We must accept that we can’t all look as good at 40 as Meghan does
Since Megxit, and particularly since the Oprah interview, I have tried to ignore the Duchess of Sussex and her moanprone husband. But last week I found it hard, largely because of the song and dance made by Meghan about her 40th. I was far less interested in her almost unintelligible proposal to get celebrity friends to help women back into the workforce than I was in, well, the fact that the Duchess and former Hollywood hottie is actually 40.
I am now in the final year of my 30s, and some of my friends have already shuffled over that Rubicon known as the big 4-0. It terrified them – though they report it not being so bad once it happened – and it terrifies me.
We live in a society obsessed with cheating age, and doing everything in our power to pretend time isn’t, in fact, passing. And when we look at the famous people with their perfect
skin and flawless bodies held up as paragons of the new 40s – from Reese Witherspoon to Amal Clooney – a part of our brains thinks “yes! There is a world in which a 40-something woman is indistinguishable from a 34-yearold!”
But looking at Meghan smugly grinning from her palatial study in LA, where she filmed her 40th birthday appeal, I realised with a jolt that that world has nothing to do with ordinary mortals like me. Meghan’s skin hasn’t a hint of wrinkle. Her body is glowing. She is in such fine shape
she has probably never felt an ache or a pain in her life.
My reality is that already at 39 I notice aches and pains, things that take a little bit longer to feel better than they did. I can no longer pretend that lines around my mouth, eyes and forehead aren’t deepening, because they are.
The truth is that 40 isn’t young and most women this age, myself included, don’t look all that young either. And there’s a dignity to accepting this and moving on. We’re all mortal, after all – including the Markles and Clooneys of the world.