Dating When You Are Older
Without Prejudice
It's a bit daunting when you are older to go back to dating. I have just started after a hiatus of five years, and now I think
"Why did I wait so long? "
I guess I had, like most divorcees a lot of baggage to get rid of. I wanted to take some time away from the environment I had always worked in and try to make my own living, try something different. All scary stuff. At 55 I wanted a lot of things that now don't seem like a lot.
But now I am sixty my priorities have changed in the last two years. Partly of course because I
Am getting older but also because if going to Camp Eden, I was not wealthy enough to afford it and my gorgeous brothers David and George were my impetus and benefactors to go. And they had to drag me there, kicking and screaming.
But it turned out to be a watershed time in my life and I was ready. At Camp Eden I was forced to confront me, my fears, my anxiety, my shyness. They can afford to pay for the best life coaches, make you 5 star healthy delicious food, have the best gym activities. And they tell you to turn off your mobiles ( There is no reception in the Currumbin Valley any way.
You are therefore confronted with your inner self, your self talk, the mindless brain chatter. Out goes pretension, out goes the face you show to the world and you go back to being the person you always were.
They ask you,
What were your dreams when you were 5 ?
What about when you were ten ?
Fifteen ?
Then after you have relaxed your mind and body, rested, glorified in the beautiful tranquil settings, been stunned with the beauty of nature they ask you to write 3 goals.
3 goals that you want to reach in the next 12 months.
I wrote as every one else was writing but I didn't believe them for a minute. And now I will tell you what I wrote.
1. To write a book.
2. To have a lean brown healthy body
3. To be in an exclusive relationship with a special man.
I went home and didn't make one step to attain my goals, not one.
Then 2 things happened, a month later.
Dave my brother asked me how was I going with the writing?
And Camp Eden rang also and said where was I with my goals.
I asked Dave, what was I going to write?
He said, write about your ex husband, he was a larger than life character and funny.
Dave loved the story I often told about my ex being arrested at Paris airport.
I hadn't written since my youngest daughter has died. 22 years earlier.
I had lost all desire to write. And yet, I knew I could write, I have been writing since I was a little girl. And I read. I read everything I could lay my hands on. I would always have two or three books on the go at once, even at 8.
I read The Water Babies, all the Noel Streetfield books, Little Women, Enid Blyton, The Wind In The Willows, Hans Christian Anderson. . I was not just a child prodigy in English , I was a reading voracious monster. I gobbled up books, I devoured them, lived them, breathed them
They were my escape from grim reality, hope for the future. My imagination ran riot and transported me from the humble commission houses we lived in, to England, the world. In dreams I was in another realm, flying on the back of a bird to fantasy land. I imagined myself as Cinderella. Snow White, Gretel, George in Famous Five, Jo in Little Women.
It's a bit daunting when you are older to go back to dating. I have just started after a hiatus of five years, and now I think
"Why did I wait so long? "
I guess I had, like most divorcees a lot of baggage to get rid of. I wanted to take some time away from the environment I had always worked in and try to make my own living, try something different. All scary stuff. At 55 I wanted a lot of things that now don't seem like a lot.
But now I am sixty my priorities have changed in the last two years. Partly of course because I
Am getting older but also because if going to Camp Eden, I was not wealthy enough to afford it and my gorgeous brothers David and George were my impetus and benefactors to go. And they had to drag me there, kicking and screaming.
But it turned out to be a watershed time in my life and I was ready. At Camp Eden I was forced to confront me, my fears, my anxiety, my shyness. They can afford to pay for the best life coaches, make you 5 star healthy delicious food, have the best gym activities. And they tell you to turn off your mobiles ( There is no reception in the Currumbin Valley any way.
You are therefore confronted with your inner self, your self talk, the mindless brain chatter. Out goes pretension, out goes the face you show to the world and you go back to being the person you always were.
They ask you,
What were your dreams when you were 5 ?
What about when you were ten ?
Fifteen ?
Then after you have relaxed your mind and body, rested, glorified in the beautiful tranquil settings, been stunned with the beauty of nature they ask you to write 3 goals.
3 goals that you want to reach in the next 12 months.
I wrote as every one else was writing but I didn't believe them for a minute. And now I will tell you what I wrote.
1. To write a book.
2. To have a lean brown healthy body
3. To be in an exclusive relationship with a special man.
I went home and didn't make one step to attain my goals, not one.
Then 2 things happened, a month later.
Dave my brother asked me how was I going with the writing?
And Camp Eden rang also and said where was I with my goals.
I asked Dave, what was I going to write?
He said, write about your ex husband, he was a larger than life character and funny.
Dave loved the story I often told about my ex being arrested at Paris airport.
I hadn't written since my youngest daughter has died. 22 years earlier.
I had lost all desire to write. And yet, I knew I could write, I have been writing since I was a little girl. And I read. I read everything I could lay my hands on. I would always have two or three books on the go at once, even at 8.
I read The Water Babies, all the Noel Streetfield books, Little Women, Enid Blyton, The Wind In The Willows, Hans Christian Anderson. . I was not just a child prodigy in English , I was a reading voracious monster. I gobbled up books, I devoured them, lived them, breathed them
They were my escape from grim reality, hope for the future. My imagination ran riot and transported me from the humble commission houses we lived in, to England, the world. In dreams I was in another realm, flying on the back of a bird to fantasy land. I imagined myself as Cinderella. Snow White, Gretel, George in Famous Five, Jo in Little Women.
