Why I'm finding my 40s frustrating

Or, am I having a midlife crisis?

I have been feeling guilty about Substack for months. Several times over the past few months I have loaded up the platform ready to write a post, then veered off again, the merest suggestion of a headline written. I am only posting this now through gritted teeth, because I am forcing myself to write and banish the block (and also because I keep getting notifications of new subscribers and the additional guilt is tipping me into action).

Why? Until now I’ve never really suffered with writers’ block. Usually because I’ve had a mega deadline hanging over me and have had to just bang out whatever piece I’m supposed to be writing - the hardest thing has been moving from the pages and pages of notes to actually putting the bloody thing together (also, let’s be frank, I was getting paid). I’ve had a brief, a wordcount, a working headline. And even when I’ve been stuck within those parameters I’ve also always been comforted by the advice of one former boss who reminded me that, as a professional journalist, even my most mediocre piece of work was likely to be much better than what most people could put together. Wise words in those blockiest of moments.

Substack though… that’s all on me. And there are SO many people on this platform, all vying for the attention of your eyes. What could I possibly have to contribute to the general discourse? It’s why I didn’t even start a Substack for ages (not another one, I thought). When I first decided to give it a go, I thought I’d dedicate this one to all the interesting and different things I was learning by living up here, and lift the lid on all sort of secret Northern discoveries. That hasn’t really happened either. Then I kept reading Substack pieces by Sophia Money-Coutts that next day found themselves on the pages of the Times, virtually unchanged, and I panicked that I should be putting together insightful pieces that would turn into lucrative paid journalism. So that paralysed me for a while. Then I read India Knight’s excellent advice on how she does Substack and thought gosh, who am I writing for? So that paralysed me a bit more, even though her advice should have done the opposite.

I think it’s partly because Substack is both another thing to experiment with and another thing to do, and both of those reasons seem particularly stressful right now, in my almost-mid 40-s (I’m 43), when I’m experiencing quite the maelstrom when it comes to life, work, ambitions and the rest.

Some background for newish readers: I left London a year ago to live in Yorkshire; we moved for my husband’s job although I grew up here and my folks live half an hour up the road which is lovely; we won’t be here forever (his job, again). I swapped my longstanding job as an editor on a broadsheet newspaper for freelance life - not exactly my choice at the time, but the paper couldn’t make it work unless I could be in the office 24/7 and obviously I couldn’t as I now lived 200 miles away and also have 3 children who need to be taken to school each day and fed etc. My job wasn’t worth dividing my family for, so I left. It’s actually been a good thing: I am loving writing again; I like having control over my time; I really, really don’t miss the office politics; it has given me confidence that I can still earn a living without being employed by someone.

However, leaving also disturbed the nice thoughtless equlibrium I had before, namely, working v hard at my job and trying to inch my way up the career ladder while also juggling kids and trying to have something of my own life outside the two. I was busy but mostly happy and thrived on the vague stressfulness of it (I always function better when I have slightly too much to do), and never really stopped to ask whether it was how I wanted my life to be, or what I might want instead - I was too busy earning the £ then watching it go straight out of my bank account on things like school shoes and grocery shops but also being grateful I could pay for those things and we could also go on holiday occasionally and pay our mortgage and I was doing something interesting in order to earn the money to do that.

Then everything completely changed and I suddenly found myself forced to answer those questions - like whether I still want my working life to look like this in five years time, and what I want to commit any other time outside of work to, and whether I want to start or do my own thing or ultimately go back into an office to be part of a bigger team. And in between all that was losing not just my daily routine and my regular pay cheque but my extra curricular activities (I sang in a choir and did weekly painting classes and did yoga at work and swimming at our local pool) and my network of people and basically all the fixed points I’d worked my life around (including what to wear every day, which did at least turn itself into a piece). All of which meant that yes, in one sense the world was my oyster. But also it wasn’t exactly - because I still had to earn a certain amount of money, to pay all the bills, and as our absolutely gorgeous au pair didn’t come with us, all the domestic admin could no longer be shared - and as anyone with 3 kids and a dog knows, there is an awful lot of attendant drudgery: laundry, cleaning, cooking, dishwasher emptying. It is SO fucking boring, and relentless. Where on earth, amongst all that practical need, could I possibly have time to work out any sort of coherent plan for my future, or even current life?

I know I’m not the only one who feels like this, and I also think it’s peculiar to women in their forties. (Men too, but they have a different sort of midlife crisis, one that I’m not qualified to write about). Basically, for a lot of women with children, their forties are the first time they have to look up and breathe a bit - we’ve got through the breeding stage, and the breastfeeding stage, and the weaning stage, and the naps and the kids tea at 5pm and the need for absolute routine in everything. And we’ve stopped feeling just grateful to have a job at all and we’ve started to ask, is this it? What next? But then we get distracted by another load of sodding laundry.

I was talking to my friend Molly about this recently; she also moved up here last year, leaving her job at the BBC, and is in a similarly questing stage of life. My Mum, too, told me that in her late 40s she’d really wanted to go back to art school (she is a ceramicist) and study more, and it was linked to this stage of life and being ready for the next step. But she never did as she just didn’t quite have the gumption - and also, all the bloody things that still needed doing (I am also one of three children and we also had a dog, and my father also worked very long demanding hours which meant most of that domestic admin also fell on my Ma).

I keep reading pieces by and listening to podcasts from women who are just at that next stage of life from me, in their fifties. All of them say it’s so bloody great, being 50-plus, as you no longer give any shits, and also presumably their children are grown up enough to look after themselves and perhaps there’s even some spare cash floating about. I haven’t got there yet.

So where are my fellow swamped forties pals? The ones who can now go out for work drinks as they don’t have tiny children, but can’t swan off for a weekend somewhere exotic without extensive logistical planning; who spend hours reading Substack newsletters featuring delicious recipes but default to the same spag bol and baked potatoes as a) they don’t have time for the former and b) there’s always the risk everyone will hate it; who would love to have some sort of creative outlet but find themselves slumped on the sofa watching Rivals instead (but no shade to Rivals, I bloody loved it); who scroll through Instagram feeling guilty that they don’t spend their spare time redecorating their child’s bedroom or baking with their kids; who long for something new and different and feel just on the cusp of it but can’t quite get there? And who, perhaps, have no idea who they’re writing for on Substack either? or is that just me?

Something to save up for

One thing I do know I have in common with my fellow forty-odd year olds is a magpie-like list of things we’d love to have - in our wardobes, in our homes, on our tables. I have a permanent Google doc called ‘Wishlist’ so I don’t lose track, as well as specific lists on my phone for things I’d like to buy for our house (now sadly rented out to other people, but that doesn’t stop me mentally refurnishing it at night when I can’t sleep).

The Kit cabinet in Poppy from Mustard Made, £179.10

I’ve decided this is the very thing to go on our top floor landing on the wall as a medicine cabinet - a far better alternative to the basket of random potions and creams that I had before. Isn’t it jolly? And on sale too.

Yorkshire excellence of the week

This is quite honestly the sexiest food I have EVER eaten. It is a scallop cooked with spruce and fermented celeriac, and was part of a tasting menu with wine pairings that I went to recently at Roots, a Michelin-starred restaurant in York run by the chef Tommy Banks, who is lovely and was v helpful for a piece I have written that will run shortly in the Sunday Times Magazine (watch this space).

Even thinking about this scallop makes my stomach lurch in that way it does when you spot someone you really fancy that you were hoping would be at this party on the other side of the room and he gives you a nod and you know you’re going to make your way towards each other and flirt a bit and maybe even end the night with a kiss, and the lurch is pure excitement and anticipation and fizz. That’s what this scallop was like.

I ate this tasting menu with my husband, with whom I had such a moment almost 19 years ago. We got quite tiddly (10 different glasses of wine on a Thursday night will do that to you) and had a lovely time.

Resolution of the week

Perhaps if I commit it to Substack it’ll actually happen. This year I’ve decided I’d like to make a Quincemas cake, as advocated by Judith Magee. I only haven’t bought the quinces yet as I need to find a good recipe. Please leave any suggestions below!