"Life is what happens when you're busy making plans". So I stopped making them, and got a life. I had been working in the City in a job which was making me short-tempered, deeply cynical and, despite many friends and endless dates, rather lonely. So last January I quit my job, moved onto a Dutch barge moored in a quiet part of Battersea and, to complete the picture of a mid-life crisis, bought a sports car.
"What are your plans?" I was asked. I hadn't a clue, I vaguely just wanted "a year off to think about what I actually want to do".
From the outside my non-working life looks great, but more importantly it also feels great from the inside too. Exactly six months after quitting my job I met a man. And he came with a dog. The absolute highlight of my day is meandering down the river with Daisy on our hour long, sometimes two-hour long, yomp to Battersea Park. I take real joy, heart bursting joy, in this simple activity. I have reconnected in small, but to me life-changing, ways with the physical world around me: the tides make the boat creak, rain sometimes leaks through the roof, a sunny day finds me sitting on deck. I am at Nature's mercy and this has forced me to make another wonderful connection: with the community on my doorstep who answer distressed calls when I spring a leak.
It is now 15 months since I quit my job and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up (except maybe marry that man who is now my fiance). I am extremely lucky to afford this time off, but my new life has also taught me that it's the little things which make me happy and, like the dog, as long as I am fed, watered, walked and given a little unconditional love each day then all will be well.
So, to answer the speedblog question: the best stage in life is now. Or rather (borrowing nauseatingly from modern faux spiritualism) "the now", being "present" or "in the moment". The best stage in life is the stage when you stop making plans.
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