The Midults’ guide to…

Summer stresses

Einstein’s theory of bikinivity says you must try on 103.6 swimsuits for every success. Who on earth has the time? Or the emotional resilience?

SWIMSUIT SLOG

The doorbell rings. You answer it and a person hands you a small package. Only joking: you come home, hot, to a missed delivery slip. Stressful in itself. You eventually make it to the post office and, after you’ve queued in a fug of other peoples’ (and, let’s face it, probably your own) bodily odours, a person hands you a small package. You break an already broken nail trying to get into it. You hardly need to open the small package to feel the almost instantaneous rejection of the swimsuit within. Too tight (oof ). Too loose (pointless victory). Not slutty enough (we still have wild sides). Einstein’s theory of bikinivity says that you have to try on 103.6 swimsuits for every success. And who on earth has the time? Or the emotional resilience? CANCEL THE FLIGHTS.

HORNET HORROR

We are prepared to be grown-up about bees and wasps. In fact, we quite enjoy the wasp dance that people do in the middle of the street (you can see the dance but you can’t see the wasp). But hornets are evil. And they give chase. And they eat bees. And bees are good, right? I mean, where would the planet be without bees? Hornets… the dark soldiers of summer.

FRIGHT LIGHT

There’s nothing like ruthless summer daylight to show up the cracks in the ceiling, the damp patch, the stains on the carpet, the disgustingness of the car, the dustiness of the ENTIRETY OF EVERYTHING WE OWN, the creasedness of our clothes, the murk of the windows. And let’s not even talk about what high-definition illumination does to our poor, old faces.

SUMMER COLDS

Being coldy in winter is a bit snuffly and would-you-like-a-cup-of-tea-ish. But summer snottiness is sweaty, pink and most unattractive. People think you’ve got some terrible tropical illness. Same bug we had in November, just looks worse. Probably because of the light.

LOVE ISLAND LOSS

For the past few years, our summer stress has been softened by a chronic Love Island addiction. No need to go out. No need to make conversation about anything else. Pure, non-nutritious, junk telly. But this year things are more complicated. In addition to the appalling fact that two former contestants have taken their own lives, feminism has evolved to the point where all this G-stringed, plumped-up body didacticism just feels wrong. And the sexual politics feel regressive. So we guess we’ll be missing out on the Sex Zoo (sorry, Love Island) dependence this year. Hmmm, what to replace it with? Meaningless sex? Meditation? Definitely not meditation.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

You are an entrenched member of the 9pm bedtime crew but summer evenings throw everything out of whack. A 9pm bedtime suddenly feels more like a nap. It’s still too light. So you do the eye-mask thing, which everyone agrees is very sexy. And then you wake up at 4am because of the joyful, glorious, life-affirming birdsong. You should be out dancing. You’ve never been this boring. Or tired. Or angry.

FIRE FEAR

Maybe you leave the house of a morning without having checked the gas is off and that the windows are triplelocked. Maybe you sit at your desk, not worrying about whether you closed the curtains properly and checked there is no direct sunlight piercing through the glass extension, bouncing off the mirror, setting light to the wooden kitchen table and starting a catastrophic fire – which has happened to at least three people we know. In one instance, it was a healing crystal that started the blaze. Maybe you are absolutely fine about the extreme potential for summer infernos. Lucky old you. themidult.com