More Than a Woman

I think how utterly this last decade has changed me. When I look at what my life consisted of before middle age, I see almost everything has altered. Then, it was all babies, wine, and a certain fearless, idiot blitheness that I enjoyed at the time but am glad has now passed. As you get older, you just are a little more traumatized by life, to a greater or lesser degree. You are aware how precious and perilous life and happiness is—you know everything can change in a second, with a fall, or a phone call, or a news flash—but because you have survived these things, and had your fluffy blitheness rubbed off by life, you are also ready to deal with them.
The strength of young blitheness comes from an ignorance that things will, absolutely, go wrong. At some point, the very worst thing will happen—but you do not know that, yet. You enjoy feeling unbreakable.
By way of contrast, the fearlessness you have now, in your older years, is the knowledge that, whatever happens, and however hard you inevitably break, you will live through it—one step at a time. And as you become tougher, you simultaneously realize how fragile other people are. You are gentler. You are kinder. You automatically presume everyone you speak to has a secret soreness or sorrow. Because, almost always, they do.
But once a crisis has passed—once you enter into a period of peacefulness—what are you to do? You are like a demobbed soldier; a retired assassin on a beach holiday. A former prime minister on the bus. You have all these new powers—and nothing now to do with them. The cogs are whirring, the adrenaline is still up—but what are you to do without yourself? This is the moment in your life where there is a sudden space, and silence, where you have to ask yourself: What is my purpose now?

all woes end, eventually. All tasks become complete, one way or the other. Illnesses pass. Sadnesses break. Things change. Relief comes, goes, then comes again. Because we focus so much on the negative side of aging—the knees, and the neck, and the tiredness—we never dwell on the ultimate benefit of getting older and older and older: you outlive the bad times. Happiness comes again, eventually. Even for a short while. But it will come. Just by staying alive. That’s all you have to do. A year can pass so quickly.

Yes, I am losing skin elasticity—but I find it quite amusing, and oddly comforting, to bunch up all the loose skin on my arm, or thigh, and turn it into a little ruched skin pelmet. As a child of the 1980s, brought up on endless pleated bed valances, to my eyes, it looks kind of . . . “fancy.” And besides, whilst you lose skin elasticity, you also lose the amount of fucks you give. Perhaps that’s why the skin is so loose now—from all my fucks leaving. If so, I’m happy enjoying the space they have left. Byeeeee.
Encroaching loss of skin elasticity is all about a state of mind. Yeah, you could look at it like you’re losing something—all your collagen—but you could also look at it like you’re gaining something. It’s all about abundance.