Dear LPG, 

I want to start by telling a little about myself.  I am in my early 70s and still able to get around.  I have a busy lifestyle and a  large extended family, the members of which are  always in the middle of some mini crisis or another that I can help with (spending a morning at their house to collect a parcel or babysitting).  In the last five years, if anyone asked me about the biggest problem with my life I would definitely tell them that there are not enough hours in the day, because there is always somewhere I need to go, or something I need to do or some problem I need to solve.  At the beginning of lockdown, I thought all the things that I was not able to do would have allowed for a rest, and it did, but since our front doors have opened up again, I have found myself busier than ever.  I do a bit of shopping for two of my neighbours and delivering their groceries  to them gives me an excuse to say a quick hello, but I am always too busy thinking about the next thing I really need to do to spend time just talking.

I know that many of us know a friend or a neighbour down the road and, now that we are all able to get out again, we will have a polite exchange of words with them as we walk past in opposite directions, but that is all we feel we have time for.  

I gave one neighbour time to get a second sentence in before I turned to leave recently, as it held my interest.  I asked how she was and she said she was not too bad before mentioning that she noticed that  I was  always in a hurry.  She got my attention and started telling me that I should slow down  for my own good.  

From there she told me a little about her life.  She told me that I am often the only person she talks to  for days at a time, apart from the odd nod of the head as she passes someone she knows on the way to the shops.  She has little family left and no children.  She didn’t get out much before lockdown and, now that we can go out again, it is as if she has spent so long not getting up, dressed and ready for action by 09:30 in the mornings that she has forgotten how. All the day centres are still closed.  I never realised just how hard her life must be until we had that chat and her problems stem from  exactly the opposite reasons as mine; not enough to do to keep busy.

 
I now spend more time to talk when I am with her and taking her with me on some of my shopping trips has given her a reason to get up earlier.  We also talk on the phone most days.  I have discovered her passion of gardening and it has given us a subject that she likes to talk about while I tell her about the latest of my family mini crisis, she always has a seasonal plant that she wants to add to her garden and cannot find in any shop, which gives me the opportunity to try looking online for her.  I suppose that I have found a real reason to slow down a bit and enjoy the simple pleasures, not to mention a new friend.

I know it has been said before, but I would like to say it again; assessing just how busy you need to be presents a  really difficult balance for most of us, but spending a little of it  doing something that benefits someone else who does not travel at your pace can pick up their pace and slow yours down just a bit if that is what is needed.  And the added bonus is that it does leave you both with a warm fuzzy feeling no matter how little, of how much else you think you have to do.

Can I suggest that all us busy oldies take a little more time to stop for just a bit longer when passing our neighbours as we take a walk down the street.   So many people that you think are doing just fine could sometimes really use your help while slowing down will do you no end of good too.

TH, Catford