On turning 60 this week

I was born in the mid-60’s. A child of the 70’s, growing up in the orange, brown, gold and lime green colours of the small city of Gisborne on the East Coast of Aotearoa. The ‘riviera’ of New Zealand at the time – best place for surfing, pub band tours, 2ZG Gisborne radio, and my Father the Youth for Christ Director (Dad, in the photo bottom right, he’s on the left with all the hair, sideburns and mo!). The things we got up to as part of YFC rallies (would never be allowed today, health and safety… )

I do remember the moon landing – being brought to the black and white TV by my parents and told ‘this is a really big day! you’ll remember this’ – and I have!

Like many young people growing up in Gisborne, I left the city to study. Free study! We only paid for textbooks (astronomical prices), I had a Bursary and an accommodation allowance that covered the cost of living in the Halls of Residence. Worked for the princely sum of $3.25 an hour in my first job as ‘assistant cartographer’ in a farm advisory company where I also learned to write DOS and arranged the filing system to match the DOS file structure – my holiday job for the three years I studied in CIT, Heretaunga, Upper Hutt. I graduated, an occupational therapist – still not really sure what that meant, not being able to describe it, but having a clear set of values about human doing, being, belonging and becoming.

The 80’s were the years of big shoulder pads, big hair, punk, safety pins on torn jeans, Rogernomics, the enormous financial crash of 1987, buying a house on 10% deposit – but 22% interest – and marrying. I took a new job outside health as a cabin attendant (air hostess) for a few years. It was my version of the Kiwi standard ‘OE’ (overseas experience) but with better accommodation, daily expense allowances and looooong flights to and from Los Angeles and Singapore and the UK. The uniforms were great (not a picture of me below).

Then on to the 1990’s and babies and divorce and moving south to Christchurch, and returning to University as a ‘mature’ student (at 30! terribly mature…), meeting my wonderful man, and working in pain management. The 1990’s and 2000’s were where pain management was recognised as important. The Burwood Pain Management Centre demonstrated that by helping people with pain, fewer people needed to be admitted to hospital, fewer orthopaedic appointments were needed for low back pain. The value of truly interprofessional teamwork to both outcomes for people with pain and staff turnover and morale clearly demonstrated. Then, over successive dilutions and increasingly distant management, the gradual reduction in all of these good things to now where the service is a shadow of its former self. When I started working at Burwood there was one director of service reporting to the General Manager of Burwood – now I believe there are six layers of management between the team and the decision-makers holding purse strings.

Life-changing events over the past 10 years include completing my PhD in 2015, becoming a mother-in-law to a wonderful woman married to my beautiful daughter, being a Mum to my fabulous quirky son who has just – gasp! – bought his first home, by himself. A monumental achievement. And of course, my ADHD diagnosis that has opened my eyes to how hard I’ve been on myself in the face of characteristics I have that cannot be ‘overcome’ by diligence and hard work. Mitigated to a certain extent, for sure, but not overcome. And terribly, terribly hard work.

What do I want to say in this post? No I’m not stopping my blogging – although readership is far lower than in the heady days of 2008 – this is one vehicle I can use to break the siloes, take down the paywalls, and offer FOR FREE the kind of information about pain that should be emphasised in undergraduate training.

In being older, I’m OK with quirkiness and oddity. I’m not going to fit in a box, I’m far more comfortable with being an outlier, not fitting in, being nonconformist. I’m happy with what I have achieved and while I’d love to have done much more, I know that this Gizzy girl has done a lot, seen a lot, been someone to some people, given much, learned a lot, cried an awful lot (oh the tears…), connected with people around the world and still don’t feel like a grown-up.

This is the first time I’ve spend deeply thinking about aging and what it means. It’s not the loss of youth that I ponder, but the richness of all those experiences. It’s being willing to cry at loss as the cost of loving and being loved (oh Sheba-the-wonderdog, I miss you still). It’s knowing that I won’t go to all the places in the world despite their delights because there’s so much here in NZ I have yet to explore. It’s all the wealth of creativity I’ve played with in my creative dabbling, not become ‘expert’ but being competent enough. Knowing that dabbling is, in itself, a pursuit worth doing. Excellence and perfection are valuable, and at the same time so is the process of learning and being curious and innovating because I haven’t followed the instructions. The journey is worth it, the end results aren’t just about ‘the product’ but the process of getting there. Relishing and savouring the myriad things there are to notice.

I’m not stopping now. Believe me, I’m not stopping! I may just settle a while to revel in all the experiences present here and now. Creativity is more than making a thing with beauty and function, it’s about seeing combinations that might not occur to others. It’s solving a problem by being curious about why it’s a problem in the first place. It’s recognising that paths don’t all need to be followed and sometimes it’s OK to deliberately walk in no particular direction or to a specific destination. To be. And give space and regard to now in all its abundance.

And then to get twitchy and restless and move on. In my own time.