A Right Proper 53 Year Old Rant!
Note to self: This probably should be 2 blogs but flip it, I’m testing a new writing app out…and enjoying it!
When I turned 50 I said to myself I’m going to start doing 2 things differently. Nothing big or serious, 2 little things that up until then (age 50), I hadn’t done too much in my life. They are more about internal approaches, turning things on their head a bit. 3 years on, I’m going to share them with you.
The first thing is when eating. My inner dialogue would make me save the favourite mouthfuls of food till last…no longer, from now favourite bits come first, enjoy my food from the start, lifes too short! I also realised that in my past 50 years, I’d sometimes not get to that bit of the food. I’d get so full that either I would never get to eat the best bit or I’d get to the last bit and find they weren’t the best bits after all, and my meal would finish on a bit of a downer mouthful!
This 1st lifestyle change has been going very well.
The second new practice is to have a good rant at and about things. A full-on-50-year-old-rant. I’m going to award myself this earned privilege. I now enjoy shouting at the telly, radio and listening to LBC. Even shouting at newspapers and street signs are up for grabs. The rants might be based on facts and experiences, important even, the rant is the bit you can do to ease it, rest and work out before doing something proper about it. It’s about awarding yourself a release and a feeling of enjoyment. Releasing dolphins I think they call it?
The important bit is the shouting it out to yourself (or a tv, radio or signpost), getting it out and not tipping the rant over to anger. When it’s out, follow it up by breathing (you have to put ‘umph’ into the rant), and then a period of peace, and reflection (on my fairness/rightness or not) and then a nice cup of tea to make it all better. The importance to stress in this is seeing ranting as a good thing to keep you nice, happy, reasoned, kind and gentle in real life.
It’s about ranting to the point before a fair and justified point becomes a moan or turns into anger, hopefully, I’ll earn the right to progress to moan here and there when I’m in my 90s. I hope my anger is always used correctly, never stored up and is used for good. So a 50+ rant is that sort of “makes you feel good”, get it off yer chest, nobody will take any notice, this won’t change anything type rant, it’s a waste of energy…but it feels good!
It’s not directed at any individual, it comes from 50 years of living and learning and making mistakes (and all that continues). It comes from a newly found 50+ confidence and self-given right to say, “hold on, I’ve been here, I’ve thought about this, (I might still be wrong) but I’m not going to hold it in this time”….I’m going to rant….I will feel better knowing I said it out loud. No longer will my rants burn inside and whimper out with the regret of not saying it and maybe getting something right (or nearly right at least.
so after 3 years of practice, I am sharing 2 rants on this overdue blog.
You don’t have to do anything with them, you can read and ignore. Youcan give me advice or comment, but I am going to rant…then ave a cuppa.
Rant 1. Why on earth do you sell a plug without the chain? I’ve got a modified/adapted sink, to make it a little more accessible. Because of that, whenever I need a new part, and because its probably got the “we saw you coming disability/access sticker” on it, the parts cost more, and usually ‘next-day delivery” or urgency to our services still hasn’t been invented yet. Well, Disabled People have got more time on their “rather poor hands” (to quote Frank Bough interviewing me in the 80’s).
OK, I digress, and possibly just had a minor rant within a bigger rant there, back to the plug of which there’s not much more to rant about, except….
My lovely Laura finds a right fitting plug after me failing to find a correctly fitting one over a period of a few months and a small collection of black rubbery plugs building up. The plug arrives….no chain….why…who thought it would be a good idea to sell a plug without a chain, have they ever washed with hot water or not been able to put marigolds on to take the dip.
I need a chain that I can hook with me stick, tug it and boom…but no, no chain… too easy to sell and fix to the plug, I fear for the next few months, looking for the right chain, the right length, the right attaching fiddley bit, oh it’s to attach to an adapted sink that’ll be another £20 quid, please. “Special Needs”, don’t start, I just want a plug that fits in me sink….with a chain that makes it all work, it simple, almost wanted to say ’normal’ here, but I don’t wanna belong to Normaland.
Rant 1 over…Breath, reflect, cuppa tea…ah I feel better, looking forward to the comments about how I should have gone here, tried this. Advice, just like when they banned plastic straws, saying they had listened to our needs and said we would be able to get straws at a chemist on prescription. I’m not sick I’m thirsty, I don’t need a doctor I need a Guinness!.. And yes, I’ve tried bamboo, paper, wax, glass, metal, hose and exhaust pipe. I just need a decent strong, bendable, stretchable long straw. (that might count as another rant within a rant about a main rant).
Rant 2.
I’m not sure if this was just a manipulated image or AI or for real, but who told Boots that this Parking sign was a good idea?
I know some people struggle with language, want to be nice, and even get their language right here n there! I get it, in the real world, in the real world I even help people explore it, But this? Please!
Yes, in my 50+ years, language has changed, not much tbh, but yes changed but for about the last 35 years, the Disability Movement has been pretty consistent, Disabled People is fine, cause we’ve worked out what it means (for now). Check out The Social Model of Disability, read stuff ‘written by’ disabled people (and yes, we might have made it a bit longer by adding D/deaf and Neurodivergent, but that’s only cause we collectively experience barriers and discrimination, sorry it’s not fewer characters to fit in your need for bullet point shorthand.
Yes, not everyone in the movement and individuals may choose different words, if that’s what rocks yer boat…..I’m about unity, collectiveness, community, and belonging.
Yes, some say, “Oh, isn’t the word disability negative? Well, that’s only if you believe the crap (scuse my parlance) and assumptions that have been heaped upon us by others for the last 100’s of years.
It’s got nothing to do with ability, my body is ok (apart from maybe being a bit older, stiffer n more knackered than a few years back..and perhaps even needing a tattoo here n there with a few instructions on where to put it at it’s comfiest.
We are NOT less able…and whilst I’, at it, for all the semantics out there, my parking is pretty good too! You only have to look around the rest of the car park to find the ‘Less Abled parking!
Rant 2 over…Breath, reflect, cuppa tea…
I think Mercury might still be in my Retrigrade Helen?
Oh fekk, Question Times on me Telly!
Rockinpaddy 
Love that second photo and am thinking about ranting.
Was at a co-production meeting yesterday and someone’s paper gave me a chance to express an opinion. i was told in reply that i had been rather profound. I was addressing a paragraph on organisational culture and what came out of my mouth…. corridors, paintings, isolation, hemmed in by frameworks, being managed, medicalised, white walls, throwing cans of red paint, defecating on carpets, the importance of engaging with the creative/s, rebellion, being serious, evidencing it and on and on. So many words. So much speed. So much emphasis and all in return for the hour and a half i’d alreaady suffered platitudes.
Sometimes i think i cannot be responsible for what i say and all the words that escape my lips are blind and are said without meaning. I guess i just can’t control the rant and why should i anyway.
i was told in reply that i had been rather profound.
so maybe the rant was worth it, maybe some of it landed. maybe i was just being patronised.