This is 60
And why I will never lie about my age. (Not even to AI-proof my CV)
On Tuesday, I turned 60. (The England men’s football team can take that as an omen… there’s hardly a Brit alive who doesn’t know what happened the July I was born!) Anyway, my original plan for today’s newsletter was to do the obligatory list of all the things I’ve learnt on the way to my seventh decade. Readers seem to like it. The algorithm definitely likes it. God knows Substack likes it. And maybe I still will, next week, the week after, when I’ve had a minute to adjust, to remember that I have actually accrued some wisdom. Or at least learnt some lessons, some hard-won, some that should have been blindingly obvious, if I’d been looking, which of course I wasn’t. But before I do, I want to pause, because what struck me, as I posted the “well, holy shit, this is 60” picture (above) on Instagram, is not only what a big - huge! enormous! - number 60 is and how lucky I am to have reached it. (I know it’s not so much bigger than 59, but somehow it feels it.) But also that the predominant response - aside from “happy birthday” - was this: “Isn’t it great that we’re celebrating these birthdays, rather than treating them as something to hide?”
When I think of all the women I’ve spoken to in their sixties and beyond, to a woman they tell me the same thing: come on in, the water’s lovely
In all honesty, it never even occurred to me to hide it. But also, it bothers me that, even now, when we’re finally allowed to talk about menopause (which we weren’t 15 years ago when I plunged into it), it still seems to be a big deal to be visibly ageing and not pretending otherwise.