, just like Wil Wheaton! What a waste of energy.

What is it that motivates people like this? Are they trying to make the other person look bad? Mostly, I think that they make themselves look bad.

 

 

Auntie Jean died last week

Auntie Jean died last week and I drove too fast again. I couldn't help it. Give me a good country road, some good music and off I go! This time, I kept catching myself before I went over the top because it's a very nice, very policed road.

Auntie Jean was our other mother. She and her family lived on a dairy farm just out of Brunswick Junction about 140kms south of Perth and about 20kms north of Bunbury. We went to their dairy farm every school holidays and most long weekends. We also stayed there for three months when our mother went to Europe (in those days fathers were deemed not capable of looking after their kids). I was nine and my brother was seven.

It was a haven for kids. We used to do all sorts of wonderful things like build cubby houses in the haystack (how we didn't get bitten by a snake I'll never know); do swimming training in the dam that was full of leeches; plait bailing twine to act as lane ropes in the dam, and drive the tractor when we were too small to reach the floor from the seat.

Along with the not-so-good came the good like hosing out the dairy after milking. The first kid to wake up in the morning (usually me) had to hose out the dairy (of cow pats) and it was a pretty smelly job. We used a high powered hose and sometimes it was stronger that us! Hosing out the dairy wasn't all bad - there was a reward at the end, which was hand feeding the calves, like the little fella below. That was fun. They loved to suck on your hand after you had dipped it in the milk bucket.

 

Freisan calf
Photo by Compassion in World Farming


 

The road from Perth to Bunbury is only a few years old, is fairly straight and doesn't go through any towns. It is a dual carriageway the whole way and just invited me to go too fast. Maybe I was a bit more careful with my speed because I was going to a funeral, or maybe it was because lots of people get caught speeding on this road. I controlled myself because I don't want my own funeral for a very long time. Maybe being over 50 means that we start thinking of our own mortality. In fact, I had a conversation about that with someone two days before the funeral (that's for another blog).

 

Anyway, I enjoyed the drive and although I hadn't shed a tear at all when I found out that Auntie Jean died, the funeral undid me. The worst bit was seeing Uncle Merthyr sitting in his wheelchair (the results of 65 years of milking cows) with his hand over his eyes, sobbing. They had been married for 62 years. I don't know what he is going to do now - they both were in permanent care. Auntie Jean was in the Alzeheimer's wing of a retirement village and Uncle Merthyr is in a total care unit. He spent the last year or so going and sitting with Auntie Jean every day. Must be awful. I hope he is OK.

 

 

Snap decision

This is something that I NEVER do! I am always so cautious and always take ages and ages to make a decision about spending a big lot of money. But, at over 50, could I be changing?

I was lucky enough to go to the USA from mid-July to mid-August this year. I spent a few days in Texas, which was very hot. I went to Dallas and San Antonio to see the Alamo, which was very interesting.

A few days later I went to stay with friends, who live on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota. What a wonderful place that was!

View from the back window to the lake

 

I was there for about a week and then went to Crater Lake National Park with some other friends who live in Portland, Oregon. That, too, was wonderful.



Crater Lake

Then to LA and the Grand Canyon and back to Perth.

A week or so after I came back to Perth I got an email saying "I'm getting married on September 28 and we'd love you to come". All fine and good, but they are Italians living in the north of Italy! For the next week or so I changed my mind 200 million times on whether to go or not. The sensible me said no because I didn't have the money and I had used up all my holidays. My newly emerging, throwing caution to the wind self said "why not, just do it". All my friends said I should go, but I semi-decided not to and then after a week or so I forgot about it (truth be told I probably didn't want to think about it).

About 10 days before the wedding, the mother of the bride sent an email saying that she had just found out that her daughter had invited me and they would love me to come. What to do?

So, I spent the next couple of hours debating with myself whether or not to go and then at a fortuitous time my brother rang up. He was really excited about it and said I should go, so I booked the flights right then and there.

The interesting thing was that, even though I had to borrow the money, I never once had buyer's remorse and thought I shouldn't have done it.

I had a fantastic time (it was only a week) and I am glad that I went.

So..... that is my first ever throw caution to the wind and just do something moment of my life, even though I had argued with myself about it a couple of weeks before.

Why now? Why did I do it? Maybe I thought that I'd always regret not going. Maybe I am developing a new not-so-cautious persona and some new values. Maybe I'm thinking you only live once!

Driving too fast!

I can't help it. I love it! I just love driving too fast, even though I know it's dangerous. I love being just on the edge of losing control, but as an over 50 I've toned down a bit.

Last weekend I visited a friend in the country, about 200kms from Perth. It took about two-and-a-half hours. It took 45 minutes or so to get out of the metropolitan area and into the country. Then it was just a very long road, with hardly any other cars. There were a couple of towns to slow down for and then a left turn at Bindoon.

I was pretty well controlled on the road to Bindoon, but after that left turn there weren't really any other cars and with the music up loud (thank God for MP3 players) I found myself going at 130 - 140 kms per hour. I know this is too fast, but it was fun!

The Bindoon to Moora road took about an hour and even though sometimes I went too fast, when the road signs indicated that one should slow down for a bend, I did as I was told.

Bindoon to Moora road

Here's the thing....

When I was younger I would have kept my speed at 130 - 140 kms per hour, except for the bends in the road of course, but now, at 50 something, I found myself slowing down to the speed limit whenever I noticed that I was going too fast.

Funnily enough, the more I was enjoying a song, the faster I got, until I realised how fast I was going. In the old days, I would have kept going fast, but not now. Is it because at 50 something we are constantly reminded of our own mortality? Or is it because I am a better citizen that I was at maybe 30 something? Who knows.

Enthusiasm

I went to a friend's place for dinner the other night. She had just turned 60, though you'd never know it, and her husband (Graham) is 65. He and I were discussing aging and values with their son-in-law (aged 42) as he cooked dinner for his 3 year-old.

I was saying that I still have the same values and interests that I did when I was 26 and I thought that 26 was when I had become an adult. The other two thought pretty much the same as well. The interesting thing for me, was that Graham said that even though he had the same values now as he did as a 26 year-old, he doesn't have the enthusiasm for some things as he used to.

Three generations
Photo by glindsay65

Interesting. When he was saying that I realised that I don't have the enthusiasm for some things anymore, either. Work, for instance. I have been doing the same thing for 18 years and the thought of doing something else is actually quite enticing. Graham said that he still likes doing what he does (lighting for stage shows), but now he prefers puppet shows for kids, as they only last for 1 hour and that is long enough. Plays and operas last for a few hours and he doesn't have the enthusiasm for spending that long at the theatre doing the lighting.

I am finding that my enthusiasm for things waxes and wanes, depending upon what it is. New things excite me and many things I have been doing for years don't anymore. That's probably not due to aging, but may be due to wanting to try new things - that's what excites me. All we have to do is find those new things on a regular basis and then do them.

What's a new thing that excites you?

The Human Spirit

As we all watched horrified at Hurricane Sandy's path up the east coast of the USA I started thinking of other recent disasters and the effect that they have on us, even if we're not there.

At the beginning of last year (2011) I remember watching the news and seeing that there were huge floods in Queensland. Thousands of properties and tens of thousands of people  were affected. After a couple of days people just started turning up to other people's streets and houses with brooms, rakes and anything else that they judged would be useful. I was amazed and very happy to see that they all pitched in to help before anything formal was organised and whether or not they knew the people.

Just days after that there were horrendous bush fires in the Perth hills and many houses were lost. The fires were accidentally lit (and the poor man who did it will probably never forgive himself) and very savage. Again, lots of property was lost, as were several lives, I think. People banded together and helped each other, whether they knew each other or not.

Shortly after that, there was a massive cyclone in Queensland. Just as it was recently in the USA, the cyclone met up with a couple of other big tropical storms and caused devestation again. (I could be getting the order of all these things mixed up.)

I was all disastered-out. I felt overwhelmed by it all, even though none of them were anywhere near where I live. I stopped watching the news, because I couldn't stand seeing more disasters and more people who had lost houses, loved ones, etc. The only good thing that seemed to happen was that people helped each other.

I stopped watching the news for about two weeks and one Friday night thought I'd watch as those disasters should have been under control and maybe the news shows would have stopped reporting on them. Unfortunately, it was the day of the Japanese tsunami - another huge disaster. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe seeing the water swamping everything in its path and destroying everything as it went by. Then after a few days there were reports of people helping each other, which raised my spirits a bit.

It seems to me that even though we see all sorts of horrible things that we do to each other - murders, robberies, etc - in the end most people are good. I don't think anyone sets out to be either good or bad, it's just what we are and in times of need we help each other. To me it was one good thing to come out of all those disasters - people helping each other.

Imagine, then, my horror of hearing the story of a mother with two young sons in the USA in the hurricane, holding on to the roots of a tree and then knocking on the door of a house and being refused entry. The two sons were killed. I saw an interview with the man who supposedly refused them entry to his house, and he, of course, denied it. I hope that it didn't happen because that would mean that my theory about everyone being basically good would not be true.

Moonrise Kingdom made me think

On Friday night I was flying back from Melbourne to Perth, Western Australia and one of the movies that I could choose from was Moonrise Kingdom. I was on a Qantas A330 (my favourite plane), which has seatback screens. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Qantas is anything but brilliant. I love that airline. In the last few months Qantas has taken me  from Perth to Sydney, Dallas, LA to Sydney, back to Perth,  Adelaide, Melbourne (three times), from Perth to Singapore to Frankfurt and back. I have done a lot of flying and watched a lot of movies and I still haven't managed to watch all that Qantas has on offer.

Moonrise Kingdom is set in 1965 and what struck me was that no-one in it was overweight or obese. I had been watching it for half an hour or so before I realised this and that made me think that this must have been before we all weighed too much.

All the kids had skinny legs with knobbly knees and I thought that's how kids are probably meant to be built. I wondered how recently the overweight epidemic started. The film-makers had obviously done their research regarding body types!

Kids with skinny legs
Photo by Escape2Destinations

I went to Japan in about 2004 and again in 2008. The first time I went I saw probably two or overweight or obese people and the second time there were lots of them. I wondered what had changed in that four-year period. Were there more Western style fast-food outlets? Did people now eat more of a Western diet? Were they more sedentary?

Why do the US and Australia top the charts for overweight and obese people? 

Unfortunately, I am nearly one of them. I need to lose three or four kilograms and will work on doing this in time for Christmas.

Would anyone like to join me?

 

I Love Sleeping

I think sleeping is one of the most wonderful things on earth. I love the relaxed feeling just as you are waking up. Trouble is, that you become more and more awake and lose that lovely feeling. Every night I just can't wait to go to bed and to be nice and warm and snuggly....

....and then I wake up at about 2:30am and if I am lucky I go back to sleep until about 4am and that is it!

This morning I woke at about 2:15am and didn't go back to sleep. I lay there hoping and hoping and hoping. I turned my alarm off, which was set for 5am to go swimming. I didn't go back to sleep but I still enjoyed being in bed.

What's with being 50 something and not sleeping properly?

Health magazine has a good article about mixed up sleep in older people (is this us - older?) and says it may relate to the aging process and that the brain produces less and less melatonin as we get older. Apparently, this is the hormone that regulates sleep at night and alertness during the day.

At least I know now it's not just me! Does anyone else have interruped sleep?

Friends - how we keep them, how we value them

I had some friends around for dinner last night. Can you believe that three of them were named Kim? Two boy Kims and one girl Kim. I met all of these people, except one, when I was about 17 or 18. At 50 something, that means we have been friends for almost 40 years!
Amazing!

As we were having a good time last night I began wondering what it is that that made us stay friends for all these years. Of course, we had wandered in and out of each others' lives, but always maintained a sense of what the others were doing.

At the end of the Kakeroma, Japan, 16km swim



I wonder if it is because you have similar interests, or maybe just enjoy doing things together. In the photo above we had just finished a 16km swim. I did it as a duo with the lady on the left. She lives in Japan and I live in Western Australia and even though we only see each other every couple of years, if we're lucky, I just know that we will always be friends. I think it's not only that we share interests, but also because we just clicked straight away and enjoy each others' company.

I don't think 'just clicking' with my friends from the dinner party is why we are still friends, but maybe we did a lot of things as a group in our teens and twenties and then as people had kids, we still maintained our friendship by phone calls, coffee and going out together. I don't know, but it's very satisfying to have such long term friends.

That just reminded me of a book that I have just finished reading called "When God Was a Rabbit". It was about a girl, her brother and their friend and all the people in their lives as they were growing up. It examined what different kinds of friendship could be like. I couldn't put it down.

Am I Really 50 Something?

I am almost half-way through my 50s and can't believe it! What happened to the last 10, 20, 30 years? I suspect lots of other people feel like me, too.

I live in Perth, Western Australia, close to the beach and close to the ocean. It's a wonderful place to live and the lifestyle is fantastic.

I like to read a lot and sometimes in this blog I might mention a book or film that I have read that you might like to look at.

This blog will look at life at 50 something, which is a very weird stage of life. For some the kids are on the way out the door and others are beginning to look after aging parents. We will look at the fun stuff (and there's lots of that) and some issues in the general world that are relevant to us, which also may promote some discussion. The more we can discuss the simpler things seem and the more fun we will have.

At the moment my mother lives in Dallas, Texas and I can't think why someone would move from beautiful Perth to live in Dallas. Some readers may be able to help me with that one! Another topic that I find interesting is my aging body (it wasn't meant to happen to me, just everyone else) and what things there are out there to help me with it.

Why would you choose to live in Dallas instead of sunny, pretty Perth?

 

Chihuly exhibition (the only good thing about Dallas)

Chihuly exhibition, Aboredum, Dallas