And the award goes to....those who wait
"I waited a long time for this, and luckily it came....I was patient, I was resilient, I never stopped learning. And so I was ready when the opportunity did present itself."
Michelle Yeoh making her Golden Globe acceptance speech
Those were the words of 62 year old Michelle Yeoh making her acceptance speech after being presented with her Golden Globe last month for her performance in the action adventure comedy si-fi film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Whilst the film was a bit too frenetically odd for my taste, I can quite see why Michelle was rewarded for her impressively multi-faceted performance and why she’s made the shortlist for the Best Actress award in the upcoming Oscars.
Whilst Michelle isn’t the oldest woman to win a major acting award - that slot is held by Jessica Tandy who was 80 when she won her Best Actress Oscar in Driving Miss Daisy. The oldest man is Anthony Hopkins who won an Oscar for his performance in The Father aged 83 - she also isn’t the only woman to have spoken out so rousingly about how long its taken to achieve that kind of recognition.
Jennifer Coolidge is the same age as Michelle, and was garlanded with her first acting award in the same ceremony when she won a Golden Globe for her part in White Lotus. In her unforgettably hilarious, and ever-so-slightly unhinged acceptance speech (if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. It’s HERE) she said “I had such big dreams and expectations as a younger person, but what happened is they get sort of fizzled by life and whatever. I had these giant ideas. And then you get older and, oh, shit’s going to happen. But, Mike White [director of the series], you have given me hope. You’ve given me a new beginning.”
Jennifer Cooldige celebrating her Golden Globe win
What Michelle and Jennifer, and indeed all of us who have clambered our way to the second half, or third quarter, whichever you prefer, of our lives, are lucky enough to know from, at times painfully, disappointingly, frustratingly, lived experience, is that life is a long game. And that the imagined cut-offs or deadlines to achieve our aims and goals are exactly that. Imagined.
Whatever the implied or explicit expectations are - either of society, convention, ourselves or others - they not only can, but need to be, ignored. Upturned. Abandoned.
Just because you haven’t made whatever career ranking you imagined for yourself by the time you’re 40 doesn’t mean you never will. Just because you haven’t run a marathon by the time you’re in your thirties, doesn’t mean that’s something that you’ll never do. Just because you haven’t yet met the partner of your dreams and you’re in your 50s doesn’t mean you should give up on the chance.
Unless, of course, you choose to. Because whilst those things may not have come to pass by their imagined/self-imposed now-or-never date, they might not turn out to be things you want, or want to do with the perspective and experience of more years.
The thing about the long game
And that’s the thing about the long game. Holding on to dreams and ambitions and being persistent and patient the way Michelle and Jennifer have been, makes them all the sweeter when they come to fruition. But as Jennifer also says so fabulously honestly, shit (aka life) happens, and that shit changes both us and our priorities.
Which is not to say that getting on limits our horizons, on the contrary, it can make them all the more enjoyable and rewarding by redefining and refining them as we sift through what matters and become better at realising what doesn’t. Which can be the same as it ever was, or something completely new and different.
Just as long as we’re given the chance to prove what we’re capable of, and the opportunities to develop and learn new skills throughout our lives (and I know that can be a pretty big ‘just’, which isn’t OK and which is the subject of a whole other blog, but which I touch on in THIS ONE), we can not only enjoy the fruits of our labours or the fulfilment of our dreams, but show the generations behind us that the long game is one well worth playing.
I’ll leave the final words to the dazzlingly talented actor, singer, choreographer and director Andre De Shields (can we take a moment to appreciate his fabulous footwear), who won his first Tony Award at the age of 73 and who, when he came up to the microphone, shared his cardinal long-game rules, two of which were:
Andre De Shields sharing his three key life lessons at the Tony Awards ceremony 2019
Slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be.
The top of one mountain is the bottom of the next, so keep climbing.
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