Ageing and in need of emotional liberation
IT WAS my birthday last Friday, so please allow me a little more than my usual self-indulgence. If it’s your birthday too, then I would like to congratulate you on choosing June 8. We share our birthday with Kanye West, so accordingly I am wishing you all a day filled with joy and, erm, dragon energy.
I work in an industry where it’s considered unwise to shout out the age you are as you get older, so may I first of all shout “sod that” and tell you I am 45. If that hinders my job prospects, whatever. Recently, I was out with a friend who has had great success in his showbusiness career this year.
“Are you getting lots more attention from women now?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said, then wailed, “but they’re all 45-yearold divorcees.” I reminded him of my own age and marital status. He spluttered and coughed his apologies and flattered me: “I didn’t mean you. You’re hot!”
I wasn’t insulted. I like getting older. It’s a reassuring reminder that I am alive and still at the party. I do notice I’ve changed a little; I admire hanging baskets outside pubs before I go in them. The downside is knowing that if you died, it wouldn’t be regarded as quite as tragic as if you were in your twenties. You can’t help but be conscious of your age on TV.
Before I went into I’m A Celebrity, I will confess to seeking out a highly recommended plastic surgeon for a bit of “help”.
The first thing my partner at the time had said when I agreed to do the show was, “But people will see you without make up on! I really don’t think that’s good for your career!” (I know. I know. I had three years of this sort of thing from him and he was eventually “sent away to live in a farm”.)
My confidence eroded somewhat by my silvertongued cavalier, off I trotted to Harley Street. I just wanted Botox and fillers, nothing dramatic.
What a strange thing it was to walk into a fancy building, give my details to the receptionist and plonk myself down on a glossy chair, waiting for a consultation on how I could alter my face to pretend I haven’t lived for as long as I have.
“So,” the softly-spoken Indian doctor said, “why are you here?” I told him I was going on a TV programme where I’d be filmed at every angle, 24 hours a day and I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up. I left out the part about my boyfriend thinking I should hide my bare face from humanity. The man was a cosmetic surgeon, after all.
He gave me a mirror. “Look in here, please, and tell me how much you like your face out of 10. Not how beautiful you think you are, but how much you like it.”
I looked at my face. I’ve always liked my face, if I’m honest. We have been through a lot together.
I look like my mum, dad, son and daughter all mixed into one. Theirs are all faces I love, so I said, “10.”
The doctor nodded wisely, as only a man getting paid £300 for a chat can. He explained that my face would look different to how it does now if he filled it and froze it.
If I liked my face “10 out of 10”, then I was perhaps just anxious about being on a primetime TV show and I was looking to the wrong thing to fix my anxiety.
“I think your issues are more emotional,” he continued. “For now, my advice would be to meditate, find emotional coping strategies for adventure into the unknown and come back here when you are 60.
“If you still want cosmetic enhancement then, we can discuss it. But I will charge a lot more by then. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a very good doctor,” I said.
£300 is a lot of money to spend on being told “You’re just panicking: relax” – but in this case, worth every penny.
That said, I do sometimes wonder if he was actually a porter having a laugh while the real doctor was at lunch.
• Shappi Khorsandi is a comedian and writer.