Sometime in life you get to realise the slow lane is not only a safer bet, you can go a longer distance.

As a fast lane hogger I got speeding tickets and shortened my life in the bursts of adrenalin required, before an Athlone guard made me cop on, one late summer's day in the 1990s.

Now I am older, slower and more deliberate in my actions. And, before I sound like I qualify for a bus pass, let me tell you that there are days I feel I qualify, and days where I haven't had my 21st yet. Like when I decide that €300, meant to be paid off the bills, is really meant for a painting I have thought about for years.

It was a time when my partner was facing a dole queue, thanks to wonky regulations, as so many people are right now.

I decided I had to do something positive, something to show I had hope and optimism for the future. I had launched an exhibition of paintings and loved one so much I thought about it most days and kept the catalogue listing. I called up the artist, a woman in her 80s living on the very tip of Ireland, so much so her address is Almost America.

"I'm looking at it right now," she said. "It's hanging opposite my bed. You can have it for the unframed price if you love it that much."

That was the phone, the electricity and some credit union money. I still have the painting, he got a job and I paid the bills somehow. I never regretted it for an instant. But it wasn't an instant decision. I took two years to buy that painting and bought it when I was sure I'd never have a spare €300 again. It's a fast lane item, accompanying me as I indicate left and pull into a more acceptable speed limit for my middle age, eyesight and prospects.

If you told me that I needed to do something, right now, that would make life better for me and my family and it involved leaving all our possessions behind, I would do so. In fact I read in an article only yesterday that those who gather and hanker after possessions are actually seeking a safety that belongs to the likes of Bill Gates and Dermot Desmond.

Risk is not confined to the young. Having coffee with a friend this morning she told me has persuaded, like Jerry Maguire, an assistant to go out with her. They have a kettle, a computer and a lot of hope.

"It started out with sleepless nights and the constant worry about how I was going to pay my secretary at the end of the week. Now I'm over the fear and enjoying the challenge. Good people will always be employed. I am having to turn away clients and looking for someone to help me with the workload. Six months ago I was well paid in a honey trap job and miserable."

Leap

I get that. For 20 years she has been someone's employee. She has set up a business on the cusp of the biggest recession for 20 years and it will work, it took two decades of confidence building to take what looks like a leap, but is only a jump.

I am a massive Grey's Anatomy fan and saddened that the current series is almost ready to be wheeled out of theatre. All that sexual intrigue and spurting blood, all those life and death incisions, emotional and surgical. I was hooked from the moment I saw Meredith struggle with commitment over four long series when a piece of genius and good looks like David Shepherd was there to be herded up.

As her wisecracking, scalpel sharp best friend Christine says: "It's like candy but with blood, which is so much better."

I have two friends who are also fans, but the Meredith/David ding dong has ding donged too long for their liking. "If it's a man like him, on a salary like his, with plans for a house that big, you move in with him -- father issues or not." One claims.

Well, I see it differently. The slow lane and the long build up to their last episode realisation, a spoiler for you there, is pretty damn good in this broadband age where everything is a bit too bloody quick.

I love their bedside vs in bed manner. I want to be an extra in the world's most interesting elevator when they finally do get to the first trimester, her vomiting, them bickering, buying the Volvo stage. But before that, in the last episode of this series, she is going to say: "So pick me. Choose me. Love me." Love that, don't care if it's too corny.

I think, now that I am a fan of the slow burn, I am recognising it in other people. My great friend, who was in love with a man who was in love with a mirror, who turned up having finished with him, with a broken heart and brave make up, to tell me about it a few months ago, has finally met the man.

The Man.

"Are you having great sex?" I asked.

"I'll tell you what. I am loving the fact that I am not having great sex. I am having the head kissed off me and I am falling in love and getting to know someone properly before I finally do have the great sex. I am not an hors d'oeuvre. I'm the main course and hopefully we'll still be together for the dessert, coffee, taxi home, and a happily ever after."

Her speech was loaded with statement, content and experience. No half-measures but no half-wit actions. They've chosen each other. Both feel they have all the time in the world.

I contrasted this with a great friend who I had another great conversation with, who is making plans to give up casual everything in favour of serious something:

"I just want to know a bit more about myself before I take another job, fancy the head off someone who I later find out isn't right, or make another decision I know was too hasty."

Everyone knows the difference between filter and instant coffee.

You wait four times as long for the first as the second, the effect of drinking them is the same, but the experience, the taste, of the former outweighs the time and effort you put into brewing.

I think it's the same with everything. You wait, just a while longer than you want to, and everything improves.

- SUZANNE POWER