Things I think about turning 40...

A big birthday and a whole tussle of thoughts...

First of all, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. I’ve been working two jobs while ghost-writing a saucy romp of a book for a reality TV star. All of those things combined have made it hard to write anything about grief. Or really anything for myself. And the longer I don’t write for myself, the more I begin to think I can’t do it. But I turned 40 last week and began writing a list of thoughts I had about it, which I’ll share below.

Thank you for remaining with me, my mind has been on imagined cheating scandals and dominatrix-ing (what would be the right word?) in limos. But I’m back now! More to come soon… Here’s what I’ve been thinking about turning 40…

The more I know, the less I understand

Across my social media feeds I see ’28 things I know at 28’ ’30 things I’ve learned now that I’m 30’ – but they seem to trail off as people get older. I didn’t want to do one. What do I know? What can I share, that I want to cement, in fact?

When you’re in your 20s, or definitely this was the case for me, life can feel black-and-white. You can share those black-and-white moments decisively with others… Cheating is wrong; if you do this, you’re this sort of person etc and then, as more and more people around you make mistakes, as you fumble and fuck up yourself, the grey areas cloud everything and making a judgement becomes all the more complicated.

I’m reluctant to say what I ‘know’ now as, there are experiences lurking around the corner. Lessons to be found in the dust. I used to want to be solid in who I was and signify that. Today I’m happy being mouldable. I want to let the ocean of my life drag me along, see where I end up.

If our 30s were about status, our 40s are about recognising how little that stuff matters

I spent my late 20s and early 30s wanting it all. Chasing for it. Begging for it. Mortgage, marriage, (working) in magazines. I got white wine drunk at weddings and cried, I wanted a ring on my finger. I worked myself ragged, rising at 6am to write most days before working all day. When I wasn’t at my desk, my eye was always at the clock, hurrying through the lunches, the events, the ‘perks’ of the job to get back to my to-do list, to look the very best I could be. For who? For what?

“Never attach your self worth on something that moves,” said Donna Ashworth in

sam baker

newsletter. I did that, for a very, very long time. And, if I’m honest with myself, I still sometimes do. I’m trying to unpick that, stop it. Find the line, and stay on it, between feeling fulfilled by my work and being defined by it, between being in love, but not needing a man’s love to make up my worth. I’ll get there, or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll always teeter on the edge, maybe I’ll always try. I keep saying I want that ambitious person back, but I don’t, not really. My years can’t be spent colouring in boxes, then jumping to the next.

But, saying that… I want to throw everything away

I woke up on my birthday and wanted to cancel the spa day I had planned. Instead, I wanted to quick-hire a skip and throw all of my belongings into it. The chaos that I have curated did not feel right for a woman of forty-years-old. Owning four different dust-gathering dry shampoos felt childlike, and stupid and God why-am-I-still-like-this? I had to shake away the visions of who I told myself I’d be at this age, how I’d have figured myself out and, at least, have a zip-up purse with multiple loyalty cards inside it. Instead, I have a bucket-of-a-bag coated in melted magic mushroom chocolate, with lollipops, used napkins, five lipsticks that don’t suit me, a broken Christmas tree ornament and somewhere, within all of that, floats my bank card.

I stayed over at a friend’s cousin’s house a few weeks ago and her life was exactly how I once thought mine would look. She had a Medic8 skincare routine in her bathroom cabinet and her pasta and rice decanted into jars. A neat little back garden, with matching wicker furniture and proper wine glasses, that sparkled. So, for just under 24 hours, I stepped into her life. I, even, left her pristine home and went to a Reformer Pilates class before work. Like a saint.

I thought of her (and by ‘her’ I mean the me that became her that morning) on my birthday, and I scolded myself for not having sorted my shit out. It’s been a few days now and the urge to chuck everything in the bin and start over has subsided… a little bit. I am not an organisational expert (which my friend’s cousin is, for a living). I am a professional writer. I am curated chaos. There are parts of myself I can’t change. But then, equally, I have to consider how I want to spend (if I’m lucky) my next forty years. And I don’t just mean in terms of mess, and stuff. I spent a good chunk of my thirties in anguish, see-sawing between wanting and not wanting children. I’m settled now, in the not wanting of them, and that’s torn open my future. A whole new set of paths have emerged, there are so many possibilities to play around with… what’s next?

I don’t have to decide now

I didn’t hire the skip because, truthfully, I don’t think I am in the right mindset to rationally decide what should stay, and what should go. This applies to my life as well as my stuff. I can’t quite trust my emotions right now: they rise, they fall, they end up all in a tangle. I’m told this is normal, that big birthdays, with a zero in them, spin us all around, they make us consider things in both a good, and a bad way. I need to let them settle and then consider what they brought up.

Is being ID’d now an (older) age signifier?

A few days before my fortieth, a bouncer asked for my ID. I looked up at him baffled and said, “I don’t have any but it’s my 40^th on Monday.” He began to exclaim how amazing I looked, how he didn’t believe it and I realised… this was an attempt to charm me. I don’t think I look 40 (but then what does 40 even look like? Our perceptions of ages and looks are warped) but I don’t look under 21.

It went from not wanting to be ID’d as I was underage and didn’t have it, to then wanting to be ID’d as it was a sign I ‘looked good for my age’ to now, being ID’d because a younger man saw me coming and thought ‘I know how to flatter this woman, I’ll imply she looks young.’ I don’t like it. I should say (as this is correct) that I don’t like it because it plays into the unobtainable beauty myth that youth = beauty. But, if I’m being more truthful, I don’t like it because for someone to look at me and think that I need to be flattered by being told I look young, this has the opposite effect: it tells me I’m beginning to look older.

I feel hotter than I ever have before

The thing is, I don’t want to look younger. Most of the women I work with are in their 20s and early 30s and I admire their individual beauty but, in the same way that I admire the beauty of someone my age, or older. I don’t look back at old photographs and wish I looked like that, nor do I even really think or wish that I’d appreciated how I looked more back then. I just like how I look now and I didn’t like how I looked back then. I think that these two things correlate somehow.

I still get upset that things don’t fit in changing rooms but I blame how fucked sizing is, rather than my own body. Even my stomach, which I used to be repulsed by, I’ve found a level of peace with. I think of what my yoga teacher used to say “round is a shape, it’s a beautiful shape” when the nasty thoughts creep in. And, I’ve found, the more I like myself, the better I look.

And, isn’t it funny, how I keep wanting to caveat all of this, by adding in lines like ‘don’t mean to sound arrogant’ and ‘maybe it’s all in my head hehe’ but, I shouldn’t have to do that. I should be allowed to say: “I look good” with no caveats. And, if it is all in my head, then that’s fine. I’m looking good for the person that matters.

But saying that… the male gaze still matters to me

I’m not proud of it. But it’s deep within me, a need to gain approval from men. I thought it would decrease as I got older, but it’s increased. It was a whispered, shameful thing that came once I decided not to have children: “if I’m not a mother, and I’m not hot, then what am I?” I know that I am many things beyond where we’ve been told our value lies. I am trying, now, to forgive myself for when the harsh whispers of the patriarchy snake around me. It’s understandable that I’ve absorbed it, that I can’t just rinse decades of conditioning away with a few mantras. Here’s a poem I wrote about that…

I won't flake off my parts
For your consumption

God look at how I try to convince myself 
Writing these lines like a good, little, empowered...
Girl? Woman?
My sexuality is tied into how you consume me
I can't untangle those knots
We like to look back... This is who I was. This is how I was.
See! I'm grown! Oh-so-fucking-wise to my conditioning
Then... There you go, mr blue eyes callin' me darlin' and...
God I want taxi drivers to like me
Men to love my poems
It was a different time, right? We wouldn't let it pass now? 
But my merit system is moulded on you. That rogue reward.

All those decades of raw power. Can I ever claw it back? 

I’m not going to lie about my age, is this a mistake?

I didn’t want to turn 18. Why? Because, as I can vividly remember talking to my friends about, then “men won’t high-five each other when they hear our age.” I wanted to remain 17 forever, because men wanted me to stay 17 forever.

It’s so fucked up that I thought that, that men did that. That I liked it. That I saw my power as something they could gift me, something that they could take away. Something that time would take away, with each passing year.

I hate that youth is considered so gilded. What I want, for my future, is to wear my age with pride. To lie about it feels, to me, to be succumbing to the damaging narrative. That we should all want to be on an endless, Benjamin Button quest backwards. But, at the same time, I think about the fears that I hold and the reality of this world. Youth is gilded. It is also, a part of my career. I work for a brand that is aimed at Gen Z. My knowledge is valuable to my team, that much I know. But, no matter how hard I try, I am losing grip of who our cover stars are, and with that, comes the fear of not being able to know who our reader is, what she wants to read. I want to stay in this industry, I want to… remain relevant. To do so, would I be better off hovering around the 35-mark until I can no longer get away with it? I won’t. I can’t now, even if I changed my mind. But… doesn’t it suck that I’m even considering this?

There are other ways to live

I’m currently licking the lid off of a yogurt pot, a handful of stolen Babybels stashed under a napkin beside me. I’m wearing an unwashed poncho that has followed me around festival, after festival, witnessing everything, absorbing everything. I plan on stashing the stolen cheese in it, before dashing up to my room, where I will work, before going to another festival tonight. I arrived at this hotel, at midnight, in a fluffy, raspberry of a coat, a black mini skirt and under ten percent battery.* The bus driver took pity on me and dropped me off here, for free. It’s called Woody’s and I feel like I’m in the Midwest, not Largs, Scotland and I’m content, as I choke back my three-sugars coffee and plan the day out in my head.

At night, I thought I could feel my cat climb on top of me, that I could roll over and feel the warmth of a person I love beside me. The bed is big and I woke up alone, but ready.

I’m thinking of

Miranda July

latest post, her words: there are other ways to live. How my craving for order on my 40^th was actually a deep-rooted lie placed within me. That to be loveable as I get older, to maintain all that I’ve built I have to contain myself, gain control over the chaos.

But I do all of this, after last weekend, where I boarded my closest friends onto a canal boat in Camden, was surprised over and over by all of their love. When I decided not to have children, the world tore open for me. I’m afraid of what comes next. I’m so ready for it.

There are other ways to live.

*don’t worry dad, I had a battery pack somewhere (maybe I have learned some things along the way after all)