I turn forty next week. On the one hand it terrifies me, but on the other I don’t care.
Great forty, shit forty?
There’s that balance thing again.
Most of the time I don’t really think about my age. Then, I’m confronted with a doctor or a police officer who looks like a kid that’s raided the dressing up box. And it’s then I realise… maybe I am getting a bit… long in the vulva?
So with the big ‘four-zero’ looming I started pondering how I feel about it all, and what it means to me, to turn forty.
Reasons I know I’m turning forty:
- I often get up, look at the weather and the first thing I think is – ‘Oh isn’t it a good drying day?’
- Knee grazing tits – Forget the pencil test, I don’t think I’d pass the pencil case test.
- Softness – My belly and upper arms are so floppy and soft. F*ck you collagen, flab and gravity.
- Hair – A few white stragglers have made an appearance in the old crowning glory of late. I also have very fine, wispy facial hair on my chin, as well as a stripe of grey pubes across my vaj. Forget pussy, it’s more like a badger down there.
- Wrinkles – My eye wrinkles are like an old man’s testies these days. My vulva are a bit of a floppy, old mess too. I remember teaching a Sex Ed class on puberty once when I was a teacher. I had this terrible worksheet I’d been told to cover. It was a list of changes they could expect to happen to them as teenagers. One of the things on the list was –‘Lengthening of the vulva.’ I’ll never forget the look of terror on some of those eleven-year-old girl’s faces. To the point I had to try and back track, and be all like – ‘Don’t worry girls you’re not going to be tripping over your flaps anytime soon! That sort of thing doesn’t actually happen.’ Now I’m forty I’m realising, the peggy does actually change, doesn’t it? It ages. Just like the rest of our body. Flaps flapping in the wind, aka – ‘lengthening of the vulva.’ Yup. Happens to us all. What will reach the ground first? Tits or vulva?
- Slippers are the best footwear, or anything flat and comfy for that matter.
- Big knickers are a must. Remember thongs? Good god. I think if I had to walk around chewing cloth with my butt cheeks these days it would aggravate me to the point I would probably want to murder someone.
- Sometimes at the end of the day I’m so lethargic. (This however may be due to the fact I always go to bed too late, so let’s not dwell)
- Every twinge I think – ‘Oh god it’s cancer!’ So many people I know are dying all around me lately. And yes, there does seem to be a lot of cancer about. This terrifies me. Never used to worry about stuff like that in my twenties, but now I do.
- If there is no seating available in the pub I’m leaving. I can’t possibly stand for three hours. No way dude.
- Loud music is a no no. I just need to hear the conversation. End of.
- I’m aware that I’m clinging on to my youth. I like fashion, but sometimes I think my outfits are a bit young and I do get self conscious about that now that I’m forty. I mean, can I still carry off an across the chest bum bag, big hoop earrings and Adidas stripe leggings? Probably not. I’m sure when my girls are teenagers they’ll let me know.
- Going out means going over to my best mate’s dining room to drink wine and chat into the wee hours. Woo hoo! What a socialite eh? We did venture out once when we’d run out of booze. It was only about eleven o clock, and so we were like – ‘F*ck it, we’ve got this, let’s go clubbing!’ It was a disaster. I didn’t have a handbag for my phone and wallet, so I borrowed the peg bag off the washing line. I know right? It’s just that I didn’t want to take a carrier bag and that’s the only other thing that was to hand. Obviously the presence of the peg bag meant we didn’t get into any cool clubs and so we ended up in a really manky, almost empty, crap one. What was I thinking? We hadn’t even emptied the pegs out, and so every time I went to pay for drinks at the bar plastic pegs kept escaping and landing everywhere! After that we realised that maybe our clubbing days were over.
- Period drama. Oh I love a bit of The Crown or Poldark. I can actually have lengthy conversations with people in their seventies about said programmes too. Which is nice.
- Resistance to technology. At the mo it’s IGTV. But you wait. I’ll give in to it sooner or later.
- I can’t drink caffeine after 5. Oh no. I’d be awake all night dear.
- I piss myself when I sneeze or hear a loud noise. Tena Lady here I come.
- Routine – Yoga on a Tuesday evening, Gym on a Monday and Thursday morning. My pal Becky comes over on a Wednesday. Movie night on Friday. Run on Sunday. EVERY WEEK. I know where I am then see.
- I can go into Topshop and literally not buy one thing. Twenty years ago I would have wanted to buy the whole shop. Every time. Even though I had no money. There was always the Egg card though right?
- I like going to the M & S café. Apart from the fact the coffee’s quite nice, it actually makes you feel really young. It’s like being on the film set of Cocoon.
- My music library is crap. I used to download and listen to loads of music but I just don’t any more. Music is a big part of fitting in when you’re young I suppose. Now I just like a bit of Six Music if I’m feeling super pumped cooking tea on a Friday night. Crazy times.
- I love a good trip to the garden centre. I love gardening. But best of all about the garden centre is the café. Quiche and salad (when I say salad I mean iceberg, cucumber and tomato, no Jamie Oliver toasted pine nuts with feta type shite) – you can’t go wrong, and very reasonable prices too.
- Complaining. The other day I was in John Lewis and my coffee was a bit weak so I took it back and complained and got another. All done very politely of course. This sort of thing is only going to get worse. You only have to observe my mother to realise this.
- I’m very out of touch. My teenage nieces are into all sorts of YouTube Internet famous, young whipper-snappers and I have no idea who any of them are, or what they do and why?? And guess what? I have no interest in finding out.
- I remember mix tapes, Woolworths pick and mix, the coal man, the Corona van, video shops, Top of the Pops, NO Internet, NO mobile phones, the milk float, only four channels, Jimmy Saville as my hero and power cuts. This stuff is crazy when you think about it. I mean try saying the sentence – ‘I can remember the coal man delivering to our street’ without sounding fucking ancient!
Joking aside, there are so many positives to turning forty.
I seem to have a wonderful confidence, and a – ‘I know who I am’ and ‘I don’t give a f*ck’ attitude, which I think I’m owning quite nicely.
I could list all the other great stuff like – being happy, healthy and loving being a mum to my beautiful girls, but none of that sentimental shite is funny…
… So I’m off to start packing…
***No post next week because I’ll be sunning myself and drinking cocktails (who am I kidding – lager) by the pool in Zaykinthos with my beautiful family and friends!***
Happy birthday to me! Here’s to another fun filled forty years!