MIDLIFE BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT # 01
You decide, age fifty, that you would very much like to be a runner after all. Despite, throughout your forties, having your attempts thwarted several times by a knee issue that you refer to as “the skiing injury”. You did pick up the injury on a skiing holiday some eighteen years ago, except you weren’t on the slopes when it happened. You were on the way to the bar with a girlfriend, already under the influence of the wine that accompanied dinner… and you slipped on the ice. After picking both yourselves up off the floor, only narrowly avoiding peeing your pants with laughter, you carried on to the bar regardless and sat sipping cocktails, watching your knee inflate at an alarming rate. No more skiing for you for the rest of the week. But now you’re fifty and the recent decision to try HRT has given you a new new lease of life… so knee support strap and Couch To 5K App it is. You and Jo Whiley are going all the way this time!
You regularly tell things you see on your phone to Fuck Off. Out loud. You used to only say it in your head but there’s so much fuckwittery available at the mere scroll of a fingertip that it feels more effective and satisfying to say it out loud and with vigour. And to prefix it with “Oh do…” for added disdain when required. You begin to realise just how useful it is when you happen upon world leaders with Twitter accounts, clickbait tabloid links, skinny coffee purveyors, Facebook drama, Facebook in general, seeing rules that you adhere to flouted left, right and centre, news headlines, shaming or cancelling of any kind, attempts to be “insta-famous”, obvious purchasing of followers, passive aggressive quotes… and the list goes on. Seriously… you’re fifty and you have no hesitation in saying Fuck Off. To your phone.
You spend way too much time deliberating any number of ear piercings other than those you already have on your lobes. You’ve had one in each lobe since you were sixteen and saved up your florist Saturday job wages to pay for it. A few weeks ago you got a second in each lobe too as you very like the idea (id-ear?) of a curated ear. You think Maria Tash is solely to blame for this new phenomenon and think she is awesome. You also wonder if its okay to use the word awesome at fifty. Now you have a photo on your phone of all the other parts of your ear that can be pierced and think their names sound pretty magical - Helix, Tragus, Conch and Rook. You scroll though the jewellery options on Maria Tash online and mentally calculate how many you could afford. Also... how many is too many? But then you see a picture of Gwyneth’s curated ear over on Goop and think how cool it looks. (Her’s is Picture C if you looked… cos I know you did). And you wonder if your husband might decide that it’s time he consciously uncoupled from you and your apparent midlife crisis - last year the tattoos, this year the piercings. No… he’ll be fine… change is good. He embraces change and all your quirks. Just don’t let him see how much those little diamond ear studs will cost you…
