I own Autumn

I feel like I own Autumn. I was born in April so Autumn is my season, it is when I feel the most comfortable, the time when I know deep within me that anything is possible and the time when on the 15th of the month, I realise I am one step closer to my grave. I will soon be 62. I have been thinking about aging for a while now, not because I am getting older but because those around me are. Sure I age at the same rate, but I never feel I'm old. I only know I am my age when I write it on a form or look at Hanno and wonder why time went so fast. And if the truth is told, sometimes when I write '61', I look at it and think it's wrong.

To put my age into perspective, these are a few facts I looked up:

• When I was born, Australia's population was 7,708,761 - it's now 21 million.
• When I was born, our prime minister was Ben Chifley, and our monarch was King George VI
• When I was born, the American president was Harry Truman.

When I gave up working for a living, I gave away all my watches. I didn't want to be constrained by certain time periods and what was supposed to happen at those times of the day. I wanted to do things when they needed to be done or when I felt like doing them. I wonder now if getting rid of my watches had a deeper meaning for me - whether by not recording time on my arm, it didn't record anywhere. Of course, that is a ridiculous notion, but I still think about it. The truth is, I love being my age, what ever age it is, but now in my Autumn season I feel I have become the real me. I look at other women my age who have plastic surgery and dress like fluffy lambs, and I feel comfortable, content and proud that I am what I am.

Ageing has been hijacked by commerce, it's now bound up by what we should look like. Advertisements in women's magazines and the undertone of many TV programs pressure women (and men) into believing if they don't look young, they're not good enough. WRONG! We should only look young when we're young. That's not rocket science. Older women are still beautiful, beauty will never rely on youth.

I am happier now than I have ever been. I am proud to look my age, to have my hair its natural grey colour, to dress how I feel comfortable. Sure, there are times when I forget things, when I can't move nearly as fast as I used to, or when I go to sleep in the arm chair when I sit down to knit. Those things come with the territory but you also get many golden moments too. When I was younger, I didn't have the confidence I have now. I didn't know how awesome I can be when I put my mind to it. I didn't feel this powerful.

Like everything in this world, the ups are always balanced by the downs and sometimes when I look at Hanno and my sister, I see fragility and worry about how we will all progress into older age. I am concerned there may be a time when we can't do the work we do now and I hope we'll be okay with that if it happens. But then I remember the Blue Zones I wrote about last week and I know that life can still be rich and fulfilling in very old age. I think about writing my book at the age of 62 and I feel grateful that I have the capacity and desire to do it, and the energy it needs.

So bear with me today as I think about age, birthdays and the number 62; tomorrow I'll be ageless again. Tomorrow all thoughts of age will probably have left me and I'll be back to writing posts about being frugal and green and living the simple life. But you never know. At my age you can do anything. ;- )
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Thanks for all the feedback that came while I was working on my blog on the weekend. It's so encouraging to have people tell you you're doing a good job as you go along. I have added an email subscription box and will add a feed subscription soon. I'm quite baffled by feed subscriptions and I'm sure I've done something to mine. Anyhow, we'll know soon enough. My hope with the new look is to have things better organised so that the older information is more easily accessed. Let me know if you have any more suggestions for me.

I wanted to place more emphasis on my home too. I didn't want it to look like a gardening blog and although my garden is an absolute joy to me, without my home, I'd be lost. So I chose some new photos for the banner that, I hope, indicate where my heart is. I love my home, and while it's a small and simple dwelling, it suits my simple soul and working class heritage.