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One of the blessings of being middle-aged is perspective. You’ve lived long enough to graciously realise that, at times in the past, you’ve been wrong, and you can now happily change your mind. With the self-awareness and wisdom gained through living and trying and failing and learning, you can hold the opposite view to Past You.
Past Me once declared leggings aren’t pants. Patently wrong. Past Me hated birds. How? Had I never seen a spectacular flock of rainbow lorikeets? Or spotted a sweet little blue wren while on a walking trail? Past Me desperately wanted dreadlocks – thank god my hairdresser saved me from that horrendous idea!
When life gets too chaotic, I find peace in the most unlikely place in my home.Credit: Shutterstock
But possibly the biggest lie I told myself – and, shamefully, I think I even spread this untruth in this very column – was that to manage the overwhelm, overwork and overload of life, all you had to do is learn to say no.
Bahaha! What a joke! Excuse me as I recover from that comically ridiculous notion. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be hiding in my pantry, which is where I do my best questioning of my life choices.
Look, I’m not suggesting life isn’t made more manageable by healthy boundary setting. And definitely that’s a skill Past Me took a long time to learn. Like so many women of my generation, I was raised to be a people pleaser. To deny all my own wants and needs until I became a resentful depressed shadow of myself, or just dropped dead from fatigue, whichever happened first.
But at 53, “no” isn’t a problem for me. I’ve released that conditioning, together with the need to be liked. It’s the most liberating thing that has come with the facial hair, dry skin and inner rage of perimenopause.
Like so many women of my generation, I was raised to be a people pleaser. To deny all my own wants and needs until I became a resentful shadow of myself.
And as an aside, I’ve also developed an obsession with crows, so it seems I’m becoming more crone-like by the day. Is this what the beginnings of witch-dom feels like? If so, pass me the cauldron – I’m ready. (But not the broom – I’m done with sweeping.)
It’s just that the life I’ve built, which feels faster, harder and more overwhelming than ever before, has gone beyond something I can just say no to. Between the work I need to do to pay the bills (work I mostly love), the care I want to do to raise my daughter (which I don’t want to stop), and all the domestic, emotional and mental labour that keeps our little ship from sinking – what could I say no to?
But gratitude – which is my daily practice because I’m genuinely deeply grateful for every tiny detail of my life – can only do so much when my body and mind feel as though this day has completely depleted them, and it’s only 10am. On those days, I can hear a tiny voice in my head saying, “This is not sustainable.” And on some bad days, that voice is screaming at me to make it stop. I want to blink my eyes and genie myself to… Well, that’s the problem. If I actually do love my life (and mostly I do), where would I escape to?
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That’s why I hide in my pantry. It’s quiet and solitary and still, with a hidden stash of magically comforting dark chocolate, and it’s only two steps away from my life. Which, it turns out, is all I need. Two steps – and stillness.
What I’ve learnt, for now at least – who knows if Future Me will change her mind – is that the answer (or an answer, you might find this clichéd and infuriating) is less about “no” and more about “not now”. Managing this mess of midlife mayhem and impending burnout is less about stopping all together and more about a pause. And I can find stillness anywhere if I insist on it.
I can take a deep breath at the traffic lights, instead of fretting about running late (because no matter how I try to leave on time, somehow I’m always running late). I can choose not to stare at my phone and to look at the blue sky instead. I can walk outside between meetings. I can remind myself that I’m doing the best I can, and if all that means is not losing patience with my kid and remembering to actually drink my tea after I’ve made it, I’m calling it a win.
However I do it, I can reclaim a bit of space inside myself, to remember that when the world keeps asking for more, I can choose less. Less pressure, less urgency, less expectation.
Present Me chooses forgiveness, self-love and quiet, even in the middle of chaos. And that might be the most powerful spell I know.
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