Why does fifty feel so momentous? So milestone-ish, compared to the other big birthdays that end with a zero? I can’t remember ten, at twenty I was at university, thirty in a settled job and living with my boyfriend, forty, dealing with very young children. The ‘dealing with young kids’ thing is significant because I was far more focused on their milestones, than on my own. Now they are a bit older, what’s my excuse for not having (gulp) achieved more?
My younger child asked me why I didn’t work full time and when I explained to her that that would mean her going to after school clubs she did a quick volte face and specified that she wasn’t saying that she wanted me to work full time, just that she was asking why I didn’t! When I was forty and my children were very young, I was happy to work two days a week - keeping one toe in the adult world, while still spending a big chunk of time with them. Now, obviously they don’t need me as much but the younger one is still not quite of an age where she can walk home alone and come back to an empty house. It’s a bit of a limbo time. I am quite happy to have left the world of soft play centres, nappy bags and pushchairs behind, but am not sure how full time working would fit with family life. (nd, if I’m honest, I’m not sure how much working full time would cramp my own style) I find trying to work from home, when the kids are around, quite trying. Whilst we are lucky to have a roof over our heads, our house is as small and untidy as the garbage compactor from Star Wars.
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| My living room |
As the walls squeeze in on you a little voice chimes up, asking if they can have a snack, or if they can put something on TV, or if you can take them and their friends to the bubble tea place. To say that they are like wasps at a picnic would be very mean. Maybe sheep blocking the road would be a kinder analogy - picturesque and charming, but mildly annoying when you are trying to get somewhere. I find working from home kind of irksome. I haven’t got that foot firmly in the world of adulthood and have to leave my laptop, at 3, to go and stand at the school gates, feeling irritable and exposed. Lockdown has had a deleterious effect on my ability to socialise, especially with the other mums. They all have their little tribes, I am a pariah, on the outside. I ought not let it bother me, but it does.
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| Racing towards a sense of achievement |
While I’m on this point, where is this ‘couldn’t give a shit what other people think of me’ attitude, which is supposed to come with age? Why am I getting the downsides, like a wrinkly neck and aching knees, without the supposed benefits? I remember a dear friend, who was significantly older than me, telling me that when you got older you cared less about the opinion of other people and did your own thing. Not that I’ve actually stopped doing anything for fear of the disapproval of others, but I feel that I’m missing the devil-may-care’, ‘when I am older I shall wear purple’ state of mind? Why do I sometimes think, despite being a feminist who has embraced the body positivity movement, hmmm would it really be sooooo bad to get some botox? And start researching how expensive a mysterious ‘neck refresh’ would be? All this is merely focused on superficial things, what about the ‘achievements’?
Aaargh! Well, I never wanted to be in banking or senior management anywhere. I think, did I even say it? That I just wanted to be happy/ content. But yes, there are things that I’ve wanted to achieve that haven’t materialised yet. I’ve looked up celebrities born the same year as me and discovered that I’m the same age as Neve Campbell, James Marsden, the guy who plays Sheldon in ‘The Big Bang Theory’, Nas and Sean Paul, Noel Fielding and Peter Andre, among others. And I’m thinking - why haven’t I co-written ‘The Mighty Boosh’, rapped on MTV or had kids with Katie Price….?
The famous women in my age bracket look fabulous because it’s their job to look fabulous and are under a considerable amount of pressure to still look the same as they did thirty years ago. I don’t want or expect to look like them. For a good few years I felt that the greatest goal and sign that you were #livingyourbestlife was self fulfilment. I still think this but now the spectre of fifty is standing in my tracks, waving two of those racing car flags with the words ‘what have you achieved?’ emblazoned across them. Despite knowing how fortunate I am to have a loving family and the aforementioned roof over my head there is the nagging doubt/professional disappointment. Can you relate? Or do you think I’m a whining, entitled twit? Having just watched the rather weird and wonderful The Change on Channel 4 I’m wondering whether I should buy myself a motorbike and go and live in a caravan on the edge of a forest…Failing that I could retrain as something - chocolatier, zoo-keeper, arborist…
The sensible part of me knows that landmark ages are arbitrary markers that we impose on our lives but if the spectre of that milestone gives me the necessary kick up the bum to finish something/make some changes/move house, then it won't necessarily be a bad thing.
