What does middle age feel like?

When is middle age these days? When I was a child my grandad was the age I am now and he seemed as old as the hills. He was a monolith of wisdom and stability, someone to look up to who knew everything about everything. My parents were only in their thirties yet to me they seemed really old. I was always told that middle age started around fifty but that never made any sense to me. If we live on average till we’re eighty years old then surely middle age should be forty?

As I’ve stumbled, rudderless towards what’s traditionally classed as middle age, it’s not just my physical appearance which has changed. I have more grey hairs on my head than blonde now, my beard sports a fetching grey stripe and my laughter lines (stress lines) are framing my eyes like geological fault lines. Some people care about looking different as they get older. Luckily for me, that’s one thing I’m not worried about; actually it’s the only thing I’m not worried about but we’ll get to that later.

I’m enjoying looking older, gaining patina and not having to care about fitting in with fashion and trends. At my age, no-one cares about me any more. I’m comfortably anonymous, blending in with the scenery and I have no need to stand out. I’ve been happily married for twenty one years, have an eighteen year old son and no social life so the pressure to be what society dictates has faded nicely. I did a lot of socialising in my twenties so I feel like I've been there, done that and have no need to go there again. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being out after 8pm these days.

The old body is feeling a bit tired these days though. The usual aches and pains as I drag myself out of bed on a morning definitely remind me I’m approaching the ‘vintage’ category; maybe a modern classic? I’m ok with that. No machine is built to last forever and the human body is the same. I’m treating my machine with care, eating well and abstaining from alcohol. I've never smoked and I cook all my meals from scratch, drink plenty of water and do moderate exercise. I have a good balance,

The main issue I’m experiencing as I reach middle age is mental. I’ve often heard the term ‘mid life crisis’ and assumed it only affected well off gentlemen with a desire to feel younger when their mundane life, filled with financial stress and a job they hate causes their mind to boil over. To me a mid life crisis was the typical purchase of a sports car and maybe the extra marital affair with a younger woman. My thoughts on middle age seem to run far deeper than the superficial facade of wanting to look and feel younger.

To be honest, I’ve been creeping towards my current unstable middle aged mental state for about ten years, unaware of what was actually happening but feeling less and less in control of my life. I’ve always had a dream of being able to cruise to retirement age with the least amount of stress and to have a mortgage free life in my twilight years has always been top of my list.

I definitely don’t want to buy a fancy sports car or a boat or run off with a younger woman. I do crave freedom more than ever before. Freedom from financial responsibilities and the trappings of society. Having that pair of heavily mortgaged concrete boots on my feet while the water around me rises due to the current financial problems of the world has made me re-evaluate my entire existence.

Where once I wanted a big house and shelves full of books and records, I now desperately want to downsize my life. What seems like overnight I've felt an unbelievably strong urge to shed all the material things I’ve collected over the last thirty years and live frugally in a small house in the country.

I look at all the possessions I have around me and they mean nothing. I don’t want to look at them any more, it’s a hindrance to my potential freedom. I want with every fibre of my body, to have a place to live which doesn’t require me to work till I’m 70 years old (Getting a mortgage at 48 isn’t for the faint hearted).

I think navigating middle age is a very personal experience. For me it’s a time for re-evaluating my life. It's the frenzied hunt for comfort and stability once you realise you've used up more than half of your time on this earth. The ticking clock gets louder by the day and my anxieties come mainly from not feeling like I’ve made the best out of the years I’ve lived so far. I cringe when I look back at the twenty something me, wasting his life like he was immortal. All those opportunities I passed because I thought I had all the time in the world.

Middle age is screaming, 'Time to make every second count!'