Your eighty year old self

When you're eighty (or if you happen to be eighty now, when you're ninety), how will you feel when you think back to the way things are for you now? Will you be proud of the person you are? Will you be happy about the choices you have made?

Imagine being eighty (or ninety, or one hundred) and someone asks you what life was like when you were the age you are now. What do you want to be able to say in response? What would your ideal reply be, and does that match up to what you would say, the way things are now? Here's my example:

Someone else: What were you like when you were 26, what was going on?

Me at 80 (the truth as it is now): Well, I was half living at my parents' house and half living with my boyfriend of seven years. Me and my boyfriend were really happy. I was working in a role that was really new to me, and I had a lot of good things planned - some holidays, some gigs - with a mind to get married and start a family within the next few years.

Me at 80 (what I would like to be able to say): Well, I was living with my boyfriend of seven years - I had just moved in and we were really happy (and still are now that we have been married for over 50 years!) I had settled into my new role at work, and had a lot of good things planned - some holidays, some gigs - with a mind to get married and start a family within the next few years.

Luckily for me there isn't much I would need to change to be able to say what I want to be able to say if I were asked the question at 80. And I know those things I would like to be true will become true in due course, and if that were to not be the case, I would do everything I could to make it so.

So the question is, what tales do you want to be able to tell when you're older? What do you want to be able to say to your grandchildren? Start making it happen today.