As I rush headlong toward my XLth birthday (it looks much more acceptable in Roman numerals, apart from the fact it makes me look fat), I've been thinking quite a lot about the years behind me, compared to those ahead of me.
Let's face it, I'm probably around halfway through my life, and it's at periods like this where you start to ask yourself if you've done good, if you're pleased with what you've done so far and thinking about what you want to do with the rest of it.
I spent my teenage years in education with just one unwavering aim - to become a newspaper journalist. It's all I ever wanted to do. The one thing I had in my mind for adulthood was to write for a living. And I achieved my goal: I qualified with a degree in journalism, got a job on a regional newspaper and worked my way up the ladder until the changing face of journalism in the 21st century meant that further progress was severely inhibited.
And I will admit that, six years ago when the company I'd poured years of time, energy, love and skill into decided it wasn't enough and I was to be sidelined and overlooked, it hurt. It bloody hurt, and it affected me for years, until the time came where priorities shifted in my head and I realised a new horizon beckoned.
I left that company last year after more than 17 years of dedication to its cause, 17 years of putting my heart and soul into trying to make it as successful as possible. But enough was enough. I wasn't being treated correctly - in fact, few people were - so I decided to get out. It was a brave, some might say reckless, decision to just turn tail and split, but it was the right thing to do for both my sanity and my future. And almost six months later, I haven't once regretted that decision to leave. Life is good; in fact, life is so much better when you can see and experience it more clearly, and not through a fug of stress and anger.
And in the months since I left, my life has metamorphosed into a better, much more interesting and enjoyable existence. I still write for a living, but it's much more creative, much freer and nourishing. I write what I feel, not what I'm told to feel. I write my truth, not a twisted representation of it. I use words I never could within the constraints of news reporting. In fact, I write... as a copy editor toward the end of my time on newspapers, I never got to write anything of my own. Unless it was a theatre review... and look at me now (and here too)!
And it's not just writing that has changed for me. My approach to life has changed. I have more time to give now, whether it be to family and friends, charitable organisations such as Parkinson's UK or the RSPCA, or just the new dog we got a couple of months ago. We couldn't have had a dog before as both Gareth and I were in full-time employment and it wouldn't have been fair. But now I've fulfilled a lifelong (and I really mean lifelong) ambition to have my own dog. And it feels good to be able to do that, to tick one off the Bucket List.
I don't have an actual Bucket List - maybe I should - but as the big XL approaches and I look back on what's gone, I can be happy that I achieved my first big goal pretty quickly, and damn well... but now life is in a new phase, and I can't wait to see what it brings. And you know what they say... don't look back, you're not going that way.
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