Anne Bokma, memoirist and the creator of the Six Minute Memoir, has an exercise in her 6MM course: “write the numbers from 1 to the age you are in a column down the left side of a piece of paper and then take 10 minutes to fill in something that happened each year you’ve lived." It’s a fast tour through life’s highlights and as a writing student, a way to find possible topics. I noticed an interesting pattern: my life has shifted every five years and many of these re-directions have coincided with my birthday. 

Just after turning 30 I woke up to the fact I was taking the easy path but not the most fulfilling one for me; I made a significant career change from the city government to the rockier road of the non-profit sector. This was the jumping off place for the next five year segment - one week after my 35th birthday I wrote the LSAT (the Law School Admission Test) returning to school a year later. Two months before I turned 40 I was called to the bar and started life as a fully fledged lawyer serving the non-profit sector. 

Having sorted out my career, I turned to other things, because, as anyone who’s crossed the threshold knows, life does begin at 40. Two weeks before age 45 I bought a house and moved in with Jack - the crazy, endearing, infuriating man who was both lightning and lightening to my life. On my 50th birthday, Jack and I hosted a wedding reception - we’d eloped five months earlier during his cancer treatment. We marked the “many marvellous moments” of 2016 with 120 of our closest friends and family and with food, drink, and music exactly the way we wanted it. The perfect day. 

Much has happened in the five years since our wedding reception. After a year of relative normalcy, I stumbled through the traumatic year of Jack’s decline culminating with his medically assisted death in November 2018. Then I drifted for a year in the dark, not wanting to make any changes, anxious to find stability after a year of disorientation. COVID hit weeks after I started to emerge into the light, knocking me back. Through COVID I’ve discovered the writer within me and through it, I’ve examined anew what’s important to me. 

This week, I turned 55. I celebrated with a handful of fully vaxxed friends who’ve been my closest confidantes and biggest allies during the bleakest times of the last 18 months. Spending time with other humans was lovely - just lovely. While I’m very comfortable in my own skin and with my own company - age has its advantages in that department - there is value to in-person interaction. I’m grateful my anxiety has allowed a little bit more of it. 

With COVID, we’ve all had to change how we work, shop, socialize, travel, etc. But we’ve also seen how many are choosing to change other aspects of the way they live. Many have taken advantage of remote work by leaving urban centres for greener, bigger, space where the housing dollar stretches further. Others have changed their careers, either by necessity or design, and are pursuing opportunities that make sense and feel right. It seems it takes a pandemic to reveal what’s important. 

I’m no exception. Along with motivating me to open my gazebo to a few more people, turning 55 has activated that five year itch, as I think about ways I could recast my life to achieve more simplicity. In the decades before I met Jack and the stability that comes with coupledom, I had full autonomy over my decisions and could follow any urge. I feel like a free agent again, able to follow a course that makes sense and feels right consulting only with, well, me! (and yes, I am well aware this is a luxury afforded only a small part of the population.)

It’s unclear where the next semi-decade will take me. It’s starting with a purge of excess possessions. I feel I’ve spent 55 years accumulating stuff - including a lot of Jack’s - and now I need to start shedding, the goal being, I suppose, to die in 40 years with the barest of necessities. That seems responsible for both the planet and the executor. I’ve been liberating myself of things from books to shoes to glassware to towels to furniture and feeling ever-lighter, knowing others are in greater need.

As Jack was in the final stages of his illness, I said to my friend Barb, “This caregiving for Jack is the most important thing I’ve done.” She finished my sentence by adding a simple yet empowering word: “yet.” At the time, I felt disloyal to Jack and to the moment I was living, to imagine one day doing something more significant. Today, though, I understand what Barb meant: bring it on. And bring on those unimaginable things that will present themselves at 60, at 65, and so on. I’m not done doing! 

*Just a nod to my fellow Carrie Bradshaw fans.