00:00
If you're old enough to remember when phones had cords and the only thing that went viral was a cold,  then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Big Six-O with Kaylee Harris and Guy Rowlison. Because who better to discuss life's second act than two people who still think mature is a type of cheese.

00:32
Hello welcome back everybody to the BINXXO Podcast.  Hello Guy. Hello Kayleigh. We haven't seen each other for a little while.  No we haven't.  Well in terms of the podcast anyway we've been schmoozing as far as socialising a bit though haven't we? Yes we've had a bit  as I'm sure all of our listeners as well have had a bit on their plate. Oh you know getting through the Christmas period and here we are into another year and we're going to hopefully come up with some topics that will oh reiterate.

01:01
with you, what's the word I'm looking for? How's that word? You're looking, you're about the only person that I know that can interrupt herself in a conversation. So you've just proven my point there. There you go. Good. Thank you. What have you been doing over the break?  So I went overseas  last year. We took a break because I was going overseas for  a few weeks. So I went over to Portugal and Spain and then.

01:27
I was supposed to come back via Borneo and go to an orangutan refuge, but I got COVID in Spain and I couldn't go. You can't go anywhere near the orangutans if you're sick. So I had to come home. uh,  but that's okay. I had a great time in Portugal and Spain was wonderful. Did a bit of the Camino walk again. And then, yeah, we Christmas kind of snuck up on us and there we are. And here we are back in, can't believe it's February. It's just crazy. Isn't it?  I did absolutely nothing except.

01:54
family, which isn't nothing, but it's great. You have such a great connection to your family  and it  blows me away. It's wonderful. You're so involved with your family and you all spend so much time together. love it.  One of the downsides of that, apart from looking like an Airbnb at times,  is that you go into your distance past and I found, and this is something that we're going to talk about today.

02:20
the art of letting go because as far as families go, there's sort of stuff and expectations and all those sort of things that happen with families and whether it's, you know, personal grudges with, you know, whatever, or whether it's just stuff you keep in your garage, it might've been from your parents or your grandparents or things like that, that you think, do I need to keep that? I, you know, are they heirlooms or is it just a memory that I'm hanging on to?

02:48
Well, I guess it's just, it's something that can be special. Something that's special to me because it belonged to my grandmother. Won't be special to my kids because I didn't know her. But once I pass on, my kids are going to go, what's this crap? Well, my eldest is really good at that.  She helped me clear out some of the stuff from my folks. My mom was really good. She used to put things like old shaving mugs from her grandfather and a little note saying, you know, this, which is, the notes, which is great because then you go, what's this? And then I'll written on the back.

03:17
have a little note about it, which is great. Yeah. But there are also things that, you know, you'd see in an antique store, you think, oh, that's, that's really kitschy. But if you start holding onto too much, like you say, it probably means nothing to your kids. And it probably means something to you in  sort of a certain degree. But yeah.  At what point do you say, uh, I've just got to get rid of this. It might be a vase or  a something. At what point do you say, yeah, going to mean nothing to the next generation.

03:46
Well, I think we need to be mindful of burdening our kids with our stuff, which is something I'm really mindful of. Something that I have might be important to my kids, but it won't be important to their kids or their kids' kids, you know? So it's, and I don't want to be one of those parents that says to my kids, you've got to keep this as great auntie so-and-so's thing. It's been in the family for a hundred years. You've got to hang onto it. I don't want to burden them with that. Yeah. Is there anything that you've kept or you've hung onto that you probably think, I really want my kids to hang onto this or is it?

04:15
Are there things that you just say, yeah, I know they're going to put that, give that to Vinnie's after I've gone. There's a couple of paintings that have been painted by my great-grandmothers and they're just, I guess, scenery painting things that they've done. And I love them because they're actually pretty good and they were painted by family members. So I'd like those to keep going. But then again, if my kids look at them and go, that's a crowd. And the other thing I've got, which passed down was my grandfather.

04:44
who died when I was two,  on his way back from the second world war, the boat stopped in, I think then, was what was then Ceylon, and he bought little black carved elephants, very tiny little black carved elephants to bring back to each of his kids, which included my mum. And it's been passed down  to me. So I've got it. So I've got these three little black hand-carved, beautifully carved black elephants that my grandfather bought back from the war. And I think they're special.

05:14
But do my kids think I'm special? don't know. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? mean, even personal treasures  growing up, like  how sad is this? I've kept, there must be probably a hundred old footy cards from the early seventies when we used to collect Kung Fu cards and football cards, all those bubblegum cards.  I discovered them in the house move about 18 months ago and there must be a hundred of them.

05:43
I just can't bring myself to toss them out. worth anything? If you got offered money, would you, would you part with them? Well, they are worth something. I had a look and I thought, my gosh, there's collectors out there. But also I can't bring myself right now to say, here you go. Because the other thing is that there's only a finite time where they're actually going to be worth anything to anyone anyway, which is ridiculous because if I get them to my kids, I know where they're going. They're going straight in the auto bin, right? But also there's only probably blokes.

06:12
of our age or women of our age that will be collecting them and have any sort of material value to them as well. after that, what about- And that's your best bet is to, if you give them to somebody else our age who appreciates them, then you bring enjoy to somebody else. Whereas your kids might go, yeah, like I said, this is rubbish. Yeah. Slightly different to little carved elephants from salon and from the war really. uh

06:36
Yeah, it's kind of like, includes the war, you know, and we're so far away from the first and second world wars and to have that sort of link to that is pretty, special. I guess I think it is, but I don't know whether my kids do. Yeah, there's, there's history. I've got my grandfather's enlistment papers from when he went, went to the war. Wow. So that's, that's a keepsake. I I've got the same. Yeah. think I've got the Yeah. Yeah. I've still got one of his jackets from, I don't know how.

07:04
They met, I thought they had to handle that stuff back in when they left, but I've got things like that, which are really, think their keepsakes.  But once again, I don't know whether kids value that sort of thing anymore. don't know. guess it's depends on the individual kid, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So heirlooms, what about photos? Do you keep a whole lot of old school sort of photos in an album? Well, a couple of years ago, I got all my photos out because I realized, you know, with photo albums, you don't

07:32
They're not out and you don't look at them unless you specifically go get them and start opening pages. So I got all my photos out and I digitized them and I have  a digital photo frame and I've got about 800 photos on it and they just roll around 24 seven.  Um, and I've found with that, that's a really great way to engage with your photos because you, I see every now and then a photo of my mom pops up on the screen. Like, Oh, Hey mom, you know, I'll interact with her and

08:00
or something, very old photo of me as a kid and I go, oh, look, oh, it's a little kid. And I just find it far more interactive than a photo album. And it doesn't take up the same amount of space and the photos don't degenerate over time like they do in a photo album. So  I put that got rid of all my photos. Yeah. I have to say, I've seen that at your place and I promised myself I'd do it and I just haven't. So I'm going to go away. I'm going to do exactly. is so worth it. It is so worth it.

08:28
And you put videos on there as well, you know, and you can, and the thing I love about it is the kids, if my kids are out somewhere, they can send me via their phone, they can take a photo on their phone and send it straight to the screen, to the digital frame. And I see it. So there's photos on there that every now and a photo pops up that I haven't seen before. go, oh, you know, I get a surprise and it's wonderful. It's good on so many levels,  but mostly because it doesn't take up the space of all photos.

08:56
Yeah. You don't want those special surprises that your kids may have sent the wrong photograph to you from a holiday night. Families all sitting around the table and I... Yeah. Look at that. Oh, wasn't supposed to be there. Do you think it's harder?  I find it harder  letting go of the physical stuff because there's a difference between something being having sentimental value and something actually, you know...

09:23
just actually being worth something or whether it matters, isn't it? Well, if you can touch it and feel it and hold it, that makes it, think, harder to get rid of. And I've started downsizing in the last couple of months. I started going through all my stuff and just getting rid of tons of stuff and it feels so good. But is it,  I what you're saying, emotionally, it easier to,  it's harder to move the emotional things than it is the physical things I find for me, that other people might be different.

09:52
Yeah, it's hard to discern between sentimental and important though, I find, because this will sound weird. I kept things like a jumper of my  dads, that, you know,  um, rather than other stuff that I thought, oh, you know, and he used to think, oh, you need to hang onto this mate because of, know,  and  the little things that you just keep, think, yep, I just can't part with it because I look at it and that reminds me of him.  And I guess our kids may be different with things.

10:21
I don't know whether our kids will actually, know, whether we'll pass on the things that our parents, our grandparents passed on. oh certainly haven't been to Solondo to have little elephants carved. We're not going talk about that, are you?  No, I'm not. I'm sorry.

10:36
I should move on, shouldn't I? That's the art of letting go. need to move on from that. we all need to move on from that. But you know, it's funny that we accumulate so much stuff, physical, let's talk about the emotional in a second, but the physical stuff we accumulate and you don't realize until you go to move house, as you did 18 months ago, how much stuff you've got and how much stuff you don't need.  like, just for example, I was, when I threw some stuff out last week, I was looking in my, where my  glasses are. There was.

11:05
Eight champagne glasses, six shot glasses, two dozen drinking glasses, uh a dozen wine glasses. Now  I don't entertain a lot. Very I was going to say that's a Saturday night for you, isn't it? Well, I wish. But so I ended up keeping six wine glasses, because it's probably what I use the most. If someone comes over, I got rid of the shot glasses, the champagne glasses. I'm down to six drinking glasses, six coffee mugs, and that's it. And if I, like I just.

11:35
don't need this stuff. And it felt so good to, to get rid of it and to, to reassess what you actually, the, what was it Oprah that said  anything that you haven't used in the last 12 months, get rid of it. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that the whole, if it doesn't bring your joy toss it sort of thing. That too,  but yeah, if you haven't used it,  in a physical sense, when it comes to things that aren't sentimental, like clothes and cutlery, if you haven't used it in 12 months, get rid of it.

12:04
Yeah. If, is there anything that you've kept as I have just purely out of guilt that you've kept? gosh, good question. Yes, I have. Yes. I've kept a side cupboard that my grandfather made that  meant a lot to my mum. And he made it himself and it's, we've had it all, you know, like re-stained or whatever you do with it. We don't use it for anything. It just sits there with pictures of grandma and grandpa on top of it. But I kept that because it meant so much to my mum. It doesn't mean as much to me.

12:33
Yeah, but that's not a guilt thing. That's a nice heirloom in my books. Yeah. Well, I'm just trying to think. I don't think I've hung on to, oh, my dad, my dad used to be a pilot when he was younger, not a commercial pilot, a private pilot. He used to fly, what are they called? The twin winged planes. A biplane. Yeah. So you've got a biplane at your place, have you? That's cool. Oh yeah, just another habit. So he used to fly these biplanes and he would, with the open cockpit.

13:03
So they would have like a leather skin tight helmet and goggles. And I've kept that because it's so unique. Yeah. And I don't want to get rid of it's just almost like an antique.  Oh yeah. I'll have to find it. It's under the sink. Again, it's under the house. It should be there. It should be somewhere special. You should wear it out shopping. Well, I could. And I'd be, you know, taken off for a...

13:28
mental health assessment pretty quickly. wouldn't know. you'd get through those 15 items or less. I'll really quickly. yeah, it gives me a huge burst. Yeah. What about you? Have you, have you kept stuff? What's the, what can you think of the time? is a question without notice. The oldest thing in your house apart from you? Um, the oldest thing in my house other than me. Um, yes, I do. I've got a little bit of history. Um, from back in the day, one of the, uh, we've got.

13:59
We've got this land grant title. My great, great, one of the greats was Francis Greenway, the architect who was used to be on the $10 note when we used to enjoy having folding paper money. And he was given a land grant. think it was from memory. think it was in Collins street in Melbourne. And the grant was the land, the actual piece of paper was only discovered by the family in the late sixties or something. It was sort of housed away.

14:29
And when you look at it, it was basically the entire length of one side of Collins street, which I guess if you had some really savvy lawyer back whenever you could probably get,  yeah, look,  why would I be doing a podcast now? I'd be on in the Seychelles with a, with a drink and umbrella in it because. Absolutely. I'd be your mistress. Yes. Well, you know, one out of two is pretty good, but yeah, I've still, I've still got that. Um, that's probably the oldest. Wow. That is very impressive.

14:58
Yeah. Why I've got it, I don't know. It probably should be somewhere in the Australian museum or something like that. yeah,  you know, that's the oldest thing I've got other than me. That's fantastic. So moving on to um the art of letting go  when it comes to relationships. Yeah, that's tough um

15:23
There are relationships that, I mean, we've all had people in our lives who have come and gone for good and bad reasons.  And it's, can be very hard to let go of something that  meant so much at the time. for example, a school friend, someone who you were really close to at school.  And then,  you know, like in a lot of relationships, you leave school and you go out in the workplace and the relationship sort of drifts apart and then you don't see that person again.

15:53
Is it okay to let those relationships go or should we be hanging onto them at all costs? What do think? Yeah, I, I, people do come into your life and leave your life for various reasons. And, and we've talked about this, we've touched on it, but if sometimes if you have to make, if it's a one-sided effort to treat that communication, those lines of communication open and, and making that effort.

16:18
You have to ask yourself, you know, is it really worth it if it's, if it's a mutual thing in there or that's, that's great. But yeah, whether it's school or whether it's, you know, our work colleagues. Yeah. I just think that sometimes people come into your world because there's a need. But also if you're the only one pushing that barrow too much and it's not reciprocated, then  you've just got to walk away and say, yeah, it's, it's time.

16:44
If it doesn't come back to you, it's that whole thing. You know, if you love something, let it go. And if it comes back, well, then it's meant to be sort of thing. If it doesn't, hunt it down and shoot it. Yeah. Yeah. Look, and with your biplane goggles and I'm thinking, yeah, don't cross this woman. Yeah. Look, that's, you know, you can force it, but it's interesting at a point in your life too, where we probably started to slow down and we want to reconnect with. And social media makes it a whole lot easier and more dangerous sometimes. Yeah. To sort of.

17:13
do that kind of thing. Even when my dad was still with us and we started to sort of say, listen, it's going to be easier to find some of those mates you went to school with because their kids have probably set  their parents up to try and track.  And probably about 18 months before he passed, he was able to connect with guys that he went to school with, you know, in  the late forties. Isn't that wonderful? See, a  lot of people have negative things to say about social media, but for me,

17:43
platform like Facebook, which our generation are all on, is really, that's a positive to social media that we can find those people that we wouldn't have found otherwise. Yeah, it brought him so much joy in those last 12, 18 months and that he was able to, and it was only like two or three, but that was enough. That was that door that opened for him that just brought him joy all of a sudden that he thought was lost.  Not that there was any bad blood between.

18:10
them, you know, they used to knock around sort of on the North shore of Sydney sort of, well, it wasn't sort of as acclimated as it was as it is now. But he just thought that was fantastic and thought the technology to be able to do that was great. But I think where it comes into its own is where people sort of had that, you know, unwarranted sort of intrusion and keep pumping that sort of odd, know, do you want to friend me? You want to friend me? You want to friend me? We'll just take the hint sometimes, but.

18:37
you know, I don't know about you, what about family? mean, a family grudges and all those sorts of things come into play too. yes. Yeah, that's that's a biggie. Isn't it? Because you, gets, you get so conflicted between their family  and you know,  should be, and I think precious, but then what do you do if those relationships are toxic? How do you let them go or how do you find a way to continue them, but keep your safe distance so that

19:06
you're not in each other's faces too much and not destroying the relationship. I think that's a very fine art to be able to  do that.  I've recently connected, what I say recently, a few years ago, connected with a cousin who I spent a lot of time with growing up, then  we got married and had kids and stuff.  we've just recently connected in the last few years. And I'm loving it so much. I'm loving,  she's family and it's because we're getting older that it becomes even

19:36
For me, becomes even more important. Yeah.  We've got cousins, when I say we, I've got cousins and they used to come and spend like some Christmas holidays with us, all those sort of things. And life just takes a hold because all of a sudden they've got kids, they've got grandkids and their life  is, their life circle now involves their immediate family. And so those time constraints to actually reach out to

20:04
those that were in the bigger family, you know, two, three, four, five decades ago. It makes it hard, doesn't it? It does, but it takes a lot more effort to keep those connections alive. But I found if you do it really is worth it. It is even just, you know, one of the things I do, if I'm talking to even friends or family, and they're telling me what's going on in their life, I might make a little note in my notes thing in my phone.

20:33
about what they've told me and then I can  call them a few weeks later and go, hey, how did that go? And those sorts of things really forge connections because you're not just starting a fresh conversation every time, you're actually remembering what's going on in their life and you think about it and it just helps to keep them, think, closer to you. That's just something I do. But I wanted to,  you've been married a long time. I've been divorced a long time.

21:01
But I want to ask you about letting go of um relationships, like those sorts of relationships. Cause um that's been a really big thing for me in the last few years is to be able to let go  of really close relationships with partners that didn't work out.  Yeah. You're in that boat. That's a completely different vessel to mine. I find it hard now that I've got

21:26
my own family, my own grandkids and the circle of family that is now important because you have in-laws and then in-laws have partners and then all that sort of thing. So keeping tabs of people that were like the cousins of your,  your mom, all those sorts of things makes it really difficult. Even if it's as simple as sending them.  once again, this is where Facebook is great. mean, not everyone has the old school diary where they write down Kaylee's birthday and Kaylee's this or whatever.

21:56
But even just to wish them a happy birthday. And I'm not saying a Facebook message, but you know, if it's a phone message, a private phone message, just so as it peaks that, okay, I'm still here. There's still some love in the family. Yeah. I'm thinking of you. And it shouldn't just be every year. It may be just a, you know, a random, you know, how you going sort of thing. And that's, that's what I'm finding as I get older. That's important. And if I get a message, I just get a message saying, Oh, look,

22:24
heard this or  how things go, I think it's great. It's nice, isn't it? It puts a smile on your face and the two things that someone's thinking of you. And I think those little gems in life are so important. But from my perspective, letting go of  a marriage was extremely difficult because you see your life on a certain path and then all of sudden there's a roadblock in front of you and it stops and you're going in a completely different direction.  And letting that go is the

22:53
It's been very challenging for me. um Recently, a couple of years ago, was letting go of another relationship that uh really was hard to  come to terms with.  you do grow as a person when you learn to let go and  to forgive. I think for me, a big part of letting go  when it comes to relationships of any kind is forgiving. Forgiving

23:22
yourself, not just, I'm not saying just the other person, but forgive yourself for maybe what you did wrong for that relationship. It's interesting. was listening only last night to a podcast with Ted Danson  and Helen Hunt and Helen Hunt was saying something along the same lines that,  sometimes, you know, this mattered once, but doesn't matter anymore. And you do have to move on because until you identify what you need to move on from, you never can. it's.

23:51
You know, it's part of your life. It's part of who you  are or who you were, but  it's that whole chest note of it shouldn't define you. Yeah. And I think for a lot of people listening, there'd be a lot about our face, our big six podcast family who are listening to it would be in the same situations. Maybe they've gotten older and they're single and you're wondering what the future holds for you as a single person. Do you want to stay single rest of your life? Do you want to be?

24:16
back in a relationship. I think it's a famous line, what's one of my favorite lines from a Don Henle song says, learning to forgive, even if you don't love me anymore. And if you can do that and give yourself that, forgive yourself and forgive the other person, if it didn't work out, that really helps you to move forward.  I've got a, uh I won't use their name, but there's a, there's one or two people I know that I went to school with.  Um,  and

24:46
Someone's name came up in conversation  probably, it might've been two, three years ago. And they still labeled this person as a proverbial exclamation mark.  And I thought, I'm pretty sure you've changed  in 45 years. Pretty sure they have too, because I'm not sure that there's too many.

25:06
genuine so-and-so's in their 80s anymore.  So they've probably changed because you need to just let go. if you, I wouldn't talk to that person if, you know, I saw them crossing the street and I thought, well, no, I think you're just as much wrong now. think that's harming you.

25:23
If someone did the wrong thing by you many years ago and you are just hanging onto that, that's only hurting yourself. Yeah, it is.  And I'm sure I've crossed paths with people in my life who, who I may have said, I'm sure said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing. they're, you know, they might feel that way about me, but I would hope that they, you could, you could isolate the event, not the person. Okay. Okay. Maybe that person had a really bad day that day. said something horrible to you and you know, let that stuff go.

25:51
There's a really good book out at the moment and it's so many copies, millions of copies around the book, around the world. And it's called, Them. I don't know if you've heard of this book by Mel Robbins and it's about letting people be them and not let that affect you. So no matter what they do or say to you, or if they, if they organize an event and exclude you, for example, that you don't take offense, you go, okay, that's your thing.

26:20
Do you think it gets easier as we get older though, to let go of things, or do you think we still hold onto them? I think  for me, it's easy for me to let go. Of physical things and of emotional things, because with the benefit of a life, the life that we've lived now in our sixties,  have, you know, we, we just, we realize the damage I think that it does to hang onto bad stuff. don't, I want to let a lot of, yeah, emotional stuff go, physical stuff go.

26:49
I think I'm on better. I hope we get better. What about you?  I'm finding myself, I'm still bloody minded in a lot of things, but I'm found in the last, probably since grandkids, I'm  starting to mellow a whole lot more and understand that if I am, a lot of other people are as well. And there are more important things in relationships and those people that you probably once have ever grudged a game store or anything like that, that you think, you know what, inverted commas.

27:19
We're just old people now  and, and, and relationships are so much more important to be able to have that continuity of friendship or companionship or whatever it is than any vices that you want to hold anymore. Yeah. And I think we all know old people, when I say old people,  um, perhaps older than us in their seventies and eighties who were angry. You know, are they angry because.

27:45
Um, most of their life is behind them. There's very little in front of them.  they angry that this is where they are in life? Are they, are they mourning or grieving a privy? Yeah, they're past life.  Um, but they're angry. all know people like that. I don't want to be like that. Yeah. And  I want to, or hopefully always look towards find a positive, always try and find a positive. And if there is no, you know, big future ahead of.

28:13
I'm not going to be an astronaut. I'm not going to be a Hollywood actress. You know, that's not going to happen. But I still want to be able to be excited and live in the for what is coming and what is and live in the moment, live in the today. That's really important. there is a certain age and generational thing, you you mentioned, your granddad, you know, he went to war. Now there would have been a lot of things that they couldn't let go because  they experienced those

28:43
You know, those, whether it was, you know, could be Vietnam, could be Korea, could be anything as far as like big world events that our parents and our grandparents were involved in. Could even be Afghanistan, like the even more recent wars, Timor.  Their things, you know, our emergency services people, you know, whether it's the police, the, know, the SES, firees, nurses, um first responders. There's a lot of things that, yeah, very fresh and they're things that, but as far as.

29:12
You know,  the physical as far as things that we hang onto and in later life, those kids that might've been the, you know, the  such and such as at school, they're things that I think at a certain age we say, yeah, we move on. We're just, you know, think some things are important, right? Yep. Some things are important. Hey, guess what? What? I've got to let you go. Okay. We can catch up again another time.  I'll go and do some letting go too.

29:42
Alright, I'll see you soon. Cheers.  Bye.

29:48
The views and opinions expressed on the Big Six O are personal  and reflect those of the hosts and guests. They do not represent the views or positions of any affiliated organisations  or companies.  This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for guidance on any personal matters.

30:12
Ah, and before we go,  let's give credit where credit is due.  Kaylee Harris and I came up with all the genius content for this week's episode.  Our producer,  Nick Abood,  well he keeps the lights on and makes sure we don't accidentally upload a cat video instead of a podcast. thanks for keeping us on track, Nick.  Nick?  Nick?