Dear LPG

Isn’t it true that every one of us has those really personal little habits that we would not usually tell anyone else about? I would like to share one of my newer ones, and because I have decided to, I am going to change my name to protect the innocent, as they say.

When I first retired, life was hectic. I did all those things that I promised myself that I would do just because I had the time, but then I found myself with far more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. It was not too long before I found a social club or two to join, and I also found myself attending church weekly again just because I had the time.  

Then came lockdown and that feeling that life would never return to normal. But it passed, and my life is now back on an even keel. However, for various reasons, quite a few of the friends I made between those two events are missing from the community groups that I have become a part of, and one of those groups has gone, too. 

It happens a lot more as we get older, and I am sure that I am not the only person who, especially over the past three or four years, has become frighteningly aware of how quickly those seriously positive circumstances, things, and people can enter and disappear from our lives.

It has left me with a weird habit that kicks in whenever I leave a place. As I shut the door before leaving, I need to turn back and offer a little prayer, just asking that it will not be the last time I have the opportunity to go, having enjoyed myself.

There are many good reasons to appreciate what we have while we have it, but it is so easy to see if it is as dull and mundane as we enter and leave each day.  Perhaps my message is an age-old one: don’t take anyone or anything in life for granted, and revel in every moment of the stage of life that you find yourself in … 

 XX, Lewisham