I’ve just had my 40th birthday so I am now officially ‘over the hill’.
It’s an interesting phrase but one I would like to reclaim as a positive.
The Cambridge dictionary says it refers to someone who is past their prime and no longer useful or attractive and a quick internet search of the phrase shows general agreement with this definition.
However, I like to walk on Dartmoor and as a walker I think that getting over the hill has much more positive connotations than this.
The two main things about reaching the summit are this; firstly – the views (once you have caught your breath enough to take them in) are amazing; and secondly, you can stop climbing, rest on a sense of achievement and just enjoy the easy walk down.
If I am seen as being no longer useful or attractive, I can live with it. Being useful and attractive is for someone else; you are never useful and attractive in isolation you can only be useful or attractive to other people. If this is not a social expectation now that I am 40, I’m quite alright with that. All that really means is that I am no longer expected to prove my worth to others.
I can pause for a while now to take in the view, to take stock of my achievement and enjoy the sense of perspective from the top, then the downhill stretch is mine and if the choices I make and the things that I do on the rest of the journey are useful or attractive to others that’s fine but it is no longer an expectation.
So this is me at the summit; I’ve rested here already long enough to catch my breath and deal with some of the excess baggage that I’ve been carrying, and now I’m taking stock, reflecting on my journey so far and looking out over the vast terrain with all the experience of a seasoned traveller but excited by the knowledge that there is still plenty to discover on the way down.
And so begins my new blog in earnest (after a couple of dabbling posts a few months ago while I was trying to work out how to use the site).
The baggage I’m carrying now, is just what I think I need for the journey. I can always exchange with other people on the way down or make use of my foraging skills if there is anything else I need but basically I’m travelling light.
My focuses for this part of the journey and so for the blog are to do with gender, druidry and parenting. I am an active member of the Women’s Equality Party, a trainee druid with the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druidsand I have recently had the luxury of being able to give up work to look after our latest family member full time, with the aim of home educating.
Welcome and thanks to anyone who has stopped by to read this post – I look forward to travelling with you.
The Stories we Tell 