Shane Watson
Midlife is great – until the wake-up calls come
You’re probably aware that middle age has been rebranded. If you are between fortysomething and sixtysomething you are now midlife. (Or should that be seventysomething? No one has yet dared nominate the cut-off point.) The term middleaged is depressing and old, so we’ve done away with it.
No disrespect to the middle-aged lot who went before, but we’re different and we’re doing it differently. We have recently downloaded The 1975 (we’re probably seeing them at Latitude). We have new ankle boots from Topshop, and we’ve watched every episode of
Girls, and Love, that kind of thing. So, realistically, “middle-aged” doesn’t suit the people we are. La la la. Isn’t it great?
The only thing about this upgraded version of middle age is that not everyone knows the new rules. Your parents don’t get it. Your children don’t get it. In fact no one outside the age bracket has any idea that you’re anything other than old-style middle-aged. Among your midlife mates it’s fine, but every so often the outside world collides with your reality and you get one of these shock wake-up calls:
Getting a mumming. This is when you have been making friends with a younger woman at a party and then she says, “Yeah, my mum would do that, too.” Or the assistant in Topshop, when you ask her if you are “too old” for the floppy trousers (expecting the answer, “As if!”), says: “I think my mum would wear them… like on holiday. Maybe.”
When you get into a conversation with your hairdresser about your birthday, and let slip how old you are, and instead of dropping the hairdryer and roaring: “SHUT UP! You are NOT!”, she doesn’t blink. It never crossed her mind that you were anything other than the age you are. Given that she wants a tip, there’s every chance she thought you were older.
When you are getting ready to go to a wedding, and you look in the mirror and your femme fatale ontrend floppy hat is making you look like a haggard old crone. Or, when you come downstairs wearing hotpants and tights (for a fancy dress party… come on) and your stepchildren actually look sorry for you.
When you are sitting down with girlfriends and you realise you have been talking, for the past half hour, about joint care glucosamine supplements, hair-thickening treatments, and where to get your rings enlarged.
When you have a really bad, old-lady coughing fit and the young people have the same expression they get when their grandfather is wobbling on the stairs.
When you attempt your signature Russian kazotsky kick and topple over like a penguin and hurt yourself.
When you realise the good-looking waiter who is being really smiley and tactile is not flirting at all – he’s really missing his mum. Given half a chance he’d ask you to check a spot on his back.
When you ask for a shoe size in the sexy boots and the assistant says, looking confused – is it for you?
When you fill in one of those forms online and scrolling down for the year of your birth takes for ever. You could have boiled a kettle in the time it takes to get all the way back there.
When your music tolerance sputters and dies in a restaurant, and you have to ask them if it would be possible to turn it down, or even off, and adjust the downdraft from the A/C while they’re at it.
When someone’s young friend innocently says: “I bet you were cool/pretty/ fun when you were young,” and right there you know you are none of the above now, and it’s time for bed.
Otherwise, it’s all going pretty well.
‘When you realise the goodlooking waiter who is being really smiley and tactile is not flirting but missing his mum’