If you’re going through a bad phase, remember nothing lasts forever – the good nor the bad

o matter how lucky you are in life, there’s no avoiding the odd kick in the teeth to sort you out. Everyone gets a few, they’re impossible to escape. Obstacles to let you know you’re not going quite in the direction you thought you were. Not always a bad thing, although at the time it doesn’t seem like a positive.

Being the half-full glass girl that I am, I decided to take the opportunity provided by one of those kicks to reassess my life. When I broke it down, something that might be obvious to others, but not to me, the slow learner that I am, I hadn’t realised that life is lived in stages. Once I twigged that, it made things appear much more manageable.

It’s these different phases that make life interesting, albeit challenging and it often takes courage to make that crossing into the next stage. Curiousity and optimism are the necessary requisites, no room for pessimism at these junctions. That’s what I told myself anyway.

If it’s a bad phase, remember nothing lasts forever – the good nor the bad. So just hang on in there. This realisation has served me well.

The phases, for me, usually came with birthdays that had a zero.

Twenty was difficult. I didn’t want to leave my teens. I’ve absolutely no idea why, because they were completely bland. I remember every detail of my childhood which was happy, creative and interesting, but my teens? I only have memories of being nerdy, not fitting in and filled with angstridden thoughts of being stuck in this rut forever, my life never taking off.

The only thing that kept me going was that I loved reading. Head always stuck in a book.

See what I mean? Nerdy, not exactly one of the ‘cool’ kids.

And then there was the 21st birthday to plan and the hope that maybe things might get moving for me. It did, but then that period working in the exciting advertising world was also a time of enduring many disappointments which taught me that life wasn’t all about having a good time.

A change of career into TV programmes woke me up and made me see how blessed I was to be living the life I had. Working on the long-running Would You Believe? documentary series opened my eyes to how life was for a lot of people less fortunate. I think it’s called ‘growing up’ – a very late one for me.

Then 30 – the most traumatic birthday. The word ‘girl’ wasn’t going to fit anymore. Hard to swallow that.

By 40 I knew I was never going to be a ballet dancer or a concert pianist (I hadn’t learned either, despite my obsession with both, so it really wasn’t an issue, except in my head).

Fifty was great. I came to terms with the possibility that, not having done it so far, having children was no longer a runner. At that point the opportunity arose to give up my permanent, pensionable job and take my chances in the freelance world and I went for it. I liked the idea of trying things without the pressure of having to make a career of anything. After the commitment I’d given to a job for so many years, I wanted to be able to butterfly around and engage in short term projects – no more wall-to-wall work for me. The freedom was great, although it took a while to adjust and to find a long-term charitable project, in order to justify my existence.

Then 60 was good. I got together with a group of friends all approaching that landmark and worked out what we each wanted to achieve before we popped our clogs – in the short term and long term. The exercise really focused the mind when it came to long-haul travel, unfulfilled ambitions that could still be achieved and, even more importantly, what we wanted to jettison. Out went the bags of wool and handcraft project that I’d have needed to live to be 200 to complete. Oh, the relief of being able to pass them on to people with the interest to put the materials to good use.

It was time then to rev up the jets and do those big trips – a Caribbean cruise and a six-week round-the-world adventure. Then, the next aim – complete the research on the family tree that I’d started before Google was born. Down came the box of notes, most scribbled on the backs of envelopes, and I set a deadline.

Another trip followed. To link up with long-lost American descendants of relatives who’d emigrated in the 1800s. Then, I finished a screenplay I’d started years before. Tick. It’s still awaiting the cameras to roll.

Then, with the next big roundy birthday approaching – I aimed to write a novel. And hurrah, I signed a publishing contract for a threebook deal in my 70th year. That trip to the US to find the relatives was the inspiration. Can it get any better than that?

Despite Covid, 70 is just wonderful, even if the runway is getting shorter.

Roll on the next zero.

Lives Apart by Anne McLoughlin is published by Poolbeg Press and available now