Middle Age Bliss

Published: 29/01/2009

Middle Age Bliss
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Hard times are coming and the future is scary, especially for working women who are losing jobs faster than men in the recession. This January – always the bleakest month of the year- feels more desolate than any I have experienced. What we don’t need is more bad news from fatuous survey researchers. They tell us that women are their loveliest when they are thirty two and then presumably there is only a long, painful quiver down the hill into the valley of decay. Another set of experts brought more sombre tidings: a quarter of middle aged women are in ‘crisis’, suffering from depression because they expected more from life and were disappointed.

Never dismiss the seriousness of depression – I suffer from it periodically and the state you can get into indescribable. Ageism and sexism are proven barriers to female ambition. But I still say our lives are full of possibilities that have never existed in any other age in this country. She may be 91, but Diana Athill’s autobiography, Somewhere Towards The End, is outselling younger writers. Many of us feel our best is still to come. Dames Helen Mirren and Judy Dench are not exceptions but symbols of enduring talent; age has not withered the spirits of Anne Widdicome and Clare Short.

Kate Moss will never glow like the gorgeous Moira Stewart, not now, certainly not in her middle age. Women are more knowing, in control, confident and interesting as they season. As the inimitable Fay Weldon ( 77) writes:’ you have stopped wasting time and emotion fancying men who don’t fancy you…you can manage to walk confidently in your high heels. You can engage in a proper conversation; you’re not just a notch on the bedpost you were at 20.’

Of course there are men – themselves middle aged- who idiotically lurch towards ever younger girlies with tight bodies. But many more are happy to grow old gracefully with their partners. Desire between them remains bright and hot. In my twenties and thirties ( even on the day I married my first husband) I felt too plump, too short, too whatever to be worth much. Now I dress in beautiful, sometimes glam clothes because I like how I look and what I managed to do with my life.

Coping with today’s troubles is not easy for older women. However, if you are healthy enough, you can feel fulfilled and attractive. We owe it to ourselves not to let doomsters tell us otherwise. We owe it to the memories of the young women who died before they were lucky enough to hit middle age. Look! the glass is ITLACS half full and with excellent, old wine.

Published in The Evening Standard