The Times Magazine 27anyone like me when I was growing up. I have
never wanted to get married. I have always
been ambivalent about having children. I
haven’t done either.
Once upon a time I would have been
judged as a failure as a result. Some people
no doubt still would. Yet for me the fact that
I have remained true to myself, despite
coming close to bottling it in assorted ways
on assorted occasions, is the ultimate success.
Of course these days I am not that unusual
in my liberal urban milieu; not quite the norm,
but not an alien from outer space either. I
know that this is not the case elsewhere. I love
to travel, and everything from my hair colour
to my marital status has met with stupefaction,
be it in India or Ethiopia. Not that you need
to travel that far. Recently, a woman in the
Yorkshire village I have been going to since
I was a child joked that she was going to
fix me up with the local seventysomething
bachelor farmer. Except I wasn’t entirely
sure that it was a joke.
What I do know is that I am far happier
living on my own than I ever was cohabiting.
And while some of my friends are now facing
empty-nest syndrome I have had the time and
energy to create a life that is full to bursting
with people whom I love and activities that
I am similarly passionate about. If anything,
I have full-nest syndrome. It’s hard to fit
everyone and everything in. I gain especial
pleasure from the fact that my closest
friendships encompass women in their thirties
and sixties, and that I have male friends who
are like the brothers I never had.
As for my romantic life, at 20 I couldn’t
really see my way beyond a conventionally
organised relationship in which two people are
in each other’s pockets. That didn’t suit me at
all. Now I have found my way to someone
who is happy for me to be in my pocket for
much of the time, while he resides just as
contentedly in his. I have always chafed at the
idea of love as a kind of ownership, part of the
reason I knew marriage wasn’t for me. Now
I have found a way and a person with whom
to be together and to remain free. I still don’t
believe in happy-ever-afters. I believe in happy
in the here and now. I happen to think that
makes me more of a romantic, not less of one.
I remember once interviewing a
matchmaker who averred that finding the
right person for you before the age of 27 is
more good luck than good management
because there are still so many changes, not to
mention challenges, ahead. Dating later in life
is a rollercoaster, but by definition that means
there are ups as well as downs. One of the
biggest ups for me has been the chance to find
someone who suits the fully formed you.
Sure, the dating apps – because that’s
pretty much the only way to meet someone
these days – can be onerous. But if you keepit in perspective, limit the time you spend on
them and scope people out on FaceTime first,
it can be fun meeting and flirting with people
you would never have come across otherwise.
Enjoyably, it makes your friends in long-term
relationships jealous like nothing else. Rather
more importantly, the apps give you the
chance to be brave if and when you need to
move on. Plenty more fish on Tinder.
A male friend asked me cautiously the
other day how I felt about turning 50. “Great,”
I replied. “I thought you were going to say
that,” he said, palpably relieved. I think it’s
ridiculous that ours is a society in which you
aren’t expected to celebrate getting older. I
have never felt so happy, so fully realised, so
sure of who I am and my place in the world.
Why wouldn’t I be downright thrilled to have
arrived, in January 2022, precisely here?
Yet such is the collective messaging that
even the young want to be younger. A few
months ago I had a conversation with some
friends in their early thirties. One of them
asked the group what age they would like to
go back to. They all immediately started
throwing out numbers. “Twenty-two,” said
one, then proceeded to explain why. “Twenty,”
said another. And so it went on.
When it came round to me, and I told
them that I was happy at the age I am, that
I wouldn’t want to go back – back! – to an
earlier stage in my life, they were initially
baffled. Why, they wanted to know. So I told
them how I know myself now in a way that
I didn’t when I was younger, how I am no
longer worried about what other people think
of me, or about what I am supposed to be
thinking or doing. They were thrilled. Really,
they exclaimed. Is that what being on the cusp
of your sixth decade can feel like? Yes, it can,
I said. This, they told me, sounded like
something for them to look forward to.
So this is me at 50. Not just someone who
can get upside down, but someone who is
better than she used to be at the deceptively
simple yet oh so complicated act of existing,
who is looking forward to what she will learn
in the decades ahead and believes she has the
resilience, hard earned, to cope with the
inevitable challenges.
What does 50 feel like? The best my life
has felt to date. What will 60 feel like? 70? 80?
I am looking forward to finding out. n‘It’s ridiculous that ours
is a society in which
you aren’t expected to
celebrate getting older’