Plan ahead – for yourself and for others

Thinking about the future, I don’t feel bereft that there isn’t a partner or kids to shape my plans. There are so many other things that my life can be filled with. For example, I’d like to plot a celebration with my best friend in recognition of our friendship and hold an anniversary gathering of one of the best summer weekends I ever had. I want to create a private ritual to mark the solstices each year. I want to memorialise the people I’ve lost, joyfully and with ceremony. The next time I finish a book manuscript, I will print it out, find a beautiful antique ribbon to tie it up with and I will put it alongside my last, ribboned-up manuscript.

In doing these things, I hope to encourage my friends to tell me what they’d love to celebrate and share with me. It might be reaching a sober milestone, leaving a career, passing a test, overcoming an illness, having life-saving surgery or adopting pets. It could be letting go of a long-held pain or the cherry tree they planted finally coming into fruit. I’ll write them poems, make them pies, rent out cottages to celebrate in or get T-shirts made for them.

I want them to know I’ll be with them if they want to commemorate any of those things. And if they aren’t forthcoming, then I’ll suggest it. I’ll say: here you are! I love you. Let’s stop for a minute and celebrate that together – whichever way you want to.

“As a single, child-free woman, people assume my life lacks celebration. They couldn’t be more wrong”