Suzanne Harrington: All us mid-lifers want is for our lipstick to stop crawling up our faces
Suzanne Harrington: not given to be patient of gig-talkers. Pic: Denis Scannell
Although giddily free of the pressures faced by middle-aged female persons of previous generations to swerve being labelled words like ‘mutton’ by dark forces – imagine a world where mid-life women were supposed to care about hemlines and colour palettes as they silently battled menopause while trying not to murder everyone around them – the worries of the contemporary midlife woman have been modified for the digital age.
We talk freely now about feelings, hormones, and bodies; we wear what we like, from band t-shirts to ballgowns; we ride the surge of regenerative midlife rage, sloughing off what no longer serves us.
Watch out, deadbeats – no longer softened by oestrogen, our ruthless quest for selfhood will see you making your own sandwiches, scratching your heads as you watch us drive away.
No, this generation of midlifers has a whole new raft of concerns. New to us, that is.
Like who is etching, with some invisible Stanley knife as we sleep, those lines that are forming a Nile Delta across our upper lip, causing red lipstick to migrate upward towards our nostrils in a series of tiny scarlet tributaries.
Where once marshmallow flesh above pillowy upper lip, now a cat’s arse of smokers’ lines in a world that no longer smokes.
What do we do about that? Acceptance? Intervention? Never mind those worm-balloon lips so currently fashionable, for which women of all ages seem to be paying actual cash – all you want is to stop your lipstick crawling up your face.
And for tech updates to be less sweat-inducing.
“Please,” you might hear yourself pleading to the child in front of you in the tech shop, as your lipstick continues its unplanned adventures north. “Explain it to me like English is my fourth language.”
The genderless Gen Z in front of you nods pityingly, then is off at a gallop. You can identify occasional words – 5G, data, – but not any overall meaning, and so end up signing a contract for services unknown, rather than continuing to be tech-shamed by a pubescent.
Still. At least you’re not one of those terrible middle-aged people propping up a generation gap, like in the olden days.
You might have a baggy face and a phone you don’t understand, but you’re hip in your Dry Robe, with your oat latte and your CBD oil. You go to gigs. Of course you do.
It’s just that these days, the behaviour at gigs is infuriating. Where once you threw yourself around in a mangle of elbows, or at least stood at the back bobbing along to the band, today’s gigs have become a prime source of that midlife regenerative rage.
Not just all the phones held aloft filming the unfilmable like idiot cyclops, but the talking. Young people talking loudly to each other, so that you hear their conversations above the music.
And then hearing yourself shouting to PLEASE BE QUIET as they turn to stare at you and your unravelling lipstick with a look of blank incomprehension.
A look that says, OK Boomer. OK, Karen.
