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.

the biggest, and most crucial thing about aging: Every so often, you will look at pictures of yourself from ten years ago—when you were convinced you looked shit and were going downhill—and exclaim, “My God, I was so young and hot back then! I was at my peak! Look at my fucking legs! They’re like those of a sexy horse! Why did I not appreciate it at the time? I should have just walked around naked all the time insisting people take pictures of my face! I will never be that beautiful again!”
And this will happen every ten years until you die.
Whatever age you are, and whatever’s happening in your life right now, one thing is constant: older you is totally perving on you right now. Enjoy it.

Forget about handbags and get a rucksack. A lovely, colorful backpack with loads of pockets. Not only is your spine going to love you—enjoy spreading the load, rather than victimizing one shoulder over the other—but most backpacks have a special outside pocket specifically designed to fit a small Thermos. If you can leave the house with half a liter of hot tea in your luggage at all times, you will feel a god. There is nothing the day can throw at you that can’t be remedied by suddenly remembering you’ve got a brew in your bag, and that you can sit down in the middle of a full-scale riot and just have a reflective sip, whilst the police work on clearing the streets again.

Do you habitually not wear your nicest dresses/blouses because you’re worried about “sweating up” the armpits, and you can’t be bothered to handwash them after, as the label piously demands? Stick a sanitary towel in the armpit, sweat like the perimenopausal boss you are, and then—at the end of the night—peel off your arm-juice pad, and chuck it in the bin. No need to thank me. I love you.

When Meryl Streep put on her overalls and shabby white blouse in Mamma Mia!, she invented 90 percent of what you can wear once you’re over forty. Overalls are so your new friend now. They’re like an all-in-one head to toe clothing solution that you can “ring in the changes” with, using a variety of polos or shirts underneath. When you think about it, it’s obvious overalls would always be faithful and loving to women—for their huge pockets on the front turn us into lady kangaroos, carrying our most precious cargo—a joey, our iPhone, and a pot of lip balm—in our pouch. Likewise, jumpsuits.

Epigraph
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
—ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, DESCRIBING THE AVERAGE DAY OF A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN
Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results—we can only strive.
—MAHATMA GANDHI, DESCRIBING IN GREATER AND MORE EFFICIENT DETAIL THE AVERAGE DAY OF A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN

“You know how when you’re trying to get someone in customer service to e.g., mend your telly, for example, and they keep fobbing you off with some arse called Simon or Dev, who just fucks it up even more? And your husband always says—”
“He always says, ‘You need to keep asking to be transferred until you get put through to a middle-aged Scottish woman called Janet—because she’s always the one who goes, Ach, what a pickle. I’ll sort this out in two minutes.’ And—she does!”
“Yes. The Janet Theory.”
“The Janet Theory.”
“Yes. Well.”
She points at me.
“You’re Janet, now. You’re the Janet in everyone’s lives. If anything’s going to get sorted out, you’re the one who’s going to have to do it. No more messy nights out, or voyages of self-discovery. You are about to be required to hold the fabric of society together. For no pay. That’s what being a middle-aged woman is.”