Recently I turned 61 and celebrated with my partner of twenty-seven years, we both reminisced  about my first birthday celebration we’d shared  together, which was  when I’d turned thirty-five!  We’d spent a romantic time in Paris and a picture taken of me is still pinned on my husband’s study wall, the location was Pere Lachaise cemetery by Jim Morrison’s grave. I’m looking a bit posy even before the selfie-obsessed century.

35 birthday picture

Now if we’d done exactly the same this birthday the scene, or the experience, would not have been so different, except us two twenty-six years on! 

Do I feel like the same person I was then? Well, I believe whatever age you are, you still feel like you. I didn’t feel as confident and focused as I do now, which would have served me well at thirty-five. Life after fifty brings hormone liberation and experience, which can be a great combination to focus on yourself, which is something else i could’ve have done with then. Do I wish I was thirty-five again? No, I‘m enjoying being 61, as just like then, there are many new and exciting developments taking place in my life. it may be even dangerous to go back to being thirty-five with the knowledge you have at sixty-one, who knows!

According to Dr Mario Martinez author of the Mind Body Code  and Louann Brizendine author of the Female brain, two books I’ve recently read, I should feel, a hell of a lot better than I did then. I didn’t expect that at thirty-five, I thought it was going to be all down hill, I wish I’d thought differently. Any loss might of been compensated with the excitement of growing older, rather than the fear.

Dr Mario Martinez writes, ‘cultures that support growing older as a positive development associated with increased wisdom and abilities have higher numbers of centenarians living healthier lives, than cultures that view aging as a process of inevitable deterioration.’

If you’re fifty or over and you had known at thirty-five that you would still be reinventing and growing when you were fifty plus, would it have made a difference then, to your idea of ageing? Likewise, if you are thirty-five or younger and you knew that your life after fifty would continue to be productive, would that make a difference to how you view ageing?

I’d love to know what you think in the comments below.

Rx