RICHARD YOUNG

Ju­ly 17th marks the World Day of In­ter­na­tion­al Jus­tice and what po­et­ic jus­tice is it for Nico­la Young, who feels she has a new lease on life. She just turned fifty, so she de­cid­ed to cel­e­brate in style. She want­ed to use style to ex­press her con­fi­dence at this cross­road in her life. She did not just want to style it out, she want­ed to make style count in com­mem­o­rat­ing this in­ter­sec­tion.

For many, fifty is the dawn of old age. To Nico­la, it is the youth of old age - it is the be­gin­ning of a whole new fron­tier, a new dis­pen­sa­tion, a new vi­sion­ing. She sees it as a thresh­old of imag­i­na­tive pos­si­bil­i­ties. Grant­ed, she had to psy­che her­self up to adapt this new think­ing and adopt mea­sures to em­bold­en her­self to re­tain her self es­teem. This is the in­cred­i­ble jour­ney of, oh yes, fad­ing youth, but more so, age­ing grace­ful­ly. For, if youth equates self-ful­fill­ment and lov­ing your­self un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly, this is her new youth at fifty. Pablo Pi­cas­so said it, quite poignant­ly, “it takes a long time to be­come young.”

This fab­u­lous phoenix be­lieves in new in­car­na­tions. She says “I have al­ways been piv­ot­ing!” It’s not about feel­ing young, it’s about feel­ing ful­filled and pur­pose­ful. “That’s what keeps me front and cen­tre and rel­e­vant.” Turn­ing fifty can be an in­dict­ment to old age as a de­pre­ci­a­tion of self with thoughts of re­tire­ment, dy­ing, and be­ing by one­self or one can ac­cept that with the new phase comes new ex­pec­ta­tions with a new-found ap­pre­ci­a­tion of life. Con­fi­dence is main­tained by chan­nel­ing new in­ter­pre­ta­tions of self but al­ways do­ing the best one can. “Don’t be chas­ing af­ter past ex­pec­ta­tions, set new re­al­is­tic fore­casts, ex­cit­ed­ly.”

It’s all about pres­ence of mind and con­stant­ly see­ing the light at the end of the tun­nel. We are so for­tu­nate to be Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, with the pletho­ra of op­tions we have to in­spire us. Our in­flu­ences are man­i­fold, so let’s live in the mo­ment, ab­sorb pos­i­tiv­i­ty, ra­di­ate joy and just be fab­u­lous. Nico­la is cer­tain­ly a tes­ta­ment to that af­fir­ma­tion!

It’s less about find­ing your com­fort zone and more about be­ing com­fort­able in your skin. Here’s to fifty!