I’m turning 50.
If you’re 80 and reading this, you’ll be rolling your eyes at the sheer nothingness of it. If you’re twenty-five you probably can’t even begin to imagine being my age. When I was 25, being fifty sounded old as hell. Time for a Parker pen, blood pressure tablets, the menopause, and special kinds of holidays on large boats that contained hospitals. If I was lucky, I might still have some of my own teeth.
Now that I’m here of course, it’s barely a thing. My foundations are the same as when I was 25. I’m still day dreamy, lazy, rubbish at admin, a lover of learning, reading, and swimming in cold water. But it wouldn’t be twenty-five years well spent if I hadn’t grown and learned a great deal. Fifty must mean more than being the butt of everyone’s long practised age jokes and the recipient of a bowel cancer screening test through the post. Best to ignore then the cultural expectations and instead look at what there is to really celebrate.
Because surprisingly, there are many good things. Life is infinitely better than it was when you were 25. There’s a whole chunk of wisdom and appreciation added on, not to mention a clear and defining sense of self. You say no and you mean it. You suspect you might have grown (whisper it) a bit difficult. This is faintly thrilling. Because you’re less tolerant of nonsense, you don’t fill silences. You don’t hurry to answer, or laugh when it’s not funny, but you’re quick to mirth when it is. Perhaps you’re sometimes a little rude to overly rehearsed sales people but you need to save time. Chuggers take one look into your black, soulless eyes and don’t even bother.
One bored afternoon during lock-down you cut off your long hair using cheap hairdressing scissors and your husband’s clippers. It felt better instantly. You’ve got a bleach blonde pixie now, all home-made and punky, and are vain enough to be happy that you have to deal with dark roots. You still love ugly space princess shoes that everyone pulls horrified faces at and you have been known to sit in the front row at the ballet wearing your slippers. You’ve always been a bit Jenny Joseph, but now you’re revving up and growing into it. There’s a red lipstick in every pocket (damn you, facemasks). Bras must not have an underwire and you have strong feelings about knicker shapes and necklines. Tailoring rocks – provided it’s worn with serious trainers and a t-shirt – and you know what you love so well that you can cast a sweeping eye around a shop, dismiss all of it and move on in less than a minute.
There is no chance that you will spend three figures on a handbag or a pair of shoes, but on books, concerts or holidays, you’re prepared to be generous. Money and you have made an uneasy peace. The savings account gets money paid in monthly and you know what’s in it and what it’s for. You’re not rich, but you’re free and that, as the years have shown you, is worth more than lots of cash. Out of character, you turn a blind eye to the price of that perfume you love because you’re nothing if not contradictory. The constant pursuit of new and better objects does not impress, and you choose your people accordingly. New books and new plants matter. New kitchens and couches do not.
Somehow, by thinking and noticing, you’ve managed to pull off the magic trick of getting out of your own way. This is an age induced superpower: a total belief in action and moving things forward physically, even if your brain is determinedly stuck in some way. You talk to yourself kindly, encouragingly even, and that means your mind is a gentle, calm and pleasant place to be. Just do something you tell yourself: it’ll work, it always does. The discouraging voice – sometimes editor, sometimes critic – is largely silent these days, pensioned off as this restructuring took place. How you wish you could gift a gentle internal voice to the twenty-five-year-olds.
And the really good bits? You’ve been married to the same man for twenty years and you still adore him, often and completely. Birthing suites, death beds and several washing machines later, there are no inhibitions. Love is perfectly efficient and if you don’t think efficient is a romantic word now, wait until you’ve less time in front of you with the love of your life, than behind. Bodies, with their imperfect and damaged landscapes are celebrated and enjoyed, and arguments last half the time because you’ve had them before and they were pointless then too. The background is all filled out leaving the two of you free to play on the stage. Your kids are getting bigger and you’re doing a good job: they’re happy and kind and funny. You have a home: messy and busy, and full of love and cake and humour. The van you drive is ancient, so muddy feet or sea-soaked swim-suited bottoms don’t matter.
Work is just work and you’re glad of it, but it’s not where your real life is. At twenty-five you could not have acknowledged the truth in that.
Write down the number fifty: it’s solid, curvy, and dependable. It knows the value of a good lunch. You have a suspicion – which you’ll need years to prove – that fifty is the last number that calls to itself as if it matters. It’s the final wall that you break through and on the other side is a world where you’re just a person, not an age, not a judgement, not a list of things achieved. No one expects anything much of you now because – well, you’re fifty. And that, my friends, is the real essence of your celebration. Because now, as a fully formed, anonymous adult, you can finally get started.