Being Middle Aged.

I often feel a sense of unease when I look at other men my age. I don’t see myself mirrored in them; there’s something about them that I don’t want to be, and yet I struggle to put my finger on quite what it is.

I think it has something to do with comfort, convention and simple certainties. They seem to have given up on aspects of life that still matter to me. They don’t want challenges any more, or even questions. They have what they see as proper, and few things would be more alien to them than impropriety. They’ve settled into a mindset that regards blandness as a cardinal virtue. I think I shall always find that impossible. I’m driven by the constant urge to find something, even when I don’t know what it is. I don’t necessarily want it, you understand, but I still have to look for it.

I saw a middle aged man driving down a road near my house today. His wife was sitting in the passenger seat next to him, and an image, or archetype if you like, clarified in my mind as they drove past.

He drives a medium sized, respectable saloon or modest MPV. His wife sits next to him, and the distance between them, though determined by the placement of the seats, is still significant somehow: close enough to be comfortable, but far enough away to prevent any suspicion of intimacy. On the rear seat sit one or two grandchildren, or one or two small pedigree dogs, or maybe both. In the rear window there is a sticker that says ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas.’ True enough, I grant you, but still clichéd and predictable.

Neither he nor his wife look cheerful, excited, depressed, anxious, or anything else that might suggest a susceptibility to the positive and negative poles of life. People like them are rarely subjected to the vacillations of polarity. But there’s nothing there to suggest they’ve reached a state of equanimity, either. There is only blandness. They are comfortable. They have followed the conventional road, and comfort in middle age is where it leads. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, but that sort of comfort is not for me. And so a question sprang into my head.

Does being independent help you to remain young at heart? Does the constant need to move on, ever seeking to encounter new places and people, help to avoid the stagnation of middle age? My mind still sees me as a thirty-five-year-old. It’s a pity my body frequently disagrees with it these days, but I can still pretend, can’t I? However much my hair thins, my joints ache from too much manual labour, and my breathing is that bit shorter when I walk uphill, I hope I shall never be middle aged.