of my midlife angst was concerned with whether the old ways – our old beliefs – were effective any more. And what I could do if they weren’t having the same effect. If they don’t work, if they make it worse, then what?
In Bristol I gave a talk at a Festival of Ideas. I wasn’t sure I had any ideas worth festivalizing, but as what I’d been thinking about was midlife, I talked about that. I brought up death maths, and expensive bikes, drinking too much, and mourning the rush, and middle-aged sex lives. I made jokes about spiralizers.
Afterwards, there were questions from the audience. One man in his early 40s put his hand up and said, ‘I still feel 22.’ (‘Feelings aren’t facts!’ I didn’t say.) He had recently bought a skateboard. He didn’t know whether to learn skateboarding or hammer the skateboard to the wall, as a decoration.
How can we make our minds, which insist that we’re still 22, match up with our bodies, which are twice that age? How do we get rid of the sense of having missed out? How can we stop worrying about looking silly, because of our age? What should we do with our old MA1 jackets, or 12-inch remixes, or twisted Levi’s jeans? Does it matter if we don’t like new pop music? Is it okay to go to all-nighters if we go with our kids? What if we haven’t had kids?
I did my best with the questions. But I hadn’t studied mindfulness or sociology. I’m not a self-help guru. I can never tell if a new moisturizer makes any difference at all to my wrinkles. I was uncertain about many things, including time and consciousness and whether my mood (which was upbeat) was due to the warmth of the hall or the peri-menopause.
I wondered, what is an adult? We stretch our youth so far, so tight. We pull it up over our ageing bodies, like a pair of Lycra tights. We all do it to a certain extent, and yet we’re cruel to those who seem to hold on too hard for too long. We laugh about MAMILS (middle-aged men in Lycra) and cougars (middle-aged women sleeping with younger men). We mock women who have Botox and surgery, even as we urge them to stay as young-looking as they can. We giggle at dad-dancing, post up patronizing ‘Go on, my son!’ clips of grey-haired ravers on Facebook.
But it’s double standards. Because didn’t we, in our hearts, believe that youth is better than middle age? I think we did. I think we do. And our youthful ideals were clashing with our ideas of adulthood. There was a fight going on, inside and out. We take our children to festivals and get more trashed than they do.
‘What do you do in nightclubs?’ asked P. ‘I know you dance, but how long for? Can you choose the music? Why does everyone drink alcohol if it makes them ill?’
P once had a severe dancing-and-sugar comedown after a wedding. He danced for hours, fuelled on Coca-Cola and sweets. In the morning, he woke, white as a sheet, was sick, and had to go back to bed. He actually said, ‘I’m never doing that again, Mum. Never.’ His hangover was textbook, even though he didn’t drink.
I was great in nightclubs, but what did that qualify me for now? Could I continue with what I did – writing about popular culture, especially music – now that I was twice the age of those I talk to? A music writer. A critic. These jobs are as old-fashioned as being a miner, and as destined for redundancy. That’s a proper hangover.
Anyway, weren’t clubs partly about fancying people? I seemed to have a shifting sense of who I am. If you’re settled in a relationship, what does that mean? How does middle age affect your idea of love, of sex, of faithfulness? What about money? Not only did I know many people who earned a lot more than me, money, in general, seemed to have changed its meaning.
And what of the shallower stuff? How I looked. What my body could do, how it worked. My blood still pumped, I still bled. Did my body bleed as it used to?
Gradually, gradually, in between the bubbling, same-old rigmarole of everyday life, I came up with a plan. I would look back for a short time. (What’s the phrase? ‘Looking back is fine but it’s rude to stare.’) I would look back quickly, just long enough to investigate my prejudices and assumptions about adulthood. I would recall my twenties, check in on my thirties. There would be no beating myself up about wrong decisions, I would merely tell the tale. And then, I would arrive at my forties and I would look at that. At this middle decade, between the old age of youth and the youth of old age.
I would think about what I looked like. What my body can do. What marriage means, what happens when it changes over time. Work, and how our 90s’ assumptions might affect how we work now. Money. Money, which leads to jealousy. Anger, and patience, how they grow or die.
How children impact on your life in the everyday. Not the love – the love is assumed, we know the love – but what having children means for those who care for them, the routine of them, the stability. Parents. Family.
And death, I suppose. Time. The time left.
If I couldn’t tie these subjects down, catch them, skewer them with a ready pin for labelling and exhibition, then at least I could watch them fly. I could marvel at their existence. I might even see them settle (from the corner of my eye), and then I might glimpse their colours.
January is always a bastard. Not only because it’s January, but because it’s my birthday, on the 7th. Exactly one week after New Year’s Eve, two weeks after Christmas Eve, when nobody wants to go out, or drink alcohol, or spend money, or see anyone they know well ever again, other than to tell them precisely what they think of them and their crappy idea of a gift or a joke or a long-term partner. S has used up all his present ideas for me over Christmas. And even if I do celebrate my birthday, the next day when I wake up, guess what? It’s still January.
But, you know, the kids love a birthday. They love giggling outside our bedroom door and then sneaking up to the bed with all the noiseless subtlety of piglets in mining boots. They love nudging each other – ‘You go, go on, one, two, three’ – before shouting, ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUM,’ and singing the birthday song and its coda: ‘How old are you now? How old are you now? How old are you NO-OW? How old are you now?’ They know the answer. Those birthday bumps would break your back.
Downstairs, on the kitchen table, my array of presents is minimalist. A card from my mum. A printout of a photo of the four of us from S, with a promise to ‘buy you something later’. Two packets of Haribo Tangfastics, my favourite sweets, from P, wrapped wonkily in Christmas paper. Not exactly bumper. But you know what? It’s fine.
I take the kids to school and F tells everyone it’s my birthday, and my age. This is also fine. I’m not going to start lying about it. How old am I no-ow? I am 44. I am 45. Or 46, 47, 48. Not much has changed in the past few years. I am an adult. Whatever that is.
I watch P as we walk to school. Though I often forget how old I am, and when I remember it pulls me up short, he is of an age when every birthday is vital, when how many years (months, days) you’ve lived add up to power. When two years’ age difference is a chasm, an insurmountable status gap. Another small boy, a head taller than my son, just another kid to me, is as thrillingly attractive and powerful to P as a pop star. He keeps trying to play football with the older boys. He trots faster to catch up with them. I can see them tolerating his breathless jokes, bearing his presence, but only just.
P’s birthday parties involve football, usually; sometimes the cinema or Laser Quest. What did I do when I was his age? How about older? 15? I can remember my 17th birthday (in a Scout hall) and my 21st party (above a pub) and my 30th, and my 40th, just a few years ago. My 40th birthday party was very like my 30th. The main difference was that when a stranger
