I've been thinking about time lately.
Perhaps it's because I'm 55 now. Perhaps there comes a point in all our lives when we become more aware of the years passing, but lately I've found myself looking at time differently.
There is, quite simply, more of it behind me than there is ahead.
I don't say that with sadness. In fact, strangely, it seems to have made life feel more precious.
When we're younger, time feels almost limitless. There will always be another summer, another holiday, another opportunity. We put things off because there is always next year.
At 55, I don't want to do that quite so much anymore.
I find myself thinking about how I want to spend the years ahead of me and, perhaps more importantly, who I want to spend them with.
My children.
My grandchildren.
My family.
The friendships and relationships that have survived the different versions of me I've been along the way.
The people I can laugh with. The people I can sit quietly with. The people who know my stories and those whose stories I am still discovering.
These things feel increasingly important.
But I've also been thinking about legacy.
It's a rather grand word, isn't it?
We tend to think of a legacy as something tangible. Money left in a will. A house. Jewellery. Possessions carefully divided between the people we love.
But I'm not sure that's the legacy that interests me.
I think our real legacy might be something much quieter.
Perhaps it's in the memories people have.
A meal I always cooked.
A photograph I took.
A piece of advice I gave without ever realising that somebody would remember it for the rest of their life.
Perhaps it's the places I took my children, the stories I told my grandchildren, the traditions I created without even knowing they were becoming traditions.
Maybe it's simply the way somebody felt when they were with me.
I think about my grandchildren and wonder what they will remember about me one day.
I hope they remember laughter.
I hope they remember adventures.
I hope they remember sitting around tables eating food I've cooked and hearing stories they've probably heard a hundred times before.
I hope they remember that I was interested in them.
That I listened.
That I encouraged them to be curious about the world.
And I hope they remember that I loved them enormously.
But I don't think creating a legacy means spending the rest of our lives only living for other people.
Quite the opposite.
I want my children and grandchildren to see me continuing to live my own life too.
There is still so much I want to do.
I want to take photographs.
I want to travel.
I want to walk until my legs are tired and discover places I've never seen before.
I want to write.
I want to cook food I've never attempted and learn things I don't yet understand.
I want to meet new people and hear about lives completely different from mine.
I want books and music and landscapes and ridiculously beautiful sunsets.
I want to keep discovering.
Because perhaps curiosity is part of the legacy too.
Perhaps showing the people we love that life doesn't stop being interesting because we get older is one of the most valuable things we can leave behind.
At 55, I don't feel finished.
Far from it.
Sometimes I feel as though I'm only just beginning to understand what matters.
I've spent plenty of years worrying about things that, looking back, really weren't very important at all. I've given time to people and situations that probably didn't deserve quite so much of it. I've worried about what people thought. I've chased things because they were someone else's dream, not mine.
Age has a rather wonderful way of stripping some of that away.
Time suddenly feels too valuable to spend carelessly.
I don't need every day to be extraordinary. Most won't be.
There will still be washing to do, bills to pay, dinners to make and days when absolutely nothing interesting happens.
But I want to notice my life while I'm living it.
I want to be present for the ordinary bits too.
Because I suspect those are the moments that eventually become somebody else's memories.
One day, hopefully a very long time from now, I will exist only in the things I've left behind.
A photograph tucked into a drawer.
A recipe somebody still makes.
Something I've written.
A story that begins, “Do you remember when...?”
Perhaps one of my grandchildren will cook pancakes and tell their own children about me.
Perhaps somebody will travel in a campervan and feel the same excitement that I did.
Perhaps a few of the words I've written will survive me.
And perhaps, every now and then, something will remind somebody of the woman I once was.
When all that's left of me is the shadow of what once was, I don't want people to remember what I owned or what I achieved.
I'd rather they remember how I lived.
That I loved deeply.
That I remained curious.
That I noticed things.
That I made things.
That I went looking for new experiences.
That I kept learning.
That I gathered people around tables.
That I walked, travelled, photographed, cooked, wrote and wondered.
That I tried not to let life pass me by.
Maybe that's the legacy I want to leave.
Just traces of a life scattered amongst the people I loved.
And perhaps, in the end, that's more than enough.
Before you go...
Perhaps take a moment to think about the traces you're leaving behind.
The meals you cook.
The stories you tell.
The places you take people.
The conversations, laughter and ordinary moments that might one day become somebody's treasured memories.
Legacy doesn't have to be something we leave behind when we're gone.
Perhaps we're creating it every day, simply by how we choose to live and how we make people feel.
And if you'd like to stay a little longer, you'll find more stories and reflections on growing older, living curiously and making the most of the life we're living here at Tenacious Wellness. www.tenaciouswellness.co.uk