101 More Things About Me (At Fifty)

I have written a few of these posts over the years, and thought it was time for another to reflect on who I am now, at fifty. You can read the others, here (2005), here (2006), here (2007), here (2013), and here (2015). And here we have the latest addition: older and no wiser at all.

1. I have discovered that having a lady beard is a full time job. Me and my tweezers are best mates.
2. I still can’t stand hearing people breathe. I want to stab them. It’s an issue really.
3. I never sit in direct sunlight. Ever. And if you make me, I moan. A lot.
4. Watching me eat corn on the cob could put you off me for life. No-one appreciates a buttery chin do they?
5. I have a deep-rooted, probably deeply inappropriate passion for Harry Styles.
6. I would like to be twenty-one again, Not sure I did it right the first time.
7. I’m so very grateful that Mark and I have remained friends because it has made a world of difference to Finn’s security and sense of self.
8. My whole outlook on life has changed recently. I feel hopeful again.
9. I’m really, horribly, seriously bossy.
10. I have given up cheese and I want you to know that I am DEVASTATED about it.
11. I can’t believe no-one has ever told me I’ve got one slightly lazy eye.
12. Despite it all, my heart is still firmly stitched to my sleeve. I won’t let life make me hard.
13. I think I might make it law that all men must grow beards.
14. I dance a lot. Mostly to this ludicrous tune. The women who live across the road must be regularly astonished.
15. I can tell I’m coming alive again now I’m watching music again. Constantly.
16. I’m not sure I have been able to make this house a home in the same way I did my little cottage.
17. My recent break up has taught me how very loved I am by so many friends and family and I will never stop feeling grateful.
18. I’m very dreadful at identifying my emotions. Some days I can’t differentiate between hunger and sadness. Weeping when a person could solve her problems with a baked potato is frankly ludicrous.
19. I used to live in denim dungarees and cowboy boots.
20. My Mum used to say “Don’t be so bloody ridiculous” all, the, time. And recently I’ve found myself channelling her. People ARE bloody ridiculous aren’t they?
21. I like a good political debate. I can get quite argumentative about the matter. I sometimes draw diagrams.
22. I miss Stevie, Ste’s son, more than I can explain. More than I can really bear to think about.
23. I own the worlds ugliest dressing gown and I am going to wear it into fleecy holes. Don’t try and stop me.
24. Watching wrestling is still my not so secret vice.
25. The lane I live on is the noisiest lane in the entire world, The house literally shakes when lorries fly by.
26. 35 year old me was the best version of me so far. I’m summoning her back.
27. Folding laundry makes me want slap people. I’m sorry, I know I am the vintage housekeeper but even I must not perpetuate the myth that anything beyond hanging it on the line is fun.
28. I am on yet another Most Haunted bender. The sheer nonsense of it still makes me laugh.
29. I’m so ready to laugh again.
30. But I’m so sad that I sold my little house. T’was all manner of foolish and I deeply regret it.
31. I am DREADING Finn going to university. And SOOOO excited for him! What on earth will I do with an empty nest?
32. I’m not a meat and two veg kinda woman. I like little plates of tiny nibbles.
33. The white noise of a fan knocks me out in minutes, But it’s no fun in the depths of Winter.
34. It struck me recently that I can do anything and go anywhere now can’t I? A blank page on which to write a new story!
35. I really hate the smell of eggs being boiled. Is it egg or bubbling pan that stinks?
36. My high school art teacher spent six years being disappointed in me. Is there anything worse than being disappointing? I’ve been a bit disappointed in myself ever since.
37. My university dissertation was a study of appearance and authenticity in female middle age. Can’t believe I’m so old I could be my own subject now.
38. You have never seen anything quite as ragey and dramatic as me trying to escape a wasp in the car.
39. I’m blown away by how we teach our children to be good humans and then at some point they take over and start teaching us how to be better too.
40. My phone is a major addiction. I’m truly worse than a teenage girl at the moment and should probably have it confiscated asap so I can be a grown-up again.
41. I’m a Winter person.
42. Sometime I stare too long while I’m trying to process what has just come out of your mouth. I suspect it might be a bit disconcerting. Sorry.
43. Losing forty fifty-six pounds recently has reminded me that we are more than just our muddled heads.
44. I mix my words up endlessly. Who knows what will come out of my mad mouth next?
45. Finley tells me I don’t use my “jokey” face enough, so he can’t tell whether I’m serious or not. Please let it be known that I am always joking, only all my jokes are serious.
46. I’m not a very high maintenance woman. Truth be told I look like Mad Mary most of the time.
47. I once had a dream my Nana was a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise and I’ve been struggling to add it to my tuna ever since.
48. I feel like I’m on the edge of my very own middle-aged lady renaissance. Watch this space.
49. I get horrendous restless legs and often lie on the floor with my twitching legs slung against the chair to watch TV. Elegance is my middle name don’t you know?
50. I need to get better at discerning truth and lies. I’m horribly trusting. Too often to my own detriment.
51. The idea of dating even the nicest men of the interwebs again gives me horrors. I’m not as confident as I used to be. But none of us know what is around the corner do we?
52. My drink of choice? Yup still Bathtub Gin with elderflower tonic please?
53. There are some downright WONDERFUL women in my family. I come from lovely stock,
54. I miss tiny Finn and little boy Finn, but nearly a man Finn is the best yet. I have been so blessed by him.
55. I still stand by Doctor Who’s philosophy: try to be nice, but never fail to be kind. I’m doing my best. But heckity pie life makes it challenging!
56. I am OBSESSED by Brandon Flower’s hand movements in the Mr Brightside video. Obsessed I tell you. I love hands and I love those who use them expressively.
57. I would like to go back and do art school again. It was the most challenging, exhausting year of my life and it taught me so much about discipline and discernment.
58. Is this what happens when you get older? Do you start wishing for re-do’s of all that is long gone? Perhaps this is just a temporary frame of my mind while my world is in flux…
59. I am suddenly astonished by how accepting of terrible things I have been.
60. I almost never iron anything. This is a CRUMPLED house,
61. I like being snuggled up watching Gogglebox on a Friday might. It’s my favourite hour of the week.
62. Two of my bestest friends are women I went to school with and I talk to a man I went to school with daily. Old friendships matter don’t they?
63. I have developed a new passion for yoghurt after a life long refusal to have anything to do with the matter. Clearly ANYTHING is possible these days.
64. I hate wearing a bra. In fact come in to my house on any given day and you will probably happen across one slung across a chair, where having coped with wearing one for the sake of public decency, I have taken it off and flung it across the room the minute I walk through the door.
65. I am still absolutely terrified of snow.
66. I love the village I live in. Never thought I would, but I am happy here.
67. Me and sleep are not good friends. Recently I’ve been lying awake absolutely FUMING with the whole world, until I finally drop off at about five. It’s all manner of anxious hell.
68. I’ve suddenly become crazy worried about getting old… not about wrinkles and grey hair, but about security and infirmity. I’m hoping this too will pass as I get more clarity on my next move.
69. Recently my nose has become deeply intolerant of my beloved essential oils.
70. I might be fifty, but I’m not sure I’m quite grown up yet.
71. Finn and I have got a running joke about most people in Mexico getting their haircut on the same day. I still don’t understand it.
72. I like Pepperami’s more than I should. But hey, we all have our vices don’t we?
73. Yup. Still wearing Obsession perfume. I feel like I’m wearing someone else’s clothes if I try anything else.
74. I wish my Dad lived closer. but in the next year, he will be moving to the very end of the country and will feel a million miles away. Sad face.
75. I have got more opinions about Doctor Who than you might imagine I would have. I am (accidentally) the font all Whovian knowledge.
76. I have developed something my doctor describes as AN OLD LADY mole on the side of my face. AN OLD LADY MOLE! She doesn’t mince her words, that woman.
77. I LOVE my doctor. She is sweary, and silly and SO supportive.
78. I haven’t left this country for eighteen years. That’s crackers. There’s a world out there!!
79. I wish I was better with social media stuff. But Instagram and Facebook just slip my mind completely.
80. I want an air fryer. Somebody buy me an air fryer (and tell me what to do with it??)
81. I’m horribly worried about living by myself in September.
82. I love coal tar soap – it smells like CLEAN to me,
83. I have a lady crush on Mae Martin.
84. Sensory overload makes concerts in stadiums all manner of hell on earth for me. I fainted sitting down last time I went to one. #dramaqueen
85. I’m deaf as a post, but if there is a daddy-long-legs in the house you can bet your bottom dollar I will HEAR it and make a huge fuss until someone carries it out.
86. I am nesh,
87. Put me in a room full of people and a button goes off in my head and before I know it I am Liverpool’s answer to Dame Edna Everage. And somewhere in my head I listen to myself in make em laugh mode in absolute astonishment. What’s all that about?
88. I am really, really shy. Honest.
89. Songs are a kind of poetry to me. Even if its just Yungblud telling me he is the original loser. Bless him.
90. I want passion now. Its not too late is it?
91. Coffee makes my heart bang. A complete bummer really because I love it.
92. I will always be sad about not having a second child.
93. But so grateful that Finn has a little brother regardless and for a while had a step-brother he adored.
94. I still wear a “uniform” of black vest and black trousers most days (I’m a female Steve Jobs).. They are just baggier than they used to be which might mean changing the habit of a lifetime soon. Imagine that!
95. I’m not sure who I am anymore. I’m quite enjoying it.
96. My Finn wrote a poem about me for my fiftieth birthday and it still makes my eyes well up every time I read it: Have you seen her? She’s fifty, but looks thirty/ When she walks she flows, when she smiles, she glows/ Does she know?/ Have you heard her, she speaks her own language but/ When she talks, you grow (We should all take notes)/ Does she know?/Have you met her, you should/I wish you could… We are all so grateful, does she know?
97. I met a man last week who said “Heaven’s To Betsy”. He was Lady ME! I should have adopted him. Or married him.
98. I am NOT enjoying the whole peri-menopause business. My Mum surely lied about “hardly noticing it”?
99. I am horribly scared of filling the car (the she-shed) with petrol. I have absolutely no idea why. What’s the worst that could happen??
100. All these years later, I still feel so blessed by being able to make a living here at Brocante.
101. But it is Finn who is the love of my life. He is my rock, my cheerleader, my inspiration and a six foot tall lesson in how to live as authentically and wholly as possible.