loneliness

In which I ponder…ageing and ageism

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cate-blanchett-cover

So I’m in Canberra at the Australian Association of Gerontology’s National Conference and I have to say that I’m feeling a bit bleak.

Not just because I’m in Canberra*, but also because I’m finding out a lot of very worrying information about myself.

Here I am, a mere 18 months or so off being 50 and feeling quite dynamic really. I feel like my career has taken off again over the last few years, that I still have a lot to give and that there is still a fair bit of progression/promotion left in me. I feel better about my body than I probably ever have. And I’m probably fitter than I was in my 30s. If you ignore a tendency to forget what I was talking about, I think my mind is generally as sharp as it’s ever been. It’s certainly more full of stuff anyway.

But apparently, things are not looking good for me. I can’t tell you the number of times over the last few days that I’ve checked in with a speaker to see what they mean by ‘older’ and been told 50. The Older Women’s Network starts at 45 for God’s sake! And suddenly I feel old and relegated to the scrap heap.

The news everyone has for me is not good either. I am apparently more likely to be discriminated against at work, passed over for promotion and unable to find employment after being retrenched. As a woman, if I am single, over 50 and living in rental accommodation (oops) I am at significantly higher risk of homelessness after I retire than other groups. Of course my disease risk is much higher too, and I’m more likely to be lonely and lack social connections, especially if I’m single – and the news there is not just the tragedy of being Billy No Mates but also the added bonus of a research study that has shown that weak social connections has the same impact on our health as smoking, and increases your risk of death by between 50% and 90%. Awesome.

There has been some good news though. Older people (in this particular study, they meant over 65s – yay!) are the biggest growth group in online dating and the evidence is that they are having lots of sex with multiple partners (again yay for ageing!). However the reason we know this is that there has been a 50% increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted infections in the age group (oh…). It seems this age group, who often have had only one sexual partner in their life prior to divorce or bereavement, missed out on sex ed and see condoms only as barrier protection against pregnancy and not against disease. Thankfully, there are people working on addressing this.

On the other hand though, another study that was presented found positive correlation between sexual activity and physical intimacy, and happiness in older people in Australia**, so despite having gonorrhea, all those over 65s are probably feeling pretty perky.

I don’t want to think that all the future holds for me is loneliness, unemployment, homelessness and a nasty case of syphilis. I think you’ll agree that would be disproportionate. It’s hard to believe that my career might already be over (one of the speakers talked about reaching the peak of your career around 50 and then opportunities diminishing. If that’s true, I’m in trouble), and although I’m currently in retirement from the dating scene, I do try to keep an optimistic outlook – either about eventually meeting someone, or having a great life on my own.

However, I am a bit concerned about how our demographic changes and the ‘grey tsunami’ that’s on its way will work against the backdrop of a society that so values youthfulness. Which is where the photo above of Cate Blanchett comes in. Cate was born within a year of me. In the photo above she has been clearly photo shopped so that there is not a wrinkle in sight. She is as lithe as a teenager. Now to be fair, even when she hasn’t been photo shopped she is exceptionally beautiful, but really that’s the point. Magazines exort us to look younger, they try to sell us clothes that are modeled by girls who are as young as our daughters, and promote images of older women that are unachievable and what’s more, dishonest.

And how does all that play out in real life, for the normal, single woman who is knocking 50? Well I was recently out for dinner with a male, single friend and we were discussing male attitudes to women’s bodies. I was initially reassured when he was telling me about how much he appreciated ‘real’ women’s bodies with curves and imperfections and the maturity that older women bring. But later when we were having a laugh and comparing online dating profiles, it turned out that the age range he had specified started at 27 and ended a year before my age. He’s 5 years older than me. So when it comes to it, they say – hey – I see your wisdom, your emotional maturity, and your valiant efforts to hold back time and be the best version of your 48 year old self that you can – and that’s great and everything. But I’ll trump that with some pert breasts, some shapely legs and a flat tummy unravaged by pregnancy and childbirth*** thank you very much.

Where will it all end? Who knows? Tomorrow I have Elder Abuse – what’s so special? Existing legal protections and Re-imagining Ageing to look forward to. I’ll let you know if there is any better news…

*by far the weirdest city on the planet (oh ok – Australia), but I have to say it’s growing on me. Everything is so new, and so planned, and so very neat. And there are nooks and crannies and gardens with lots of public art. So not so bad.

**Seriously. Surely no one was surprised by that?

***and the Peroni, KitKat and pack of Pringles from the mini bar I had while writing this

In which I ponder…flying the nest

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Flying the Nest.jpg

 

My son’s entry into the world was not what I had planned for.

Rather than the relaxed, relatively drug free delivery I had been planning, where he would be born accompanied by music and soft lighting, he was dragged into the harsh clinical light of a hospital room surrounded by doctors and nurses, with his chord wrapped twice around his neck and his heart intermittently stopping. Just below his right eye, he still bears a scar from this very first experience of the world.*

Not long afterwards they took him away from my bedside, moved me into a single room so that other mother’s would not be upset by my crying and told us to be prepared for him to die in the next 24 hours. They took Instamatic photos of him so that we would at least have something to remember him by and told us that he had a very serious heart disorder.

When, after a thankfully relatively brief sojourn in neonatal intensive care, they allowed us to bring our son home – with the proviso that if he turned blue we would call an ambulance immediately – I slept fitfully, like a coiled spring, the slightest sound from his crib beside my bed causing me to wake up in a panic. Only I could keep him safe and keep him alive. Or so I felt.

That same boy, some 19 years later, is now about to start studying at Sydney University, news that he received at a hostel in the Czech Republic, as he is currently travelling around Europe, on his own. His heart still doesn’t work properly but seems to have been much less of a problem than was predicted. Fingers crossed.

There is a part of me that thinks – I did it! I got him through life successfully, and now he is flying the nest. Well done me. Well done him. One more to go, and then the world’s my oyster.

But the reality is that I’m terrified.

I had always assumed that this stage of my life would look quite different. I expected to be financially secure, able to fully reap the benefits of having had my children relatively young, and enjoy my late forties and fifties by combining work with the ability to see a bit of the world without the expense and responsibility of young children. I can see other friends reaching this point too. It always felt like this life development was kind of a pay off for a job well done parenting, and the quid pro quo for the sadness that parents naturally feel when the intensive part of their job is over. It would probably be a good distraction too.

In practice though, my financial situation is the least secure it’s been since I was in my early twenties. Having once thought my Ikea days were over, I now find that if I survey my home, I struggle to identify anything much that wasn’t purchased there. Like many other divorced women of a certain age, I am contemplating working until I am 70 in order to service a large mortgage on a small property in a suburb the people I used to know have never heard of, and will probably never visit. I’m not expecting there to be much in the way of spare money for exploring the world, or much time, given that I’ll be working.

And more than that – who will I spend my time with? Children flying the nest might have provided an opportunity to reconnect with your partner and then enjoy adventures together that you couldn’t afford before you had children. But now it is just going to mean an actual empty home.

I’ve thought about all this way too much lately. I think most of it is just fear because my future looks very much more uncertain than I would have expected at this point in my life. But at the same time, I’m conscious of how lucky I am to have ever been in the position where I thought my life would be different to this. I know how privileged I am to have the life I have anyway. And so whilst I feel afraid, I also feel reproachful – which is then rapidly followed by guilt for not being more grateful.

I suppose the trick is to try to stay in the present and appreciate each moment as it happens – without too much reference to what was, or might have been.

And I suppose the lesson is that – if I allow myself to look back for a moment to George’s birth – things rarely go to plan, but they can still turn out beautifully in the end.

So I’ll keep holding out for that happy ending – whatever that is.

*If you think that’s bad, you should see my scars…

In which I ponder….loneliness

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beach-cute-loneliness-love-teddy

It was a beautiful day in Sydney on Sunday. Middle of winter and 26 degrees. I ran around in the morning sorting out washing and going to the supermarket so that I would be able to spend some time walking the dog from Bondi to Bronte in the afternoon. The weather was so lovely my shorts were reclaimed from summer clothing storage, and the hordes were out on the coastal path.

Sounds like a pretty nice day,eh?

But sometime after lunch, a little dark cloud settled above my head, and I couldn’t help thinking, not for the first time, how nice it would be to share the wonderful things in life with someone.

I’ve mentioned before that people who are married or in de facto relationships often express envy about my single life. They imagine the freedom of not having to consider others, of having the remote control for the tv for themselves, and of not having to share their bar of chocolate with anyone. They imagine that my life is more exciting than theirs, that I am out and about at restaurants and bars and events. And indeed I am, some of the time. But for a great deal of the time I am on my own.

There is not much time for the imagined glamorous life of the singleton in between the full time job and the every day domesticities of being a parent and a householder. The weekend is often a race against time trying to get all of the household necessities completed and enjoy some time with the children whilst still managing to do at least something that vaguely looks like having an independent social life. Sometimes I don’t manage it.

And I hesitate to talk about how isolating I can find my life, on the other side of the world from home and family, and how lonely I sometimes feel. There is a weird stigma related to loneliness in the 21st century – as if my loneliness must stem from being socially inept, or unlikeable, or both. I feel I shouldn’t be lonely and I should be out there enjoying every moment of my life, because in so many ways I am very lucky. Feeling lonely feels and sounds a lot like a failure.

In addition to this, it’s my experience that admissions of loneliness are often interpreted as neediness by other people, as if having needs – like spending time with other adults and making social connections – meant that there was something wrong with you. Recent research though has suggested that loneliness may well be our next big public health issue, on a par with obesity and drug abuse. It can also increase your risk of death by a sobering 26%. To be fair, I think I’d rather die fat and high than lonely…

A month or so ago I was made redundant. A couple of hours afterwards, I had to make a much valued colleague and friend also redundant. I can report that being made redundant is actually vastly preferable to making other people redundant, but the reason I mention this is that as you can imagine, in the scale of things, this was a pretty crappy day. It would have been nice to know that there was someone to tell about this, who would be there to give me the hug I needed when I got home and perhaps to make a cup of tea or pour me a glass of wine and tell me everything was going to be ok.

However, what actually happened was that just when I was about to leave work I got a text message from my daughter asking when I would be home. I asked her why and got the following message

‘I need to talk to you about my life. I feel like I need guidance or something – I just feel really unmotivated and crap and like a kind of failure and I don’t know I need help’

So although I could almost have written this message myself at that moment, I went home and gave her a cuddle while she cried a bit and we sorted out her life. I didn’t mention I’d been made redundant and then the evening continued much as usual – I made dinner, made sure everyone was ok, and then once they withdrew to their rooms and their laptops, I considered the white terror of being an unemployed single mother of two in silence, alone in my room.

It’s ironic because I used to like spending time on my own, I suppose because it was an occasional relief from being constantly accompanied by either children or husband. I still do like it though. I hate clothes shopping with other people. A night alone on the sofa with a bag of chips watching a movie is still a favourite pasttime. But it turns out you can get too much of a good thing.

Thankfully I have not yet reached the point where my loneliness outweighs my selectiveness in finding someone to share my bag of chips with and I don’t think I will. I’m just getting better and better at finding other things with which to fill my life – and if it all gets too much in the end, there is always overeating and drugs…

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PS – in the restructure that had precipitated the redundancies I was appointed to a new, more interesting role. All’s well that ends well.