I am a 45 year old Mum of one 4 yo, and for the past few years I have been coming to terms with being 40's, now mid-40's. For random reasons most of my good friends are slightly younger than me and I don't have any close female friends my age. I have met a few Mum's my age through my child's school (in London where nearly all the Mum's are early-mid 40's) but I don't know them well enough to offload or share about this.
I thought it might be good to use this site for solidarity and sharing about how it feels to be at mid-40's age as a woman, as despite progress there is still not enough spoken about it in the media. I know being fully menopausal has other challenges, but specifically I do feel that the transition from 40-50 is overlooked and barely spoken about or represented in the media or literature at all! I have found a few podcasts led by women but usually they are older (say mid-50's) and glam women like Davina McCall or Gabby Logan, so not that relatable!
I have read a great book called The Middle Passage which describes the transition I am making really well (drawing on Carl Jung for anyone interested), but it is lonely age and stage to be as a women I think. I also don't have much of a relationship with my mum so I can't ask her advice.
So if there are other women on here aged mid-40's it would be great to share experiences and possibly resources? Can we just offload and share what this lonely stage is like for us?
My experiences are currently:
- I work with young people teenagers and have noticed the way they respond to me and treat me have changed from being ''on their level'' to treating me like an elderly person, with deference! This is particularly hard to accept!
- I often feel embarrassed or anxious when meeting up with someone I haven't seen for a year or more, in case they are shocked at how old I look, and I have to see their shock and deal with it. This makes me feel really sad.
- I am always shocked when I see photos of me at the moment as I don't feel I look like that!
- I'm fed up with certain clothes not looking good on me anymore.
- Looking at photos / in the mirror has got harder as my face has become round and puffier, and my eyes smaller. I used to have big eyes as a younger women. I am not confident without makeup and my routine is getting longer and longer, which I hate!
- I am trying to stay fit and indeed get fitter to chase my 4yo but I put on weight so easily now it's harder.
- I don't want to identity with my outer looks so much, but the transition and changes to my face are so hard to deal with as it really feels like my outside is changing but inside I'm still 15 year old me listening to Radiohead and Pulp!
- I'm trying to embrace the few grey hairs coming through. I like to imagine each one represents a piece of wisdom I have accrued in my life.
- I often try to imagine my future self looking over me and telling me I'm alright.
- I really do struggle to find role models for my age group of women. Yes there are some great 'older' women on TV like Tess daly / Claudia W, aforementioned Davina, but these are generally older (50's) plus incredibly wealthy and not that relatable. Who is in their mid-40's / perimenopausal?? Are we really invisible?
- Actually I think Kate Winslet is pretty cool.