Muriel Spark, The Biography by Martin Stannard, and want to share something for those of us who have entered the 60s.
Muriel says:I think the happiest years of my life started between sixty and seventy...For one thing, I can handle life. Up till the time I was sixty I was never very capable of saying "No", of really saying "This is the way I do it" and being absolutely firm. She felt that too often she had wasted energy humoring those staking claims on her time...
How true - we keep humoring those staking claims on our time believing that to be our bounden duty - but it isn't. Yes, a fair amount of give and take, with maybe a little more leaning to the give, does happen, and that's fine, but more than that not only begins to drain, it also begins to subdue and stifle and eventually deaden and destroy what we are really all about. This is not to say we become selfishly short-sighted about ourselves, no--not at all----it is just that comes a time in life when we just have to plain and simple say a definite No to others and a resounding Yes to ourselves.....this is not being me-centric, it is the realization that the me has got lost somewhere, it is no longer visible, drowned as it is by the voices and demands of others, and doing something about it. As my DD tells me, "Ma if you are not going to start living now, then when?"
Also, as we grow older there is a sense of release from all kinds of things that seemed important...the focus changes...and we need to explore this - now, at this stage of our lives...
I also have a sneaky feeling that if we do things that show respect for ourselves, others, even those close to us, will respect us, even if it gives them dreadful jolts....
All this is totally exclusive of one's girl friends, for your girl friends are your support system and the only ones, who love you unconditionally and don't try to make you over into their image...and a wonderfully encouraging DD!!!!