It is amazing how one can adjust to the nothingness of doing nothing. We have had a very busy two weeks. For a whole two weeks, while our son from Pretoria and Little One were visiting, we were tourists in our new hometown. It is hard work. Everything that we had come to view as normal, we now had to do from tourists’ viewpoint, and it was tiring, believe me. Even the Cliff Walk seemed longer. I have new respect for tour guides. And so, as much as I was sad to see them leave, I was just so glad to get back to my very quiet life. For a few days, I just wanted to shut the world out, turn within, and process where I am, and what I am doing, or not doing.

Colin was also away, he too traveled up to Gauteng, for his usual 2 weekly meetings for a project he is working on. He left Sunday morning. After kicking my heels at the prospect of alone time, I very quickly experienced something I had not had for at least 5 months. It was the Sunday blues. I realised that I am no longer made to be alone on a Sunday. I need my other half, the one who makes me whole again. But since that was not going to happen, I had to resort to do what I at one time thought would be fun to do: Nothing.

I have previously alluded to having been a city girl, raising a family and working in a career within the service industry. All of it came with a level of stress that is normal to that environment. There is nothing easy about being a 30-something. You are trying to be the perfect mother, have the perfect career and a perfect house to which to invite all your friends, who at the same time is trying to uphold their end of perfectness. It was while I was surviving my 30’s, gradually getting closer to 40 and having the associated nervous breakdown around turning 40 (Ugh! That means I am OLD), that an acquaintance who was about to turn 50 said to me: I would rather be 50, than 40 or 30. Why on earth I asked, and he shared his wisdom with me, which basically was that at 50 you tolerate less of other people’s nonsense (just, he did not use the word nonsense, his was more descriptive). And so, in my 50’s now, I get what he was saying. You just seem to cut out so much of the background noise, and things that were so important 10 or 20 years ago, just really do not matter that much anymore. There is a lot of joy in getting older.

The thing to do nowadays, is to write a letter to your younger self. I believe the idea is to help you work through your issues as a means of healing your inner self, or rather, that is what Aunty Google tells me. I did not mature in the generation of writing letters to younger selves (instead I had advice from my soon to be 50 person), and as such have decided to rather write a letter to my older self. OK, it is not so much a letter, as older self will either lose the letter, or post it thinking it must belong to an even older person, so it is more of a checklist, of what to do, and what not to do.

I currently find myself living in a slightly older community. As you know by now, it is just temporarily, and it is an arrangement that suits us very well. It was a community which I planned not to get involved in, but if you have read my past crawls, you will know that I failed abysmally in this quest, and that my failure has been so rewarding.  Apart from all the absolutely colorful characters I have discovered here and the adventures some of them have taken either me, or themselves on, there are unfortunately others that are sitting in death’s waiting room, ever so disgruntled because death is dragging his feet, or worse, Death is writing a letter to its’ younger self while they are waiting.

Disclaimer: the below list is not a criticism of others, it is just my observation of what I hope to do, or not do, as I grow older. So here goes:

Remember the basic social skills you taught your children. Table manners matter. No matter what your age, noisily blowing on hot food or continuously complaining about food remains inappropriate. The same goes for blowing your nose at the table. Do not eat and eat and eat. You do not have to eat it all. Enough is as good as a feast, and if you stop eating today, there will still be some for tomorrow.

Stay away from bad lifestyle choices. Sitting becomes addictive (Can you imagine telling your friends I had such a nice sit with my granny yesterday. Boy, did we have a good old moan about the food and the neighbours) and hanging around in your pajamas for most the day will make even the happiest of us depressed. Never stop grooming. Allow your grandchildren to remember you always wearing your navy-blue double-breasted blazer and your pearl brooch, or your Levi’s and Docs, which ever blows your hair back. Nobody wants to remember you in a faded paisley dressing gown.

When you do have company, allow others to speak. It is not OK to always know better. Maybe you do but know that you can’t put an old head on young shoulders. Do not babble on senselessly about topics that fascinate only you. Do not loose respect for other people’s topics that are off limits, such as how much money do they have, or guessing how much they have just because they bought something. Or even worse: loose the concept of money. Oooh! And that big taboo: Racial or cultural comments. Remember: not every one’s normal is the same. Beware of becoming gratefully ungrateful – this one has a way of sneaking up on you. Yes, maybe your grandson only stayed for an hour, but just maybe it was an hour he could have spent with his family who he hasn’t seen in a month while on a business trip. He drove all this way to bring you the printed tea towel from England, which you are now so ungrateful for. Last time he brought you foam bath from Harrods, and he knows that you regifted it.

Remember what inappropriate topics of conversation are. Nobody wants to hear about your bodily functions, unless you are a year old, and potty training. You are not on a school playground. Tit for tat remains petty and childish. Besides, why would anybody want to stand at their fence and bark at the neighbour’s dog, just because the dog woke you up from your nap? Do not become critical of others. Just because you do or don’t do it, it does not mean they should or not.

And the last one. Have a friend 20 years younger than you. Hand them this list (or your own list) and ask them to check in on you every so often.

And now, having shared this with you, I am going to get back to the business of doing nothing, which in my case turned out to be quite productive. I was given a bag of limes, so I made lime marmalade. I also convinced my kids to help me pick olives, and I am trying my hand at preserving olives. And just maybe tomorrow, I will sit around in my pajamas just a little longer. Nothing wrong with having the occasional lazy morning. Just please, do not grow into the habit.