The Strange Middle

There can be a strange place you arrive at somewhere in your mid to late forties. You are old enough to know yourself, but not old enough to feel finished. And I think I am somewhere in the middle of that right now.

Almost 48, which still feels slightly ridiculous to say.

Some days I feel more like myself than I ever have. I know what I like and what I do not like. I know the people I want around me and the things I want to spend my time doing. I am happier than I was in my twenties. And I care considerably less about what other people think.

I still get ridiculously excited about colour, clothes and new ideas. I still want to make things, try things, change my mind and see what might happen next. I can spend far too long thinking about a new painting, a ridiculous colour combination or an outfit I probably do not need. And genuinely like that about myself.

I like that I still get excited.

And then there are the other days. The days when I see a photo or a video of myself and wonder who on earth that woman is. Because your body changes. Your face changes. Your energy changes.

Things move, soften, wrinkle, ache and generally start doing whatever the hell they want. Your body shape is not quite the one you remember. Your skin is different. Your energy levels can be all over the place. One day you feel like you could take on the world and the next you are wondering why putting on your jeans has somehow become an Olympic event. And then there are the hormones. The whole roller coaster of your mid-to-late forties and, I imagine, the years that follow.

Some days I am like, Yeah. Heck yes. Let’s do this. Other days I am like, Oh my gosh. I am not ready for this. And both can be true.

But getting closer to fifty feels different. There is something about that number looming in the not-too-distant future that changes your mindset. Sitting there, waiting, and suddenly you are forced to think about what this next stage actually looks like.

And I am not ready to fade into the background. Not ready to become invisible. Not ready to become irrelevant. Or left behind. Not ready to suddenly start dressing like I have given up on colour and personality because I have reached some imaginary age where women are supposed to become ‘sensible’. At the same time. I know I cannot dress like I am twenty five either.

And so. There is another strange little middle ground. I am not ready for later-in-life clothes, whatever the heck those are. But also know that some of the things I wore when I was younger no longer feel like me. Or let us be honest. Even fit. So I am figuring that out too.

What does it look like to dress like yourself when your body is changing and your idea of yourself is changing with it?
What does it look like to feel stylish without trying to look younger?
Can I still be interested in fashion without trying to dress like someone half my age?
Can I still paint the colourful art?
Can I create the cringey content for social media?

Honestly. I have no idea.
Perhaps that is the bit we do not talk about enough.

There seems to be an expectation that once you reach a certain age, you should have arrived. You should know who you are, know what you are doing and feel comfortable in your skin. Have the career sorted, have the confidence, have the wisdom and ideally, have the bloody skincare routine figured out.

But what if you are still figuring things out What if you still want to change direction. Try something completely new. Or put yourself out there in ways that still make you feel a little uncomfortable.

Because I do. And that has become particularly obvious in the last few years.

I have spent a lot of my adult life being a mum, looking after our family, running the house and doing the million invisible jobs that seem to come with being the main caregiver. My husband has his own business and works more hours than any human should reasonably be expected to work, so there is always a lot going on.

And then there is my work. I have my art business, freelance social media work and design work. I have spent years building up my creative work and figuring out how to make a living from it.

Sometimes I genuinely think, should I just get a ‘real’ job? Go somewhere. Work for someone else. Have set hours. Do my work and go home. Get paid regularly. Perhaps make my life considerably easier.

And then, almost immediately, another thought appears. Am I too old to get a job? Which is ridiculous, because I am nearly 48, not 108.

But somehow these thoughts exist at the same time.

And perhaps that is part of this strange middle too.

You start asking yourself questions you did not necessarily expect to be asking at this age.

What do I actually want to do?
What do I want the next ten or twenty years to look like?
Do something completely different?
Build something?
Start again?

I thought I would feel more certain by now. Instead, I feel like I am standing in the middle of a crossroads with a coffee I do not drink and a lot of tabs open in my brain.

And then there is social media.

I have been on socials for around fifteen years, which is quite a terrifying thought in itself.

I have watched it change from somewhere people shared photos of their lives into an entire ecosystem of reels, stories, algorithms, trends, short videos, personal brands, selling, educating, entertaining and somehow doing all of those things at once.

And I am finding it harder to keep up.
Not because I do not understand technology.
Not because I do not want to learn.
But because the pace is exhausting.

I am running a small business. I am making the actual work. Photographing it, filming it, writing about it and trying to sell it. I am doing freelance work. I am looking after a young-ish family. I am running a house. I am trying to be present for my girls.

And then social media is sitting there saying, have you considered posting three reels today?
No. No, I have not.

Sometimes I feel like I missed the meeting where everyone else learnt how to do this.

And then there is the small matter of having to watch myself back.
That has become surprisingly confronting.

There is something very different about how you imagine yourself and how you look on a screen. In my head I still feel like me. Then I see a video and think, Oh. Right. So that is what we look like now. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cringe. And sometimes. I just delete it.

The sometimes I wonder. Why am I so bothered by this? Because I am not unhappy with who I am. In fact, I think I like myself more now than I ever have.

I know myself better. I am less interested in pleasing everyone. I know what matters to me. I have a family I adore, a home I love, work that still excites me and a head full of ideas.

So why does seeing myself age feel so confronting?

Maybe because we are constantly shown what women are supposed to look like, how they are supposed to dress, what they are supposed to want and how they are supposed to age.

Maybe because social media has made it very easy to compare your ordinary Tuesday morning face with someone else's carefully chosen best angle.

Or maybe this is simply what it feels like to become someone you have not been before.

Have I missed the boat?
Should I have figured this out years ago?
Should I have built the business earlier, made the right work earlier, understood social media earlier, been more confident earlier?
Should I have known what I wanted?
Would things be different if I had started sooner?

Maybe. But I cannot go back and be thirty. And honestly, I am not sure I would want to.

There are things I know now that I could not possibly have known then. I know what it feels like to work hard at something and have it not work. What it feels like to make something that other people love and still question yourself. That changing direction does not mean you have failed. That you can love something deeply and still decide it is time for something different.

I know that confidence does not necessarily arrive before you do the thing. Sometimes you do the thing while feeling wildly unqualified, and confidence catches up later. And I know that life does not necessarily get smaller as you get older.

If anything, I think mine has become more interesting. There are still so many things I want to do. Places I want to go. Clothes I want to wear. Paintings I want to make. Colours I have not tried. Ideas I have not had yet.

Because how exciting is that?

There are things sitting somewhere in the future that I cannot even imagine right now.

And maybe that is what I want to remember when I catch myself worrying that I am too old, too late, too inexperienced, too awkward on camera or too far behind whatever imaginary timeline I have decided everyone else is following.

I am not behind. I am here.

I think about this a lot when I watch my girls growing up. I do not want them to believe that life has an expiry date for trying things. I want them to know that they can change their minds. They can change direction. They can start something at twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or seventy. They can decide that the thing they thought they wanted is no longer right for them.

They can begin again.
They can make things badly before they make them well.
They can put themselves out there and feel embarrassed.
They can take up space.
They can be seen.
They can be uncertain.
They can become someone new without needing to become someone else.
They can do anything. And everything. At any stage. At every age.

And perhaps I need to remember that too.

Keep making.
Keep trying.
Keep changing my mind.
Keep learning.
Keep figuring out what to wear.
Keep posting, even when I cringe.
Keep looking for work.
Keep making art.
Keep becoming.

Because maybe the point is not to arrive at some final version of ourselves where everything is sorted and we finally know exactly who we are. Maybe the point is that we never quite do. Maybe there is always another version waiting to emerge.

That feels pretty bloody exciting.

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