Fortysomething

From men to mid life crises, from Botox to Brazilians, from infertility to infidelity, every week Jacqui Leigh gives her personal take on being a fortysomething woman

Just some friendly group exercise...

By Jacqui Leigh on 20 Jan 2012 No comments

Things are okay these days... job, kid, boyfriend who takes out the compost.

My ex has finally got off my case, more or less. He’s just a low level irritation these days, a fly buzzing around my head, like refusing to give me a penny towards Monica and then buying her an iPad for Christmas.

Fortunately she’s level headed enough to know that this is way too much for a nine year old and plays it down in front of her drooling friends. According to Monica, it’s our iPad, we’re sharing it. Thanks kiddo. At her age my treasured piece of technology was a transistor radio.

So, if things are good compared to the awfulness of last year, why am I finding it difficult to sleep, grinding my teeth, waking up with headaches and picking away at my cuticles? It’s a low level anxiety, a sense of impending doom, of things falling apart... me mainly.

I discover that being happy is not straightforward. Instead of being relieved that things are finally okay, it feels like I’m just waiting for it all to go wrong. I think I was better off being miserable and looking forward to things getting better. It makes me understand why rich and famous people are unhappy. The more you have, the more you stand to lose.

Part of the anxiety about work right now has been my failure to integrate in an office full of women, many of whom go a long way back, with a witty shared humour I can’t tap in to. Three months on I still feel like the new girl at school. The fact that I hot desk from one place to another means there’s no continuity. And working part time means I’m missing out on the Friday afternoon glasses of wine and the jolly chocolate binges that always seem to happen after I leave.

Everyone’s super nice but they don’t know me and I’m one of those people who can’t just vomit out a whole load of information about myself - I have to be asked. So far no one really has. When other women mention husbands and childcare duties I can’t respond, since I do it all. I don’t share a domestic life with Dan, we don’t live together and it feels like there’s no reason to mention him at all.

So there’s the worry of seeming aloof, unknowable and sad, the lonely divorcee. I’m like Meryl Streep in the French Lieutenant’s Woman gazing out to sea with my dreadful secret. Or maybe not.

Anyway I would rather stick pins in my eyes than do star jumps in the park in the middle of my working day, but I need to make friends with these women, especially my boss, another fortysomething. So I joined the Monday lunchtime exercise class.

I wear the new leggings I bought last week, which, I discover as I run, contain insufficient Lycra to keep my bum from wobbling. But that’s okay, a wobbly bum is going to help make me seem approachable and likeable, isn’t it?

The young lovelies from the sales department moan and puff. They’re not fit because they don’t need to be. Meanwhile the older women, including my boss, are taking it a bit more seriously in the way that older women have to. I realise that groaning and being pathetic might make everyone like me more - self deprecating is normal bonding behaviour with women isn’t it - but I just can’t help pushing myself. The trainer eyes me and increases the intensity. I take off my sweatshirt revealing worked out arms, a bad move that will no doubt instantly lose me the goodwill that my wobbly bum has earned me.

Oh what the hell. My boss and I are sent to run up a hill. I know it’s not a race, I should just hang back a bit, let her run ahead, make sure I get that Christmas bonus, but I just can’t help myself...

The next day everyone’s sitting around having a fun discussion about how much they’re aching after the class. I’m here, my legs ache too, I want to say. But nobody’s looking in my direction.