30April2025
Today I found myself musing over how the idea of age seems to shift like the weather in England. My grandmother, Ethel, didnt become a grandma until she was fortyfour. The moment she earned that title she also slipped into the tidy, respectable mould that society seems to hand out to older women. She never roamed the streets in a floral headscarf with a cane; even into her later years she remained impeccably neat and dignified. I still recall the afternoon we stitched a vivid scarlet dress for a doll together. I was thrilled and asked her whether she would ever want such a dress herself. She laughed and said, Oh, Im a grandmother now That phraseIm a grandmother became a refrain for the rest of her life. As soon as the first grandchild arrived, she fell straight into the expectations painted by the world and by her own selfimage, living out the rest of her days exactly as every other woman around her seemed to do.
I often hear the current overforty crowd lament how much the world has dumped on their laps and how hard it is to keep up with constant change. Yet it is precisely that generation which has shattered the old boundaries, the conventions and the rigid ideas about age. Imagine for a moment calling a woman just past her forties a grandma. Shes still very much a woman, a beautiful one at that. She may no longer be in the bloom of youth, but she remains a woman because her mindset is still oriented toward vitality, not toward decline.
In todays world you can only guess a womans age, sometimes struggling to tell from the context. I spend many mornings in a tiny café on Camden High Street, where the barista, Sophie, already knows my order of a flat white with a splash of oat milk. Shes petite, graceful, the sort of girl who just finished university. The other day a towering, broadshouldered blokealmost two metres talljoined her at the counter. I wondered if he could be her boyfriend, because she looks like a delicate flower beside him. He bent over the counter, pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, and then, in a low voice, asked, Love, could you lend me a couple of hundred pounds? I thought, if that were her son, Id be less surprised.
What I love about modern women is that they can decide for themselves how they want to appear, which style and which age feels comfortable to wear. Some favour braids and tiny tattoos near the bikini line, others love Louboutins and deepnecked gowns, still others prefer trainers and ripped jeans, lemonyellow blouses, narrow skirts and jaunty hats for every season. Red dresses, even mini ones with daring back zippers, are now commonplace, and no one rolls their eyes or shrugs it off. If anyone does, it simply doesnt matter to her.
Theres an old saying: If youth only knew, if age only could It feels extinct now. The middleaged cohort has washed it away like bleach on a pristine tablecloth. We know a lot, yet were still eager to act. This generation drifts without anchoring to any single shoreoldtimers push away with fear, the young watch cautiously. The ship sails on its own, thrilled by the adventure.
The most striking realisation Ive had lately is that age does not limit possibilities; it expands them. We no longer need to search for ourselves because we have already found each other, and now we polish our crafts or try fresh techniques that bring joy and satisfaction. We no longer feel obliged to mingle with every passerby; instead we focus on keeping close those who beat in step with our own hearts. We can afford the luxury of pleasant company rather than merely the necessity of conversation. In love and intimacy we chase quality, having learned that quantity can never replace it, and we give youth a hundred points of respect.
We no longer rush children to grow up fasterweve seen how quickly that can happen. We savour their childhood, filling it with the things we missed out on. Weve learned that no amount of money, however its earned, can buy happiness, health or loyalty. We understand that the road toward a goal often matters more than the goal itself. If you cannot relish the journey, the destination will hardly delight you either. Weve proven this to ourselves, learned from our own mistakes, felt how swiftly time flies. The picture of life is already sketched; now is the time to add the fine details and elegant strokes that turn a painter into a master and the canvas into a masterpiece.
When all this settles in, you realise that right now your possibilities are boundless. You can learn to dance, sing, play the harp, pick up a new language, dive with a regulator, take riding lessons, ski, rollerblade, blow glass, drive a car, paint Christmas baubles, paddle a kayak, assemble mosaics, keep bees, redecorate a playground, throw pottery, stitch with beads or do embroidery, bake splendid cakes, ferment cabbage or make fresh pasta. You can travel and see with your own eyes the places youve heard about a hundred times. You can adopt a dog, take in a third cat, shoot your own short film or step onto a stage, move to the countryside, or finally start the hobby youve postponed for years. You can lose yourself in a new novel, or welcome another child into the world. Or you can simply wander alone along a park path, letting the mist veil the trees, sipping a hot chocolate or a cup of lemonverbena tea, savoring each sip as if it were a piece of autumn, a fragment of life.
Now we understand all too well that time itself isnt infinite, which makes us cherish the age of limitless possibilities all the more.
