Esther McCarthy: Definitive proof that I am, in fact, middle-aged
Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn
Time is a funny thing.
Life used to be lived in moments, in minutes, in languid hours, now brutally, decades intersect and life smudges and suddenly the past is more than what’s left of the future.
Time, the rascal, is tricky. It can stretch out like Wonka’s never-ending gobstopper, a sweet, infinite rainbow you’ll never finish.
Like when you’re a teenager and longing for real life to start, and you want to fling yourself into adulthood and DO STUFF but boring shite won’t get out of your way and you’re obliged to do things everyone else decides is best for you and then you blink and your 20s are behind you and how did that happen?
Sure, you cram a lot in, but it went in a blur. Your 30s really do feel like they’ll never end though and you’re submerged in that adulthood you were so excited about and it’s actually not all it’s cracked up to be but aren’t you lucky you got that tracker mortgage, even though you didn’t really know what the difference was and sure so what if it’s a 45-year term, joke is on them, you’ll never be that old!
But uh-oh! Now you really do have to turn up to work EVERY SINGLE DAY. What a gip. And holy moly, you got married, even though you said you’d never do something so OBVIOUS, and you’ve both somehow created three miraculous humans who think you know everything but you’re really only winging it until a real adult comes along and then you blink again and you’re closer to 50 than you are to 40 and that DEFINITELY can’t be right because you’re a total messer in your head but those little beauties still haven’t figured it out, or indeed the bank which, to your credit, you’ve been very sound about paying all your money to every month.
And what about your eldest kid, another blink and he’s taller than you, you’re looking up at him and now he’s floating out of reach, on the cusp of his own next stage, impatient just like you were, and the thing is, you’re on the brink too, of a new, scary stage, and that gnawing realisation that the sand in your timer is slipping away, too fast, too fast, you’re not ready, and you can’t stop humming ‘The Cat’s in the Cradle’ and reciting TS Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’ while you wander out of the room because you can’t remember what you needed in there and you go back to looking at pictures of your marvellous creations, the beauties in the baby bath, and their first pair of wellies, the first morning they were all in the same uniform cycling off to school, and that magic year they all got exactly what they wanted from Santy, and you’re not crying, you just have something in your eye.
So in an attempt to come to terms with being on time’s rainbow road, here’s definitive proof I’m middle-aged, and this is to convince that messer in my head more than you, dear reader.
Forget your Kate Spade or your Anya Hindmarch. I have a bag of good bags. Need a Happy Birthday pressie bag for a Spiderman fan? A bottle of wine that needs to be transported? Take your pick (all the colours of the rainbow) I don’t mean to brag, but there’s even one or two in there with an unblemished tag still attached.
I’ve got the robust canvas bag with the printed pun I got coffee in, a leopard print bag for life that’s just too funky to be lobbed in with the normal shopping losers in the boot, a snazzy carry- all purple one that I think came from New York, and an old Roches Stores faded plastic bag that I just can’t throw out.
See, I’m old enough to remember Roches before it was Penneys or Debenhams. I used to do night stock, stacking shelves in a long thick green pinafore/dress. It was the most asexual dress I wore as a teenager but it came into its own whenever I dropped a jar of honey. Which was a lot more than you would imagine.
What a showman! What a voice! What the feck are all these old people doing in the audience? Oh wait, they’re the same age as me.
But I’m hip, I’m rad. Actually I’ve a trick hip and I wouldn’t mind being next to a rad for a bit of heat.
And then I realised the last time I saw him in concert was over 15 years ago, not one or two as I’d imagined.
I was chatting with my cousin, 36, and every one of her friends who are in a relationship, met online.
I started going out with my husband in college, after allowing him to buy me a pint followed by a lob-the-gob in a nightclub, like a normal person.
Apparently, the next decades blink by even faster, so I say to myself every day: ‘these are the good days, enjoy them’.
I try my best to slow that rascal time down a bit.
I shan’t wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. It’s not working though so if you’ve figured it out, let me know, please.
