Ageing: Are You Ready To Finish Your Slice?

Sometimes when I am pottering around my house I interview myself. Some people would call that 'talking to themselves' but it's far more formal than that. I pose myself questions, think about them, and then carefully articulate my answers.

If that makes me weird, well, wait till you hear about my faux cooking-show demonstrations.

The other day, during one of my probing interviews, I asked myself how I feel about ageing. After all, if I was a celebrity I would get asked that question all the time. Any female celebrity over the age of 30 is asked how she feels about getting older. Male celebrities aren't asked until they hit 50, but hey, I've interviewed myself about gender inequality many times and it's really not at all surprising.

So how do I feel about ageing?

cake: a metaphor

Well, I'm glad I asked.

At 46, the physical stuff doesn't bother me too much. Yes, I have wrinkles, blah blah blah. Yes, I have stretch marks, blah blah blah. But what do you expect at this age? Quite frankly, I get more upset about my occasional pimples than I do about the Visible Signs of Ageing.

And yes, I feel more Comfortable in Myself now than I ever did as a younger person. That all is true. I feel much more me than I did as a younger person. I am more confident, less concerned with what other people think. I know how I want to live my life, and am making that life happen.

But you know what I don't like?

I don't like the fact that time is running out. I don't like the fact that I am half way through my life. I feel keenly the sense that my years left on earth are limited. I know that we all have limited lifespans. I know that a twenty year old isn't going to live forever either. But I didn't feel my mortality at 20. I didn't even feel my mortality at 30. It hit me for the first time at the age of 45, and I suspect it will get stronger with each passing year.

I know it's not fair to feel this way. I have lived 46 years already, and many of them well. I am like a child with only half a slice of cake left, resenting the other kids who haven't started theirs yet. We all get our slice, I am halfway through mine, and I mustn't be greedy.

But I am. I want more cake. I like eating it and I don't want it to be over anytime soon. Or even in another 46 years.

I've interviewed myself, and now it's over to you. How do you feel about ageing? Will you ever be ready to finish your slice?

Things I Should Have Sorted by 40, But Haven't

I am 46. That is closer to 50 than 40. (And yes, you probably worked that out yourself, but I'm still coming to terms with it.) By now I should probably have worked out this Adulting gig. I've been doing it for a long, long long time.

But there are still things I haven't figured out, despite my advanced age: things I should have sorted by 40, but haven't.

1. I am still searching for the ideal hair and skin care products. I have not yet accepted the reality that it's not the products that are imperfect, it is my hair and skin.
2. I still let paperwork pile up in huge mounds around my house. I have tried 758,000 filing systems over the past three decades, and not one of them has eliminated the mounds.
3. I still sometimes eat my feelings.
4. I am still a sucker for clothing bargains and am forever purchasing non-returnable items on sale that I hate the minute I bring them home.
5. I am still incredibly trusting, and get fooled by liars time and time again.
6. I still bite my nails. Even my acrylic nails.
7. I still run out of bread and milk all the time.
8. I still confuse sex with love.
9. I still don't have a formal exercise regime. Or even a casual exercise regime.
10. I still lose my temper with the kids and regret it afterwards.
11. I still don't know the capital cities of many countries in the world, despite really, truly trying to memorise them.
12. I still don't have a signature dish. I don't even have a signature drink.
13. I still fret if I don't get enough sleep.
14. I still assume people are dead or angry with me if they don't text me back straight away.
15. I still need therapy.

What about you?

I Very Nearly Lied About My Age

Here's a little anecdote for you:

Back in my mid twenties, after my brief stint as a child star actor, I decided I wanted to give acting another go. This 'decision' lasted for all of six months, but during that time I harboured ambitions of getting into NIDA. I did a pre-NIDA audition course, and was told I'd have a decent chance of getting in.

But there was a problem, my teachers (ex-NIDA students) said. Whilst older men occasionally got into the course, women of my age were considered to be too old.

"So I should give up?" I asked.

"No!" they told me. "Just lie about your age on the paperwork. People do it all the time."

Acting is a hell of a profession. Though it should be about talent - and it largely is, for men - for women it is equally about looks and age.

We know all this. I'm not going to bore you with examples of fifty year old actors playing romantic leads in movies opposite twenty-five year old actresss. I'm not going to bore you with examples of fifty year old actresses playing the mothers of forty year old actors. You've heard the stories. You know them to be true.

You also know that it is absolutely understandable that Rebel Wilson might have wanted to push her age down so as to keep scoring the 'young' parts in Hollywood for as long as possible. Apparently she is actually thirty-five, and not twenty-nine, as she has supposedly claimed. Chances are she would never have got one of the lead roles in Pitch Perfect if she acknowledged her true age. So fantastic. She told a little fib. No-one was hurt. And we all benefited from seeing her brilliant performance.

Would we shame an older women for slicing a few years off her age to get a job in the corporate world? No. We would shake our heads and lament the use-by date placed on women in our culture once they hit forty or fifty (depending on the industry).

Rebel Wilson is a Hollywood actress. Hollywood actresses have been lying about their ages/names/surgical intervention forever. Forever.

And if we're feminists, and we actually care about women, we should be trying to change society and the system instead of shaming individuals who are just trying to work within it.

And who knows - maybe, if I'd done my NIDA audition and been accepted, I'd now be thirty-nine.

An Open Letter To The Man Who Likes Older Women

Dear Man Who Likes Older Women,

Thank you so much for approaching me on a dating site. I was touched to hear from you. 

You mention specifically in your profile that you are looking for someone over the age of 45 as you, and I quote, 'LOVE MY OLDER WOMEN'. I am not actually 'your' older woman, but that's really just semantics. I totally get that you want to hook an elderly person such as myself, and I'm honoured that I am considered old enough for you. After all, I really just scrape in there at 46.

You are clear that you 'know how to treat a lady' and will treat your partner 'as a princess'. This sounds very exciting to me as I would love to be treated as a princess. I particularly like the idea of having servants to wait on me and travelling in a private jet. I'm not sure about being on the cover of magazines, but presumably you can get your people to insist upon my privacy, as I used to be just a commoner. Of course, being an older woman I am probably more qualified to be a Queen than a princess, or perhaps even a Queen Mother, but again, these are fine details that we can thrash out later with my ladies-in-waiting.

I'm excited about my date!

I was curious about why you prefer the company of older women, and happily you cover that in your profile. You explain that older ladies are better confidants, better communicators, and better lovers. It is definitely true that I am a better lover than women under the age of 46, though admittedly women 47 and older are, by definition, better than me. 

As for being a better communicator, I think I am indeed very good at talking. To be perfectly honest, I talk more eloquently to intelligent people than to dickheads who approach women on the internet because they're old. But I'm sure I can make an exception for you.

And yes, I am certainly a better confidant than a young woman. Most young women wouldn't listen to you for more than 30 seconds without deleting you. I'm giving you a whole blog post! I know. You can thank me in the palace later. 

All in all I think we will make an excellent couple and I eagerly await our future together.

There's just one small issue.

Man Who Likes Older Women, you state that you are 43 years old. That is only three years younger than me. I am looking for someone way, way younger. Like maybe 24 or 25 at the oldest. They are such great communicators and terrific confidants, and I will treat my younger man like a prince....

Kerri

Chicks

Tomorrow is International Women's Day. And to mark the day, I'm thinking about all that is important to me as a woman. A girl. A chick. A person with a vagina. A mother. A daughter. A sister. A friend.

• My daughters. I want to raise my girls to live lives of their own choosing, to be in control of their careers, their finances, their homes. I want them to know how to compromise, but how to stand up for what they believe in. I want them to have the freedom and power to follow their own particular paths to fulfillment. 
• My son. I want him to have everything he wants for himself, whilst encouraging the women in his life to do the same. I want him to be an excellent partner to a nice, feminist girl.
• My parents. I want to love them and support them as they have loved and supported me. Life is about nurturing those we care about, and being nurtured in return. 
• My friends. My friends boost me up. They share in my joy. They feel my pain. And I feel the same way about them. I would be lost without my female friends. I want to give to them as I receive.
• People in need. We need to notice other people. We need to be alert to signs of distress. We can't take responsibility for everyone in our lives, but we can extend ourselves for the benefit of others - as long as we don't stretch ourselves too thin in the process. We need to be kind. To friends, to family, to acquaintances, and to complete strangers (and yes, refugees are 'strangers in need').
• My body. My choice. I want to have control over the number of children I have (three is enough, thanks). If I want to let my hair go grey, I will. If I want to get my ears pinned back, I'll do it (actually I did). If I want to get a facelift and boob job, well, I'd be fairly surprised, but hey, it would be my choice.
• My career. I want a career. I also want to work from home and be available to care for my kids. That is my choice and I have been fortunate enough to do it. But there is nothing objectively 'right' about my choice. It is simply what is right for me. 

And that, for me, is the key to feminism. It's about fighting for choice. I want women to have choices about their bodies and their careers, about their relationships and their finances, about their family responsibilities and their futures.

Women deserve choice, just as men deserve choice. Choice balanced with care. Choice balanced with love.

Happy Chickies day, people.

How Old Are You?

The other day I was chatting to my friend K about dating.

"What age man would you consider?" she asked me.

"I don't know," I said. "I guess up to fifty... fifty two?"

Later on K confessed to me that she had thought that was really old. "Until," she said, "my fifty-one year old husband wandered into view."

K, like me, is forty-five.

Yesterday, my friends J and J came to visit me. J (the female) is forty-five. J (the male) is fifty. I know he is fifty because I was at his birthday party. But I have known J ever since he was in his mid-twenties. And whilst I don't necessarily still think of him as twenty-six (even I can perceive the difference in his hair), I cannot possibly comprehend him as being fifty. He will always be hovering in his thirties to me.

 

I'm not sure what age I see myself being, but it's certainly not forty-five. I know that I don't feel stuck in my twenties, because being around twenty-something's makes me feel about one hundred. But the word 'fifty' seems utterly preposterous, an age I can't even begin to fathom.

My parents, who are actually 69 and 70, are, in my head, around 36 and 37. Now this is odd, because that would place me at around 12. And I know I'm not 12. My eldest child is 14, so my being 12 would involve a level of time travel I can't quite wrap my head around.

Even more confusingly, I'm pretty sure I see myself as somewhere in my mid-30's. And how this works when my parents are the same age is a bit beyond me.

Now, this has nothing to do with maturity or mental age. Believe me, I have lived a thousand lives in my 45 years. Sometimes I feel far, far older than my age. At other times, I feel as naïve as a teenager. That is normal, I think. I suspect I'll feel that way till I die.

But I do believe we freeze frame ourselves somewhere in the middle of our lives. I believe that life moves quicker than our brains, and that it takes us a while to catch up. Perhaps when I'm 60, I'll feel 45. Perhaps when I'm 70, I'll feel 52.

For now, I am the same age as my parents. And that's not a bad age to be.

How old do you feel?

When Is It Too Late?

When I was born, I was born with flat ears. My mum had sticky-out ears (still does) and was thrilled to note that her first-born daughter did not suffer from the same affliction.

But somehow, fairly soon into my life as a human person, my ears sprung out from their position neatly against my head, and assumed the shape they have held ever since - my right ear at around 45 degrees from my scalp, and my freakish left ear more like 85.

Can't really miss it

My sticky-out ear has bothered me for as long as I can remember. When my hair is down, it is well disguised, but when my hair is up, or pushed away from my face, it is out there boldly on display. When I look at photos, I inevitably catch a glimpse of my ear poking through my curls, or jutting out jauntily to wave at the world. 

I have frequently told my mother off for not getting my ears pinned back when I was a child.

"Well, do it now!" she tells me cheerily (which is a deflection from her own culpability if ever I heard one).

And I think about doing it now. I scrape my hair back from my head and hold my ears back with my fingers and marvel at how different - how much more sophisticated - I look. Or I stick them back with blu-tac and parade around for my husband.

"You really do look different," he told me the other day. "Maybe you should go and get them pinned back."

"Really?" I asked incredulously. My husband has always claimed that my ears don't bother him. 

"Sure," he said. "And you can get your boobs done while you're at it!" He laughed and I rolled my eyes. Perhaps he wasn't the best one to ask.

But truly, I'm in a dilemma. Not, as you might think, because I'm in two minds about the actual procedure. Ear correction surgery, or otoplasty, is very, very low risk, and can even be performed without general anaesthetic. It's not dangerous, it's not particularly expensive, and there is virtually no recovery period. There is nothing stopping me from having it tomorrow.

What bothers me is a different dilemma. And it's my age. 

I am forty-four years old and have got to this stage in my life with one remarkably sticky-out ear. And whilst a part of me longs to experience life with a nice flat ear, a huge part of me feels that I'm too old. I've only got forty or fifty years left on this earth - why bother altering my appearance at this advanced age? How will it change my life? And even if it will change my life for the better, is there any point when said life is already half way over?

But then that makes me sad. Sad because I'm not opening myself up to the possibility of change just because of my age (even if that change is just to the shape of my ear). Sad because I feel like I've given up the right to shake up my life because it's half way over. And - more significantly - if I feel that way about my ear, then surely that translates to other areas of my life as well: my relationships, my career, the way I think and operate as a person.

So this post is not really about plastic surgery. It is about age, and new beginnings, and when it is time to accept our lot in life, and when it is still okay to change and to grow. Is it ever too late to turn things around? Is it ever too late to pursue a dream?

I'm still no closer to sorting out the ear dilemma. I don't know whether I'll go through life like this, or whether I'll turn around one day and get the surgery. But it's certainly got me thinking about life in general, and about aging in particular. 

You?

The Wall

Help me. I am being assaulted.

Yes, right now. As I write. I am being assaulted by a wall of noise and lights and smells and did I say NOISE?

I am at a bowling alley with two of my kids and two of their friends and about a thousand BILLION other people. The music is pumping, the bowling balls are being thrown against the lanes like bombs (or, in my daughter's case, being literally dropped vertically - who knew bowling balls could bounce?). I can feel every vibration throughout my body. It is physical, this noise. It hurts.

I'm not complaining, really. Which is a total lie, because of course I'm complaining, which is understandable as I'm in HELL. But I'm in temporary hell, and it will pass in about an hour - or sooner if I run screaming out the door before the kids finish playing.

I hate noise. I always have. Even when I was a teenager I hated noise. I felt uncomfortable in dance clubs, partly because the intense volume made me claustrophobic. I didn't enjoy concerts, because they were so loud. To this day, I hate loud restaurants. I hate loud parties. I hate loud music. It doesn't make me feel buzzy. It makes me feel oppressed.

As a kid, I felt a bit freaky for preferring quiet. But now, at 43, I'm not freaky anymore. At 43, you're not expected to like loud noise. At 43, you're supposed to like peace and quiet. Finally, I am appropriate for my age.

But why is it that we prefer quiet as we get older? Do we become overstimulated too easily? Can our brains no longer cope with the onslaught of aural data? Or - because our eyesight is failing - are our ears more sensitive as a result?

I don't know. What I do know is that my peers have caught up with me, and it's nice not being a freak anymore.

And I hope my kids are enjoying the bowling, because they're not coming back until they can drive themselves.

Ashley Judd: Fair Cop?

Ashley Judd has responded angrily in the media to recent accusations of plastic surgery, after she appeared in public with a puffy face. (Read her open letter here.) Without actually answering the question 'has she or hasn't she' - which she is in no way obliged to do - she has condemned media and the public in general of being "nasty, gendered, misogynistic and (embodying a)... degradation of our sexuality".

Now, there is nothing worse than being accused of something you haven't done. If Ms Judd hasn't had surgery, it must be enraging to be accused of having done so. I would be furious if someone accused me of having had plastic surgery. (Actually scrap that. I wouldn't. I'd be thrilled that someone thinks I'm so incredibly good looking it just couldn't be natural.)

I understand Ms Judd's anger, even if I can't exactly understand all of her points. ("The accusations and lies, introduced to the public, now apply to me as a woman across space and time; to me as any woman and to me as every woman.") However, I don't think she's entirely capturing the spirit behind the speculation on her appearance.

Yes, we women are judged on our appearances, no more so than actresses. Yes, we women are scrutinised as to how well we are aging, definitely no more so than actresses. And yes, this serves to diminish our value as human beings, to focus with such intensity on the physical and not on the emotional, intellectual or spiritual. I agree. One hundred percent.

But our public fascination with the 'who has, who hasn't' had plastic surgery is, I feel, a backlash to that. For so long we have been fed images of impossibly beautiful and youthful celebrities, who claim to look twenty-six at the age of forty-two because of nothing more than 'sunscreen', 'good genes', 'drinking lots of water', 'an organic diet', or 'insert name of ridiculously expensive cosmetic here'. And we, as the public, gaze upon these miracles of nature and think, 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?' Why can't we look like them? We eat well. We drink lots of water. We use sunscreen. And yet our foreheads still move and our necks are getting crinkly and we keep on looking older and older and they are FROZEN IN TIME.

Ashley Judd in a not-puffy moment

And you know why they are frozen in time? Because they are having PLASTIC SURGERY. They are NOT REAL. And whilst that's fine, that's a legitimate choice if that's what you want to do, lying about it is NOT FAIR to the average human who begins to think something is wrong with them in comparison.

I am NOT saying that Ashley Judd has had surgery. I have absolutely no idea and it is not relevant anyway. But I am saying that the motives fuelling speculation about her puffy face have less to do with pure spite, and a lot to do with us trying to deconstruct the myth of ageless beauty, so that us normal people in the trenches can stop feeling like failures for actually getting old.

Life at *cough* twenty two...

Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that I recently got reading glasses. (And those of you who don’t? I’m hurt.)

I was very surprised to find that I needed glasses, given that I am only thirty five years old*. In fact, it never would have occurred to me to even go and get my eyes checked, except that I was struggling to read. The pages of my books would swim before my eyes, my computer screen would go blurry, and the messages on my mobile phone looked like tiny ants marching across my screen. What’s more, I kept sending people texts like ‘Set you in jive’ and ‘Be yer doon’, which made people think I had a drinking problem**.

So off I went, to get my eyes tested. It turns out I do have visual signs of aging, in addition to the visible ones (which, ironically, I hadn’t fully appreciated until I got my reading glasses and could see how wrinkly I’ve become).

Despite the shock to my ego, I am happy to have my specs. Not only can I now read books in comfort, but I can work out that I am meeting my friend Karen ‘in Westfield’ and not, say, ‘in Wee fish’ (which can be very hard to find).

On the other hand, I am very unhappy to have my specs, as they are a constant reminder that I am already thirty years old***. I don’t want to be old. I want to be forever young.Now, I know that that’s not a politically correct thing to say. I am supposed to ‘embrace aging’, ‘celebrate my forties****’, and ‘feel empowered and powerful’. Well, yeah, I do, definitely. I’d just be embracing, celebrating and powering much more cheerfully if my eyesight wasn’t failing and my back didn’t hurt.

To be fair, I’m not doing too badly. I’m not grey yet (except, inexplicably, for two of my eyebrow hairs), I don’t have to pluck my chin, and I can still recall exactly what I did yesterday (if I put on my glasses and look in my diary). But I want to be younger.

My mum is no help when I discuss this with her. She scoffs, ‘You think you’re aging? What about me? I’m fifty five!*****’ But just because my mother is older than me doesn’t help me to deal with it any better. And besides, if my mother wasn’t older than me, well, we’d have even bigger problems on our hands.

Still, I am trying to accept my fate. For one thing, there’s not much I can do to halt the pace of time, other than certain surgical procedures which I have ruled out on the basis of a) cost, b) health risks, and c) the faces of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (which I have only been watching because I have been too blind to read).
And for another thing, I have a long way to go. After all, I’m still only twenty two.

*that may be a slight underestimate

**which I don’t. Noon is a perfectly acceptable time to start drinking.

***even more inaccurate

****if I was in my forties, which of course I am not....

*****this may be a slight underestimate

I Got Maturity

The other day I received some very surprising news. Apparently, I have grown up.

Let me explain:

For a while now I've been experiencing unexplained, periodic headaches (as opposed to period headaches, which would be completely explainable). I went to the doctor who ruled out a series of possibilities, determining by a process of elimination that I had not

a) been hit in the head with a brick

b) recently fallen on my head

c) got an axe stuck in my brain.

That left about a billionty and seven other potential diagnoses, but at least we got the obvious out of the way.

I went for some blood tests that showed up nothing. So then I kept a headache diary for a while that gave some interesting information, primarily that I

a) got headaches after eating chocolate

b) also got headaches when I hadn't eaten chocolate

c) got headaches after drinking alcohol

d) also got headaches when I hadn't drunk alcohol

e) sometimes didn't get headaches despite eating chocolate and drinking alcohol

f) sometimes was too full and drunk to keep my headache diary.

So perhaps it didn't show up anything at all.

The next step was to go to a specialist and get a series of rather more sophisticated tests, which I felt like like a hole in the head (which, incidentally, would have caused quite nasty headaches too). I waited a while to see if the headaches would magically pass (because, although I don't believe in magic at all, I totally believe in procrastination). Then, when another shocking headache descended on me at the end of another day, I decided it was time for action.

I picked up my phone to dial the doctor, when a text came through from a friend. And something suddenly occured to me.

I was straining to read the message.

Oh my god. I couldn't see!!!

I rushed straight to the optometrist and had an eye test. The optometrist performed a series of fascinating tests that left me blinking with a dent in my forehead, then sat me down to give me the news.

Me Getting My Maturity On

"Kerri," he said, "you have a mild case of maturity."

"Huh?" I asked. "Is that an occular condition?"

"Yes," he said. "You're getting old. You need reading glasses. And when you get them, your headaches will disappear."

So that, my friends, is the story of how Kerri Got Her Maturity On. And got reading glasses. Two pairs. One pink, one black.

As for the headaches, well so far, they have stayed away.

And sexy librarian? Here I come.