Dear Me!

Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.

You’d better be having fun and causing havoc!

I hope you’ve led the grandchildren astray, proposed to a 20 year old, and worn purple with a red hat.

You should have taken at least 7 cruises by now and been thrown off at least one ship for being drunk and disorderly.

No doubt you’ve stumbled at some point, but claimed it was deliberate because you refused to admit you nearly fell. I also hope you remembered my advice to always carry a small bottle of whisky in case you do fall, so that you can drink it straight down and be drunk by the time help arrives.

Have you always maintained high standards in the undergarment area because I refuse to ever wear granny pants! Bridget Jones has a lot to answer for. I’m sure you do.

I trust you’ve managed to cling on to your upbeat attitude that you fought so hard for, and determinedly ignored all the rules of the golden age: falling apart is not a rule!

More than that I pray that you didn’t let the years on the clock get into your mindset.

Society has a very poor attitude towards ageing. The people who paid to send them and their children to school are now a drain on the economy. I hope you gave them hell and demanded a refund! Did you make Prime Minister at 80 I wonder? 🤣

I hope you remembered the advice to block, block, block, all ageing ‘rules’ and decide for yourself how you will age. An idea can be the most powerfully destructive process on the planet. I know you won’t have forgotten that.

Yes life gets sadder, you lose many precious people and pets, you can land up alone, but hope is within and you have the joy of a million good memories. Plus you’re very fortunate, you were left alone at a very young age, so you’re no stranger to that.

By the time you were six the only person you were reasonably sure loved you was gone, that built the ability to be alone, and also the appreciation of those you did have in your life. That set you up beautifully to cope.

I’m sure if you are still rocking it, there will be yet another very elderly cat by your side, living out its last months on a warm, comfy sofa, with a tummy full of food and a heart full of happiness. Maybe even a dog no one else would take. I know you well.

I’m sure that no matter what, you’re finding and making your own happiness. You always have.

You won’t be missing your youth either, it wasn’t that nice, which also set you up to age joyfully and disgracefully.

Let’s face it, at 67 you revived your writing and started sending off plays, short stories, articles. Knowing there is no too late or never. I hope it worked for you, you deserved it. Fighting anxiety and depression took everything you had, it cut off the muse. I hoped you became reacquainted and were both much more determined to help this world through entertainment and writing.

I pray you were surrounded by people who knew how to be happy. At last.

More than anything I wish you all the happiness and love you deserved, because I of all people know that you are and have always been a good person. You have tried to help this world, to be a voice for reason, to be respect, inclusion, and peace, not just preach it.

I know that your spiritual side is who you are, how you were born, it’s not work, or pretence. You’re incapable of pretence. You’ve fiercely monitored every word you say, thought you have, and thing you’ve done since you realised you didn’t like who you were in your mid thirties. You’ve been the difference you wanted to see in this world. I know more than anyone that you will not have changed.

You’re no fool my dear, you do see the world as it is, you just won’t sit back and accept it. You also see the good and potential good in the world, you don’t poison that with cynicism. I know that will not have changed either.

All in all I wish you abundance in all good, great, and wonderful things, as you do every newborn baby. You too deserve them.

You’re a warrior whose battles often resulted from an unkindness you never once understood, they dragged you down, made you less than you could have been. Far from perfect, extremely hard on yourself – and rightly so at times – yet you never stopped trying to be the love you wanted to see in this world.

You survived through an inexhaustible belief in love.

I hope you controlled that mind and stayed faithful to your most personal beliefs, I know that will have worked wonders and irritated any number of cynical people. I know you will have done your best.

I hope Laura and her family are still in your life, she will keep you young if no one will, and they were such an unexpected blessing, including Simon, I hope he learned to see himself as he is.

If Tony made it with you I trust he has learned how not to work and that life can be fun, and it is possible to relax.

If Katrina and Kim made it I fear for the world, no doubt you’ve been outrageous, arrested several times for stunts unbecoming to centenarians, including goosing a young and bewildered police officer on New Year’s Eve, and making off with his taser. A lady needs protection! At your age that’s a taser. 😉

Hopefully Luke will be there to suggest some element of control…or help you rebel which is more likely.

Most importantly I know that Amos is still there so you will always be okay.

I love you, you hopeful, optimistic, determined old bat, who probably still can’t encounter a person in trouble without trying to help. Don’t change, you are the change the world needs to be.

I know you won’t have given up on the belief that world peace is possible, and explaining firmly to those who don’t believe why it’s critical.

Love you – keeeep loving.

Deb xx

Your hopeful, optimistic, determined, younger old bat self.