I was talking to my friend, Trish, the other day, and she spoke of the catch-up she’d had with an elder woman in her early 90’s with whom she’d also become friends. Trish much admires this elder lady, and describes her as having a life “well lived”. I was envious, to say the least. Not of Trish – at least not on this occasion – but of having a life well lived. If I was to describe my life, I would say it was a mixture of messiness and missed opportunities, with a smattering of luck and good fortune thrown in here and there due to having some good habits and values.
To digress a little, and tell a little more about my friend, Trish – a while ago, she started a yarn-crafts group and called it Yarnteeze¹. The name is a combination of the play on the word ‘Aunties’, as well as talking (i.e. having a ‘yarn’) and casually passing on information and skills whilst crafting, and that they use yarn for their craft. My friend has Maori heritage, and like many non-Euro cultures, the term ‘Auntie’ – being any older woman – is a form of respectful address. This group was designed to have a multifunction purpose – to get women together who had yarn-craft skills and to create items for charity; to create a social network, shared purpose and camaraderie; help maintain good mental health for women; to engage women’s knowledge, and create get-togethers for younger women (and men) to learn yarn-craft skills from the Aunties. There’s a wide range of ages in the group – from 40 to 92 years old, which gives it a wonderful plethora of life-experience. It’s small, but a resounding success, and Trish has been awarded a well-deserved community acknowledgement for it.
When I told Trish that I was jealous of her friend having a life well lived, because I didn’t think mine was, she said that it’s never too late to have a life well lived. Which was good in one way, and a nuisance in another, because now I know I don’t have an excuse to opt out. Damn her wisdom!
Before this conversation, I had been talking about China’s political shenanigans with someone else. I acknowledge that all countries have political shenanigans, however, China was the country of subject on this occasion. I mentioned how their political system gives them the advantage of being able to play a really long game. The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have to worry about only having three or four years in office before the next election might oust them, and then the next party in power overturning the initiatives they put in place. Unless something cataclysmic happens in China to de-throne the communist party, they can put plans in place for a hundred years down the road without fear of having them quashed by the next party in power.
It got me thinking. Thinking about what it means to play the long game, instead of always letting the wind take me where it blows. I have played the long game in some ways, because I’ve always been a saver of money. I’ve always known that I’ll need it for something somewhere down the track, so I’ve saved for that eventuality. But I hit a wall when I try and think of the big picture of my life, and playing the long game to bring it into the material world. I don’t expect things to turn out exactly as we picture them, because they seldom do, but just having some broad strokes would be kinda good.
As I have become older, and care less about being a flawed human being and cut myself more slack, I’m less invested in success and more invested in just doing. Not that I don’t enjoy success, but that’s not the only purpose for any project anymore. It takes much of the stress out of getting-it-right, and for me, I reckon that the fear of not getting-it-right held me back from playing the long game. I.e. if I didn’t have a plan, I couldn’t fail if it didn’t come to fruition. Sometimes I hate it when I crack my ‘safe’ like that, because then I can’t un-see what I’ve seen.
It doesn’t mean this flash of enlightenment will make me change my wicked ways RIGHT NOW. Although changes can sometimes be swift, they’re often much more mundane than that, but it’s out there in my world now whether I like it or not. Seeing as the world has multiple layers to it, and two or more things can be true at the same time even if they seem to oppose each other, I expect it will have an influence. So whilst I need to live now, I can also play the long game, and can succeed and fail at the same time. And whether I have a short time or a long time left in this world doesn’t matter, because if I’m still here and functioning, I’ve still got skin in the game.
A B'Old Woman 
Awesome as always. I love the way you write, it explores other aspects of a situation.
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Interesting how we can all look at the same thing, and yet see it differently.
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LoVe this! Well written and such fun! Trish is lush. Also love reducing the world’s issues to ‘shenanigans’. Oh, if only! Still, brilliant stuff. Thanks. 🙂
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Haha – thank you. Yeah, ‘shenanigans’ doesn’t even begin to describe the world’s issues, but sometimes it’s just too exhausting to go into much detail over them all. Trish has really got her Yarnteeze group humming. Is the word ‘lush’ a Canadian compliment? It seems like one, and I’ve heard it used before in various ways, but thinking it might mean different things in different places, too.
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More British than Canadian and it should mean much the same thing as just whatever feels ‘lush’ – talk, food, company, or even, sleep!
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Here, it’s mainly used as an adjective for dense/thick/rich – e.g. lush grass. Or as a pejorative for an alcoholic – s/he’s a real lush 😄 We don’t seem to use it in the same sense as you, although I get what you’re saying.
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Good stuff. I like thoughts like these. I blow with the wind, almost entirely. The long game doesn’t really enter into my consciousness – not a good thing, probably. I feel very lucky, though, that I’m almost never bored, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do.
“Sometimes I hate it when I crack my ‘safe’ like that, because then I can’t un-see what I’ve seen.”
Yeah, it’s tough at first, those moments of self-awareness.
Yarnteeze is a great name. I just hope no-one turns up thinking it’s a wool-based adult fun encounter group. Or maybe the aunties would like that.
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Haha – I never thought about the name in that way 😄 I’ll pass it into Trish – she’ll get a good laugh out of it, too.
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Is that you in the top bar photo? You look fabulous!
I think most of us, women especially, are so busy with our jobs and earning money and kudos from others that we don’t have time to really look at the big picture, that is, what to do after you’ve retired/reduced one’s working hours. I see so many residents in my senior community whose lives revolved around raising kids, building a career, and making money: but once retired, they fell into a funk. Some of them spent their time traveling and taking cruises, but the pandemic put a lid on that. Others would just sit in the community room and gossip and make snide remarks about their neighbors, but again, pandemic shut that down. As a result, there are a lot of unhappy people here. I’m a little surprised more of them don’t read—the public library’s bookmobile comes once a month—or take up art or a craft like knitting. I’m guessing that if you weren’t a reader or artist when you were younger, you’re not going to pick up those activities in old age. Though why not? As your friend pointed out, it’s never too late. I’ve discovered that I still enjoy teaching, whether it’s older people or children, so I’m looking at leading a writing course in the fall when the community center opens up for adult classes. I may regret it later (reading student papers is so much work!) but it’s my way of contributing to the larger community. Good luck to you!
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No, that’s not me in the top picture – sadly. Definitely a fab photo, though 🙂
Yes, you’re right about women’s time being swallowed up with immediate concerns of family, earning a living and just not going under. For me, I didn’t have kids, so I didn’t have that as an ‘excuse’. I have also seen retired people really come to life after they retire (or go into ‘jubilada’ as the Spanish call it, I believe), for the very reason that they now have the free time to do so. But others go into a funk, as you say. Interesting to note the difference between them. Your writing course sounds like a great way to spend your time and contribute. Yes, it will be challenging, and there’ll be moments of “why did I take this on” I expect, but challenges that we can meet keep us vital – as long as there’s an end to them in sight – lol! I look forward to hearing more about it 🙂
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