A Life of Choice

Why I'm doing this

If not now when?, has been running through my head since I cared for my mother for over two years, and took her to her death. You'd think I might have been more prepared — I'd spent years working in hospices (fundraising), talking to people facing the end of their lives and writing their stories. But there was nothing in that work that touched the real, daily drain of doing it for a loved one: the trauma, the grief, the slow disappearing into someone else's need. When my mother died, I realised how much of myself I'd quietly lost in hers. And worse than that, how much I’d just simply lost myself along the way.

What followed was a series of profound changes, and luckily I had the space to look back over everything I've tried to do and ask: is there a river that runs through this life? And of course to notice, finally, all the things I'd somehow forgotten to do. So — if not now, when. And here I am.

Who I am

It's impossible not to acknowledge how lucky I've been — two parents from different countries who loved me a lot, born middle class, brought up in a country where I’ve been free to make my own choices (UK). And that’s just the foundation.

I define freedom this way now: the opportunity to choose. That doesn’t mean I’ve chosen right all the time, it just means that I own my choices and there’s a real power in that.

I was born in Caracas, to a British father and an Italian mother who met and fell in love. I came to the UK at 3 years old, on the Queen Elizabeth 2 (the QE2) cruise ship and there’s a photo of me with curly blond hair holding court in the restaurant.

My working life took me into charities. First because I thought it would be an easy sideline whilst I studied. It wasn't — it was the type of chaos that I loved, with altruistic shared purpose.

For the last 25+ years I have been, and still am, focussed on turning around charity income and training staff and the Board to be as good as they can. Charities are still considered a poor relation to corporate sector but I’d like to see a for-profit company do what charities do with the income they have.

So all this is the foundation upon which I come to doing this now. Not just doing it, but needing to do it.

Join me

So join me. Follow along on the blog and on YouTube as I go — the travel, the projects, the whole unglamorous business of trying to live differently - old enough to know, young enough to act? And all the issues with that.

I'll be looking back and telling stories along the way, doing some crazy stuff (hopefully), and just letting it all hang. And now I’m 60 there’s quite a bit hanging.

In The Collection you can see all the things I’ve done and even who I was trying or hoping to be - or the way I wanted my life to go. From the books that scream ‘let me write’, to the business courses that come from my MBA and 25 years leading teams, to non-fiction where I want to get out what I think to be true for me.

Here I am. Trying to communicate. Whether people listen or not. Maybe this is only about me making sense to me about where my choices have led.

Let me explore and share with you, as I go, what wisdom there actually is in running out of time.