Next Year

Today something weird happened. I was talking to M on the way to the test center about me and my thoughts and dreams and hopes and plans for next year, to try and take his mind off the upcoming test. I don't know if he was too interested but it kept us occupied for the half hour drive.

I said: "Next year just has to be better than this year has been." And I waffled on about some of the ideas I'd had and which ones looked potentially feasible and which ones were turning out to be just a laugh a minute. Then I added,"Of course next year has one big disadvantage in the 'must be better' stakes."

"What's that?" he said.

"Well," and by now I'm feeling stupid, "well, next year is the year I turn--I turn-f--f--fi--fi..." and I simply could not bring myself to utter the word? It was as if I was blocked, muted, gagged. But he got it.

"What is so bad about being fifty?" he asked. So I tried to explain. "It means you're not a beautiful, supple twenty-something anymore. Or even a vibrant, full-of-potential, richly fertile thirty-year-old. You can't even claim to be a fabulous forty, in the prime of life!"

He's like - "Well, duh mom! Of course you're not." So I tried again.

"It's more to do with loss of hope. The brutal reality is that my chance to be a young, beautiful and desirable woman is now officially past. And that makes me feel sad."

Looking back, it often feels as if I somehow missed out on being that person in the past and that turning *this age* kind of puts the seal on the fact that I'll never ever be that person. :-( Instead, I get to be officially 'middle-aged'. Before this, I could still refer to myself as 'forty-something' and get away with it, but the Big Five Oh puts a stop to all that. End. Finito. Over and done with.

Over the hill. :-(

Actually, although I still hate, loathe and detest the idea, it doesn't cause quite the same emotionally devastating surge of rage and depression it has done for the last few years. I *know* that it's important for my psychological development that I accept and embrace this next step. And hopefully, next year with all its changes will be a part of that process. I'm actually really excited about a possible 'Me Year' and what better year for that than a landmark birthday year?

And in other not-so-wonderful news, M did not get his license. He had a fair shot at it, he passed all the yard tests like parking and three-point-turns etc, and his examiner said his actual driving was absolutely fine, but he failed him because at a traffic circle, he and another car arrived almost simultaneously and although M judged it safe to go, technically he should have waited. It's a bummer. He seems to have bounced back quicker today though, I think I'm the one who is most exhausted now, having encouraged and cajoled and supported him through the last twenty-four hours of fear and dithering. Not to mention sitting in long queues for paperwork and paying all the fees for the second time.

C'est la effing vie.