A quick catch up for readers new to this blog.  This April, it will be eleven years since my husband left me.  We’d been married for over thirty-seven-years, I was a few months shy of my sixtieth birthday and I did not see the fracture coming.

They say it takes one year for every decade you’ve been together to really ‘process’ the grief and ‘move’ forward.  (Notice I say forward and not ‘on’.) In my own case, I would say that was about right. 

Year One was horrendous.  I don’t remember too much about it except demands from him and his lawyer and being curled up in a ball on the floor at 2am sobbing.  Year Two was fractionally better in some ways and worse in others.  The divorce went through, the legal stuff came to an end and he remarried.  Any dreams I might have had of there being a reconciliation were over.  Years Three and Four were about finding my footing, making major decisions without being able to discuss them with him, venturing out into this new single world and starting to rebuild my life. For the first time in almost forty-years the only person I really had to consider was myself.  And that was scary. Year Five brought Covid and put the whole world on hold. Ironically Covid gave me breathing space and the opportunity to move to the coast. 

And now, eleven years on from that awful morning when he came downstairs to tell me our marriage was over, I am happier than I have been since my early twenties.

How can that be?  And what do we mean when we talk about ‘Happiness’?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines happiness as a ‘state of well-being and contentment’.

I’ve recently been reading a lot of about Bell Curve of Happiness/the Paradox of Aging.  In general – and I stress in general – our happiness appears to be highest in our early youth.  From there it’s a downward trend until we reach our forties where we hit our nadir, and this is something that is seen worldwide.  Midlife is the time when we experience maximum pressure in our lives – dealing with teenagers, stress at work, elderly parents, mortgages and rising interest rates, menopause and hormonal changes etc.

However, from our early 50s onwards, happiness appears to start increasing and keeps on increasing the older we get.  Don’t get me wrong, aging brings on serious life challenges.  In my own life, I’ve experienced divorce, friends and family have died, and I’ve experienced my own bout with cancer and radiation etc., so it’s not all been plain sailing.

But I think aging brings with it an appreciation for life.  With far less ahead of, rather than behind, us, we realise what a privilege it is to have reached this age. Not everyone gets that chance. One starts focussing on what’s important and becomes grateful for the everyday magic of ordinary life.  Of course, there are exceptions – there are exceptions to every ‘rule’ – but the general principle seems to hold no matter where you live in the world.

I’ve recently been listening to the comedian Jimmy Carr.  I didn’t used to be a fan – to be honest, his laugh put me off – but the more I listen to him, the more I am struck by his wisdom.  A few comments from the podcast I’ve been listening to include these gems.

1. Twenty-five years from now, you would give everything to be the age you currently are and have the health you have, now.  Very true.  There’s a sixteen-year age gap between my brother and myself and a couple of years ago he commented that he would love to be my age – I was 69 at the time – again.

• Happiness can be measured.  Your quality of life minus your envy defines how happy you are. And I agree this is also true.  I used to be envious of so many things – other people’s houses, boyfriends, popularity, jobs, looks, weight, finances etc etc.  Now…?  I don’t care. Yes, I have wrinkles.  Yes, I could afford to lose quite a bit of weight.  Yes, my body hurts – especially when it rains. But so what? I buy a lot of my clothes from Walmart or the Thrift Store and I don’t need or want the latest this or that.  My TV is tiny. My car is almost twenty years old, but I love her.  And I love how fascinated my grandkids are when I put CDs into the CD player rather than always streaming things. The person I least envy?  My ex’s new wife – How’s that for an admission?  And why is that?  Because, according to my kids, my ex ‘hasn’t changed’.

I am the first person to admit I’m lucky.  Financially, as long as I don’t do anything stupid or the global economy doesn’t collapse, I should have enough money to see myself out, and that’s a huge relief that I never take for granted.  And yes, I’ve had cancer and will be on medication for the next five years.  I also have some heart issues – as well as arthritis and a lot of other conditions that comes with aging – but although I wake up sore most mornings, I am grateful for what I do have.  Kids and grandkids I adore.  Living on the coast.  If I want to take myself down to the beach, it’s only an eight-minute walk from my house.  Friends old and new who offer me support and laughter. A home that’s perhaps the smallest I’ve ever lived in, but holds memories – photos/pictures/some of my mother’s ‘bits and bobs’ etc – that make my heart sing.

But Bell Curve or No Bell Curve, for anyone going through some kind of trauma – whether it’s divorce, illness or whatever – I’d also remind them of the tarot card The Wheel of Fortune.  Sometimes things go well in our lives and sometimes they don’t, but the wheel is always moving.  Everything passes.  As a previous post from a few years ago reminded me: This too shall pass.  It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.