So when do you know you've slid from young, hip and happening into middle age? Is there a moment in our lives when we suddenly sit bolt upright and yelp 'oh my god, I'm middle aged'?
What defines middle aged nowadays? Is there even such a thing anymore or has age just become a number?
I'm holding out kicking and screaming against the idea that I'm middle aged even though I know that, at 48, I'm technically well and truly in that bracket. The trouble is it just sounds too dull, safe, uninspiring. If middle age were a colour it'd be beige. Middle aged spread, mid-life crisis, even the words are so incredibly negative.
So what constitutes being middle aged? Everyone has their own idea - to some it's when you get a shed; joining the National Trust or WI (Women's Institute); fancying a man in a cardie; to others it's when you start washing the car every Sunday morning; enjoying a gardening magazine over Vogue; finding yourself seriously considering a coach holiday.
To me, being middle aged is having to be a contortionist to get your opaque tights on because the knees don't like to bend as much as they used to; when the visits to the hair salon to get rid of the grey become more frequent; when you have to give in and get reading glasses because there's every likelihood otherwise that what you thought was a can of kidney beans for the chili will turn out, too late, to be peaches.
All those things have now happened to me in the last few months so I know my body is well and truly middle aged, but there's still my mind and I'm determined that most definitely is not going to be, not if I can help it. I'll know that I've finally plunged into mental middle age only when the idea of popping to the garden centre on a Sunday afternoon for a cuppa and a scone becomes appealing or when I find myself thinking I might take up golf.
I wonder why that mid part of life has even acquired those negative connotations? You never hear anyone saying 'oh I'm so looking forward to being middle aged!' Women like Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon and Joan Collins (who's married to a man a good two decades younger than her) are proving that the 60s and 70s can be as much fun and as satisfying as your 20s and 30s. So why should your 40s and 50s be any different?
After all, it should really be a golden time. For many it's when the mortgage is coming to an end or paid off; the kids are becoming independent and needing you less; you have the confidence and experience of age; you've worked out your style; established your career. So why do we dread middle age so much?
Times have changed though, thank goodness, and women are less constrained by age in all areas of life. My mother agonised over what she should wear when she hit her middle age and would be forever checking with my dad that her outfit didn't make her look like 'mutton dressed as lamb'. Every new piece of clothing would be accompanied by the question 'you don't think it's too young for me?'
Women of her generation were terrified they would be judged as trying to look young so they went the other way and looked like their mothers. They seemed to disappear in middle age, the skirts got longer, the hair less adventurous, the personalities a little quieter, the lives that bit more humdrum.
Well that's not going to be me. I'm certainly not ready to slide into a boring, unfulfilling middle age, I've only just learned how to do a smoky eye make up, for heaven's sake. I'm determined I'm going to age disgracefully, as colourfully and as full on as possible. The lippie will remain bright red; the dresses just that smidge above the knee; the boots sexy rather than practical; the laugh loud; the attitude 'bring it on', the mantra 'carpe diem'. Who's joining me?
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