This year is a big one for me as I’m turning 50. I should not be fearful though because if I was born 500 years earlier I would already be 30 years over my expiry date. Instead at 50, I would like at least 30 more years, thank you very much. I have a lot left to do.
I want to drink the finest Italian coffee from the highest point in the Cinque Terre in Italy; I want to drive Marianne Faithful’s sports car through Paris with the warm wind in my hair; and I want to return to the weight I was at 18 – preferably eating my way there!
I have too much to do to give way to ageing, so I have developed my own age defying strategy:
Deny it
I will do what my uncle did and deny it. However, I will do this without the toupee, sports car and secretary. I will simply do what is not expected of a woman heading into her mature years. This will require a change of mindset, as the most radical things I have done in recent memory are to occasionally drink caffeine after midday and anonymously return a library book that had been embedded in the spine of a couch for ten years.
I will wear heels (half inch only), the occasional plunging neckline (at dimly lit events), bright red lipstick and I will never attach a neck cord to my glasses – even if this means I spend most of my day looking for them.
Grow old disgracefully
Some parts of growing old are no fun. However, there are some people who have made it more interesting. Germaine Greer who promised (and delivered) to grow old disgracefully has proven to be a role model for me. In her words: “You are only young once but you can be immature forever”.
More open than usual
Prince Phillip is an unlikely new role model for me. He once said, whilst opening a University, “During the Blitz, a lot of shops had their windows blown in and put up notices saying, ‘More open than usual’. I now declare this place more open than usual.”
I too will declare myself to be more open than usual. To this end I vow to become more likely to listen than offer solutions, more likely to reframe the past humorously and less likely to settle for things that don’t add value to my life.
What kind of middle-age will I be?
The question I wrestle with now is what kind of middle-aged person will I be? Will I, like my grandmother, eschew make-up, dye my greying locks blue, wear cats-eye glasses and assume the role of asexual family matriarch? Or should I go down the path of my ‘not talked about aunt’, who choose middle-age as the time to get a tattoo that read: ‘growing old – optional’, brought a Vespa and spent her kids inheritance exploring outback Australia?
I’m thinking I might create a third way to grow older. I will admit to my middle-agedness when the question arises of who will clean the roof gutters, for example, but I will reclaim my inner adolescent when it comes to dancing till dawn. I will not, however, be the kind of older person who bores the youngsters with blow by blow descriptions of any health ailments I might have or try to convince them of my martyrdom for enduring aches and pains. My dentures will never leave my mouth, even when tempted to scare the toddler grandchildren.
Take control
50 is a time to take control, so I have decided to get myself elected to office and make some middle-age friendly laws.
Ordnance No.1
Public conveniences will be placed at intervals no less than 100 metres everywhere, with a 3:1 ratio in favour of women.
Ordnance No.2
No text will be allowed to be printed in a font size smaller than 14 (Not even the small print!)
Ordnance No.3
Tax concessions will be provided to anyone who comes up with a Menopause friendly app. This app will turn up air conditioners, promote elastic waisted pants as ‘haute couture’ and place homing devices in car keys, glasses and teenage children.
Grow and not shrink
I will make time to grow and not shrink, mentally at least. So many of my friends already make defeatist statements like: ‘I’m too old to learn that’ or ‘It’s time to wind down now’. Hell no! It is time to wind up. As the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas said: ‘Do not go gently into that good night but rage, rage, against the dying of the light.’ We are closer to the end so it’s time to let go and stay young at heart.
My top tips guaranteed to keep you young at heart:
- Take every opportunity to skip (funerals exempt). This is especially important in the presence of parent-denying teenagers.
- When asked by twenty-something’s what you will do on the weekend, tell them you will be ‘gaming’ after completing the Tough Mudder endurance race.
- Search for your ‘essential self’ and when you find her, let her free from the cage of social expectation.
- Swim at a nudist beach (I will discreetly keep my flesh coloured underwear on as no-one, not even a diehard nudist, is ready for that view).
- Look after your financial health – invest in companies that sell incontinence pads and hair dyes as you might as well get a return on your future investment.
- Plant a schizophrenic garden – all freewheeling Edna Walling designs with some straight-lined Paul Bangay sections for when you are feeling particularly civilised and drinking herbal tea.
- Be brave enough to revisit old wounds and make an attempt at forgiveness – starting with yourself.
- Take ‘reading retreats’ by ringing in sick, turning off your phone and locking your bedroom door. Read like your life depends on it!
- Apologise for not being able to babysit because you are going to a ‘slam poetry session’ delivered in Arabic.