Our THIRD ACTS
Think midlife is the time to wind down? Think again. We meet four readers who changed their lives for the better
THE NEW MUM AT 46
Rachel Pashley, now 49, had a painful path to motherhood before finding herself unexpectedly pregnant. She lives in north-west London with her husband James, 45, and their daughter Lily, three.
It was Jane Fonda who once said, ‘It’s never too late. Never too late to start over, never too late to be happy,’ and it’s a belief that absolutely describes me and sums up my approach to life. Let me explain.
I’m a mum, yes, but my daughter didn’t arrive until I was 46, which makes me geriatric by medical standards. But then I didn’t meet my husband until I was 38 – we won’t talk about my ‘starter marriage’. I’m also a writer. It’s very hard for me to say that out loud without laughing but it’s true, I have a book to my name, publishers willing another on the way, and I contribute articles regularly to publications. I also have a day job (advertising strategist) that helps to keep food on the table and in the hair of my three-year-old >>
‘Happy and chilled’ little Lily, with James and Rachel
tearaway, Lily. But when I think about it, I’ve done almost everything late – I was late to puberty, late to dating, career, marriage, children and now writing.
I was brought up to have a healthy suspicion of authority. My parents instilled in me the philosophy of marching to the beat of your own drum, not mindlessly following conventions. Judging from the fact that Lily recently wore a pink party hat to nursery all day, just because… the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
As women, we’re often pressured into conforming to a ‘life script’ as I call it. We go to college in our 20s, get married and have children in our 30s, dabble in a part-time career in our 40s and 50s until retirement and grandchildren. There’s nothing wrong with that script if that’s what you want, but what if you want something different, or you don’t know what you want, you’re still figuring that out? In my case, I wasn’t ready for marriage or children in my 30s. Caring for terminally ill parents in my 20s and early 30s meant I had little time to figure out who I was and what I wanted. It was only really in my mid-30s that I started to feel comfortable in my own skin and to consider what I wanted from life.
It took me nearly four decades to realise that I only felt truly alive when I wrote, and that I was good at it. I knew this because when I wrote articles they got published and I got asked to write more. I wrote speeches for people, and creative briefs for the agency, and then I dared myself to write a book. I was commissioned while six months pregnant and let me tell you there’s nothing quite like a deadline to sharpen one’s resolve. Yet despite no training, despite holding down a full-time job, persistent morning sickness and the ‘side hustle’ of growing a human, I pulled it off, and my book was published.
My greatest feat, though, was to become a mum, and I like to think I’m good at that too because I was ready for it. I’m so much more relaxed and confident in my 40s, I can fully embrace the organised messy chaos of motherhood. I’ve also embraced my
‘do it when you’re ready’ philosophy to parenting Lily. I’ve never pressured her to potty train, never sleep trained her, never weaned her before she was ready, never pushed her into being a ‘big girl’ before she’s ready. I’ve always allowed her to come to things in her own sweet time. I think as a result, I have a very happy, chilled and confident little girl.
When I think about it, maybe my struggle to get pregnant was simply the case that my body just wasn’t ready, so trying to force the issue with IVF was doomed to failure. My IVF years were some of the hardest of my life, not just physically but emotionally. What was hardest was the guilt I carried for not trying sooner. Had my selfish pursuit of a career denied me and my husband the chance of becoming parents? Was I being punished? We endured four rounds, and despite producing many embryos, it seemed my body had other ideas and nothing took. Finally, our consultant suggested we should stop and consider donor eggs. We booked a trip to Israel, our first proper holiday for years, a chance to meet James’ extended family and a blissful escape from fertility clinics. The only fly in the ointment: I was too fat for my bikini and my period was a week late.
Then one morning something happened – my coffee tasted bitter
and horrible, and I could smell the chefs preparing the lunch from the hotel kitchen metres away and it was making me heave. We schlepped in the searing heat to the nearest pharmacy and bought two pregnancy tests. I was used to peeing on sticks by now but this time I couldn’t bear to look so I handed the test to James: two little blue lines had appeared, and they were not faint, they were bold. We feverishly consulted the instructions, in Hebrew – James was a little rusty, but it seemed to be saying we were pregnant. We both looked at each other dumbstruck, and we repeated the test the next morning.
The blue lines were almost luminous shouting the result. We hardly dared believe our luck, and on our visit to Jerusalem we said a prayer for our little embryo, pleading for a healthy baby.
The next few weeks were a heady mix of quiet excitement mixed with high anxiety. It was only when I saw a tiny heart beating on the monitor at my eight-week scan that I started to believe maybe this was real, maybe I wasn’t hallucinating, maybe just maybe we’d been gifted something truly magical. The anxiety of my age stayed with me until our 12-week Harmony scan, the worst two-week wait of my life, but the test confirmed that despite my infirmity the embryo was normal and persuaded me that this pregnancy was real.
From that moment on, despite 20 weeks of insane morning sickness, I enjoyed my pregnancy. I have never felt more alive and energised, swimming every day. My consultant regularly rolled his eyes at my refusal to slow down, yet reassured me that despite my years, my health and level headedness were in my favour.
Perhaps also because of my age,
I was remarkably relaxed during my pregnancy. The hard work had been getting pregnant and I wanted to enjoy every minute. I laughed a lot over those precious nine months, and I’m still laughing three years later.
To paraphrase Ms Fonda, it’s never too late, never too late to be happy, never too late to figure out what it is that truly makes you happy and to pursue it. Just go for it.
✢ Rachel’s book, New Female Tribes (£20, Virgin Books), is out now.
THE SAILOR
Dawn Gregory, 58, threw caution to the wind when, with no previous sailing experience, she bought a 36ft yacht. Now a qualified skipper, she lives in Uckfield with her husband Nigel, 65.
It still amazes me to this day that I bought a yacht. I certainly never planned to. I hadn’t even sailed before. But I was at a stage when I wanted to try something new. I was
48, our children had left home, and although I still worked full-time as a qualified addictions counsellor,
I felt lost at the weekends.
My husband is sport mad and he’d spend many hours watching games on TV, but I felt I was just wasting time. On one of those weekends I took myself to Brighton Marina near where we live, and indulged in a lovely lunch for one. As I sat there I found myself enviously watching a couple sipping champagne aboard a yacht. They seemed so happy.
I wanted a slice of that life for myself. And then I saw it – a ‘for sale’ sign on the back of the boat. I felt a little thrill go through me. Could I? Surely the idea of owning a yacht was a pipe dream. As I walked home, I passed a shop window advertising the very same yacht. It seemed like fate. That night I said to my husband, ‘I’ve seen a boat…’
Over the next couple of days we discussed the possibility of owning a yacht and what our weekends could look like. Considering this was something we had never talked about before, I was surprised when my husband texted me on Monday morning with the words, ‘I want it!’
Before we could think too much about it, we were raiding our savings accounts to become the proud owners of a Beneteau Oceanis 36 – a 36ft beauty.
I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. >>
I joined a day skipper course with my husband, which consisted of five days in the classroom, and five days and one night at sea. He took to it straight away, but I found it difficult and didn’t complete the course. Eventually I did, gaining my certificate too – a proud moment.
It’s not all fun and games and it’s been a steep learning curve, but we love to spend as many weekends as we can sailing, weather permitting. We’ve crossed the English Channel to France, sailed to the Isle of Wight and Guernsey, and been on sailing holidays around Greece and the British Virgin Islands.
One of my favourite memories is sailing alongside dolphins off Beachy Head in East Sussex.
When I first told my children, now 34 and 30, about buying a yacht, they did question my sanity, and my friends were surprised, even though they refer to me as Dawn ‘You Only Live Once’. That was 10 years ago and since then
we’ve bought a slightly bigger 40ft yacht. I’ve even written a humorous book about my adventures.
Last year, we didn’t get down to the marina as much as lockdown restrictions made it difficult. Life’s been a bit on hold, but come next year, we’re hoping to follow some exciting plans. My husband is retiring, so we’re taking the boat to the Mediterranean to live life in the sun.
Going out to buy a yacht may seem a little extreme, and I sometimes look back in amazement at what I did. There are other ways of taking up sailing. Local clubs are always looking for crew, and you don’t even need to have experience. But forcing ourselves to buy a yacht was right for me, and I haven’t looked back.
✢ Dawn’s book, To Sea Or Not To Sea (£6.99, amazon.co.uk) is published under her pseudonym Alana Cowell. From now until the end of the year, Dawn is donating part of the proceeds to the RNLI.
THE WANDERER
A decision to set off on a solo long-distance walk along the
South Coast set Zoe LangleyWathen, 50, on a new path. The part-time supply teacher lives with her husband Mike, 69, on a narrowboat in Abergavenny
– and hasn’t stopped walking. Growing up in a North Somerset village, surrounded by green space, I quickly learnt to love the great outdoors. And we didn’t have a car, which meant walking also became a big part of life.
One of my strongest memories is heading off with my brother, age
13, to find the mouth of the River Yeo. That was quite an adventure, which even involved having to shimmy along a sewage pipe under the motorway. The sense of satisfaction I felt when we reached our destination stayed with me and led me to realise that the best experiences can come from the scariest situations.
It wasn’t until later in life, though, that I discovered the joy of solo adventures. Aware that I was turning 40 in 2011, I wondered what I could do to mark it. One day, I walked into a bookshop and there on the shelf was a book about the South West Coast Path. Suddenly, I knew that was it.
I set off in the summer of 2011, to walk the entire 630-mile path solo, from Minehead in Somerset to South Haven Point in Dorset. I’d always had my heart set on doing it alone because part of the challenge was to push myself out of my comfort zone. It was a while before I plucked up the courage to wild camp though, instead relying on campsites to begin with.
As soon as I did, I scolded myself for not doing it sooner. It was the most liberating experience I’ve ever had. Clambering out of the tent to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, I glanced up at the night sky and gasped. I’d never seen so many vast swathes of stars. It was absolutely exquisite.
It took me 47 days to complete, but I was never lonely. There was always something to think about and reflect on as I walked, whether it was planning lessons for the next school year or thinking about the environment around me, soaking up sunsets and sunrises, the trees and the sea.
To be able to think like that was very calming and a luxury often absent in everyday life.
The whole experience was liberating and life-changing. I rediscovered myself, made new friends, and even met the man who’d become my husband – we were introduced by another long-distance walker on the South West Coast Path. That walk was only ever supposed to be a rite of passage into my 40s. Instead, it kick-started a new phase in my life.
Since then, I’ve become known as
‘the woman who walks’ and have completed other solo hikes, including becoming the first woman to walk the 870-mile Wales Coast Path.
I’m still seeking out new challenges and lockdown hasn’t slowed me down. I walked 8,450m in my back garden over two weeks for charity.
Last year, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone again by writing a chapter in a book, too. That’s given me the confidence to start my own book, about my journey on the South West Coast Path. I’ve also started a podcast talking to resilient midlife women who are heading out of their comfort zone in the great outdoors.
I still seek out challenges to do on my own, despite being married now. I would actively encourage other women to do the same. You’ll create memories and come back with an amazing sense of resilience, having achieved something you thought out of reach.
✢ Read Zoe’s blog headrightout.com for inspiration and encouragement on heading into the great outdoors. Her new podcast, HeadRightOut, is on streaming services now.
‘The best experiences can come from the scariest situations’