To dye or not to dye? That’s the question I ask myself as I stare at the bottle of ‘L’Oreal’ brown hair dye on the bathroom shelf, then finally hide it away in the toiletries’ basket for another day.
The boys helped me select the shade on a recent trip to Tesco's. They were particularly unhelpful. “I dunno, Mum; wouldn’t it be easier just to dye all your hair grey?” was Son 1’s offering.
The problem with being Facebook friends with a load of people from my year at secondary school, is that since September there has been a steady stream of 40th birthdays appearing on my feed. Surely that can’t be right! In fact, one friend just posted a memory of a 30th birthday which felt much more accurate, until I twigged it was from a decade ago. On my own 30th birthday I had two under two, and now look at me, with a preteen at secondary school, carrying his own front door key and mobile phone.
I’m firmly in denial. The American neighbour whose dog we walk recently commented that he had probably been in this country longer than I had been alive. “What are you, about 40?” he asked. I was about to vehemently protest that I was not, then I realised just in time that “about 40” is an extremely accurate guess about someone who is 39 and three quarters, and so gave a gritted smile and nodded instead.
As is the general course of life, the children of my friends are getting older too. Smiling mums post selfies of their faces with cheeks pressed to their lookalike preteen daughters', and I realise with horror that like with the magic mirror on the wall, the blossoming beauty of the daughters will soon outshine that of my glorious mum friends. Meanwhile, the tabloid headlines that pop up on my feed tell of how Princess Andre turns more heads than Katie Price, and Harper Beckham is predicted to soon have more influence in fashion than her mother, Victoria.
The wicked stepmother was on to something, perhaps? Or maybe I just need to get off social media.
I recently read that there’s something special about the age of 40 for a woman, in that it is biologically quite feasible for her to have a new baby and to have a grandchild. Wowzers. I got started too late to be a grandparent anytime soon, but I can do the maths and see that it is biologically possible that one theoretically could be at my age. In fact, there was a 32 year old grandmother at one of the baby groups I used to go to, which whilst fairly unusual in this country, goes to demonstrate it is just about both legal and possible.
I’m sure there’re a lot of good reasons for starting young. Friday night, I was playing 'stuck in the mud' in the dark with my children and some Ukrainian friends, and after a short while I had to sit down and drink tea because I was so exhausted I thought I might be sick. Although that probably says more about level of fitness than my age.
Google tells me that the average life expectancy for a woman in the UK is currently 80 years old. Which means 40 is smack in the middle. Which, ergo, means I am middle aged. And whilst different dictionaries have different definitions of middle age, often putting it more like 45-60, I am going with the mean and median average, saying 40 is literally half way to 80 therefore I am middle aged. In a more positive frame of mind, I could say that this moment is therefore the absolute peak and pinnacle of my lifetime. But then the white hairs standing out on the top of my dark head like unruly fishbones suggest I am perhaps already in descent.
The Bible tells me that “Grey hair is a crown of splendour” (Proverbs 16:31). This quotation was sellotaped to the mirrors in the ladies' toilets of a Christian conference place I went to - brilliant. The Bible also tells me that “Children’s children are a crown to the aged” (Proverbs 17:6) I just don’t think my head is ready for all these crowns. Or maybe I am just too influenced by the media around me and not listening enough to the words of the Creator.
I’m sure there’re all sorts of wonderful things about being 40. I’ll save them for another blog, once I get there. In the meantime, as I approach my fourth decade, and my husband approaches his half-century, I’ll sit in denial, plucking white hairs with tweezers and drinking tea.
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