Why I Am Appreciating My Middle Age

Jan 16, 2023

Image of Bookshelves — Image by Author - Have You Seen My Shelves?

There’s a retirement village on my regular running route. As I pass it, I accelerate, shift up a gear, elevate my heart rate, push my body a little harder just to prove that I am a long, long way away from needing it. I’ve googled it. There’s an emergency pull cord in every apartment, boundary fencing and electric gates, a video entry system, intruder alarm, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. I like the look of the allotment area, the chairs positioned to catch the evening sun, the lack of steps. There’s something vaguely comforting about it but maybe I’ve read too much Richard Osman. The website says I could “forge friendships whilst gardening, at a barbeque or simply when going for a walk around the complex”. I’m intrigued but reticent about being forced into friendships, participating in communal activities. Would it be too noisy, would someone always be knocking on my door, would they let me out to walk beyond the complex, would I amuse myself by solving murders?

The problem is I’m not a long, long way from needing it. It’s for the over-55s. There’s a temptation to live in permanent denial but really, it’s not that many years until I meet the entry criteria. I’ve shared my fears with my husband. He’s reassured me that we have a decent downstairs bedroom with an ensuite. I may feel like a teenager on the inside but I am most definitely middle-aged on the outside. I can ingest collagen and lift weights but I can’t reverse the ravages of aging. I see the effects in the mirror every day as I apply my hyaluronic serum. I am now closer to getting my bus pass than having a geriatric pregnancy1. No matter what the media tries to tell me, I know ‘50 is not the new 40’, it’s probably just going to be 50. I am the same age my mother was when she started to get a regular perm, SAGA cruises are beckoning, Rishi Sunak may be in touch soon to lure me back to proper work with something to do with income tax. I do not wish to be morbid, and I may be lucky enough to keep chugging away with my pen and paper into my nineties, but it is likely that I have less years left on this earth than the ones I have already used up. Sometimes, that keeps me awake at night, my relationship with time - have I used it well, am I doing enough, what do I have to show for it? I don’t want to know that the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams was released closer to the end of the Second World War than today.

In the Irish Times this week, there was a brilliant piece by Róisín Ingle2. “The signs of Deep Middle Age are coming at me at a pace now, like white horses in a Hothouse Flowers song,” she said. Ah yes, Hothouse Flowers. Don’t Go had its thirty-fifth birthday in November. Do you feel old now? Róisín talked about the denigration of middle age, how much it is maligned and dissected in countless self-help manuals, how ‘Deep Middle Age Appreciation’ has been greatly over-shadowed by ‘Deep Middle Age Angst’. Perhaps we think it’s better to run away from it rather than simply embrace it. She talked about the opportunities middle age brings for quiet reflection, slow living, how she looks for its lessons and takes notes.

I thought about how my happiest moments are when everyone leaves me alone and I just lie on the sofa and think until I suddenly remember my fears about my relationship with time and try to do something semi-productive. When Róisín described the signs of middle age, I could somewhat identify -plants, books, the Marriage of Figaro, cardigans, lazy Saturdays spent cooking Persian-style aromatic lamb and flatbreads. Well maybe not that one. I’m all for lazy Saturdays, just not ones that involve a Jamie Oliver recipe. I share her love of greenery, Mozart, I have my eye on a Hope Macaulay block blue chunky knit and have you seen my shelves? I like candles too. Cushions and throws make a home. I’m continually nostalgic, in bed by 10pm, I prefer early teas, I won’t go to concerts unless I have a seat. Róisín talked about worrying about her mother as she ages. That I could identify with too. In 2022, I grew up finally. I became a middle-aged adult as I called an ambulance, sat beside a hospital bed. I check on my parents regularly. I have started to appreciate the finer things in life - music, art, films, anything that feels like culture. I want to see much more of the world than I already have. I want to suck up its beauty. I no longer have any sense of urgency about achieving any type of success, I have a list of places I want to visit.

Like Róisín, I think about the people I admire most, whose lives I want to emulate. For her, it was Des, her former neighbour who “ate life up for eight decades”. I have my 87-year-old friend Jean. “I am enjoying life,” she told me when we met for a cup of tea in a garden centre on Monday. Then there’s Lottie. I sat beside her in a restaurant on a wet Saturday evening. We chatted. She was dining on her own. She’d had one more glass of wine than she intended to. She planned to abandon her car. She’d get a taxi to the rugby club to watch the match. “I’ll probably drink too much,” she said. She explained how hard it was to find non-slippy bowling shoes, how long it took her to get her tights on but how it was worth it in the end.

When I think about my middle age, I think about how it’s become less about what I want to do and more about what I don’t want to do. I realise how well I have become attuned to my own needs, how much I trust myself, how my own soul’s warning keeps me firmly on track. I can try going against it but in the end, something just won’t feel right3. When The Killers sing “I played so many parts, I don’t know which ones really me”4, I know I don’t want to play any parts that aren’t really me anymore, hide any bits, I quite like my authentic self, how I’ve curated my existence. I no longer want to waste my energy on things that don’t bring me joy, I am not searching for meaning anymore, I am adding it myself. I am constantly de-cluttering, un-encumbering myself, eliminating, stripping back - clothes, possessions, people, obligations, burdens. I am no longer wasting my energy on gatherings that bore me, on company that drains me, or where I have to make all the conversation.

The white horses may be coming at me at a pace now but I don’t think I’ve ever been more content.

“There's a smell of fresh cut grass and it's filling up my senses
And the sun is shining down on the blossoms in the avenue
There's a buzzing fly hanging around the bluebells and the daisies
And there's a lot more loving left in this world”5.

Days Like This with Deborah Sloan

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