Meet the Midults

Tequila, Tinder, a good therapist… Annabel Rivkin and Emilie Mcmeekan are rebranding middle age for the modern woman – anxiety issues andall. Welcome to our new columnists’ guide to Midulthood ®

It was a strange moment. There we were, round a table in someone’s house; someone’s vast, architected, converted west London showpiece, where the sofas were George Smit h, t he table was v intage Italian and the food was carb-light. The assembled company of six were all women in their 40s. They felt untouchably successful, these women; an entrepreneur here, a creative director there. ‘Annabel!’ said one. ‘How are you?’ And I suf fered a kind of Tourette’s moment. I was supposed to say, ‘Fine!’ or maybe, ‘Busy!’ or perhaps, ‘Oh, you know.’ But I was at saturation point with ‘fine’, ‘busy’ and ‘you know’. ‘I’m so anxious I’ve completely stopped sleeping’ just slipped out. Oh God. There was a nano-silence. And then everyone started talking at once. ‘I’ve been on antianxiety meds since last year…’ ‘I don’t want to have sex with my husband but I love him and I know I have to…’ ‘I’m terrified I’m going to lose my house…’ ‘I’m grief-stricken about not having a baby.’ And so that evening shifted. It got… interesting. It got funny. We connected.

When do you become a grown-up? When do you have to ‘adult’? When does the worry of youth subside to be replaced by emotional equilibrium and a feeling of control? It doesn’t. Though teenagers may be repulsed or amused by grown-ups having feelings – of fear, of lust, of fury – they will find out, decades down the line, that these tidal waves alter but do not abate. In our 20s we foresaw a dulling of emotion. A settling. Well, that didn’t happen.

We – Annabel and Emilie – found ourselves in battle mode. We had, between us, negotiated extreme panic attacks, solo motherhood, bitter money worries, nuclear break-ups, drinking, dieting, insomnia and anxiety. Our anxieties had little baby anxieties. But – when we turned those anxieties on their bony little heads, we got laughter. They became, if not fun, then at

least funny. And when we came out about our bottomless pits of secret shame, we found that shame cannot survive being spoken about.

in our early 40s we felt deranged yet rational. What better mood in which to start a business? so we launched the Midult – as a counterproposal to all the pelvic-floor-squeezing, and Aga-centric oppressive worthiness. As a challenge. As a connector. We launched the Midult to rebrand middle age.

Middle age starts at 35 (although everyone pretends it starts at 55, just as everyone pretends menopause will only happen to other people), and it is not exactly an aspirational concept, is it? More of a prison sentence with the whiff of defeat and – when it comes to women, at least – desperation. And so both of us, stiffened with anxiety, fired up with unforeseen ambition, ploughed on into Midulthood.

Midulthood, we established as we tackled entrepreneurship (why does calling ourselves entrepreneurs make us feel like idiots?) and ridiculously invited more risk into our already worried lives, is where anxiety meets potential. it’s about evolving towards who you really are – what simone de Beauvoir called ‘coinciding with yourself ’. swerving yourself is no good in the end. And by the way, this is not the end.

Look around and you’ll see that midlife is no longer a question of hopping on the conveyor belt towards death. No longer a question of allowing all the choices you’ve ever made – professional, financial, sexual – to concertina in on you. The rebrand is happening in real time. Midults are negotiating the terror, Tinder, pay rises and egg-freezing. We’re taking advantage of the confidence, the digital literacy, the wisdom. We’re living the rage, the resolution, the reset and the ‘hear me roar’. Midulthood is a mood. Maybe it’s a movement. Put down that coffee and come on in, the (shark-infested – joke, not really) water is lovely. themidult.com