A few of my favourite things I’ve learned by the age of 43
Reflections on life, love and body image during one of the strange 'perineum' ages
“What are you doing for your birthday?” my mother had asked a while ago. “Nothing,” I replied. “I just want a blissful time spending the day alone, and not having to worry about anything or anyone.”
“Hmm,” she said, in a disapproving tone that was only two octaves higher than Marge Simpson. Since then, my mother has been surreptitiously pressing my sister for information. Why does she want to spend it alone? Is something going on? Is she okay? I think she’s worried I’m approaching a mid-life crisis and can’t be left unsupervised.
I tried to explain it wasn’t that I was feeling negatively about my birthday, it was more that I wasn’t bothered. I didn’t want people to feel obliged to do something special, and I wanted to be able to go to bed as early as possible. (As I type this, I am aware how this sounds). Forty-three is a strange, perineum birthday – it falls in this gap of being in between states, where you’re fighting between how you feel internally and where society is trying to place you. It’s those points in a decade when a sense of self feels malleable in a dangerous way.
I felt similarly at 17, 23, 27 and 33. In fact – 33 was one of the worst. I threw a party, none of my friends came apart from my best friend, and the only bright spot was that my late husband Rob soothed me and told me it would be okay. Those days belong to a different lifetime, however. At the age of 37, I quit my job, fell into an angry spiral of grief and went hiking in Nepal where there was no mobile phone reception – so that might give you some indication as to how that year went.
A few weeks ago, I was organising meeting up with my guy friends from university, and one of them suggested we meet up on my birthday. I feebly tried to tell them my plans of solitude, and what followed was about ten minutes of mocking and then somehow, it resulted in me arranging to meet them for dinner. Although I was resistant – this isn’t what I wanted! – I’m now glad to be seeing loved ones on the day.
My mother let out an enormous sigh of relief when I told her on the phone.
“It’s your birthday!” she exclaimed. “There are people like your parents who are glad you came into the world. You were such a beautiful baby, with your little round face. That should be celebrated – you give a lot of people joy.” My bottom lip wobbled when she said this, and for a moment I was glad she couldn’t see my expression. It was a surprise to still feel how much I yearned for that specific, warm, buttery love without limits that only my mother can give me, that for a moment resurrects that phantom umbilical cord.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what 43 means. It’s a subtle shift from how I felt in my 20s and 30s - which always seemed to be about what I hadn’t yet achieved, whereas now it’s about who I am as a person.
Recently, I’ve been feeling out of place in the world and not knowing where I fit. But I think I have been going about it all wrong. I’ve been looking for a box, a label, a template, a blueprint. Something that will arrive and say: this is what you are! I wonder if this is why so many of us seek comfort in the generic definitions of starsigns.
While scrabbling around in the murk, I’ve been realising it’s not really about definition but more about fluidity, as well as a rough set of principles determined by me, and not the sodding anti-ageing industry or the carousel of heteronormativity.
Here are some of the things I’ve been thinking about, which have helped me to take stock of the past, but crucially also give me a guiding point for the future. Perhaps these aren’t quite right for you, or appropriate, but they’ve given me some comfort and are things I tell myself.
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