This is 48: a new view on ageing with joy
Why I'm giving up on chasing traditional success (and getting on boards instead)
I realised that at this time every year I’ve written a social post saying ‘This is’ and then whatever age I’ve hit that year. 45, 46, 47 and then this year it’s 48 (my birthday is on Sunday). The intention of the post is nearly always the same. An act of gratitude for all the brilliance that life has thrown my way, but also, if I’m totally honest, a level of self-reassurance that I’m doing ok vs a trajectory of success I’ve been indoctrinated into since I was small.
House? tick (by the sea, I am genuinely lucky on that one). Supportive Partner? tick. Beautiful kids? tick. Run my own business? tick.
On paper I am seriously lucky (and I recognise that privilege for anyone reading this thinking ‘how self centred is she’, especially given current world events). So why, like so many women of my age, do I feel so dissatisfied at times? Were we sold something that just doesn’t quite deliver? And if that model is defunct, what are we seeking instead?
I propose a definition of success that is far more bound up with spontaneity, with joy, with child like adventure. A big two fingers up at the aspirations we were taught to have, and the embracing of risk to feel alive again. Are you with me? Let me break it down.
When progression dies, so do we. Reaching the end goal is somehow dispiriting. Having it all can feel like having nothing.
If you were born in the 70’s, you were born in the era of ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’, bound up in the very clear perception that you would have one job, and that would be your life. Marriage, kids, they were all connected to that point of view: you work hard, you have a family, you retire and finally enjoy life.
It meant that my 20’s were firmly about having fun and my career. Work hard, play hard. My 30’s were still about those things, but having a partner suddenly seemed to be on the agenda too. By my late 30’s I was late to the party when it came to having kids, but I found myself on that ride too (I wasn’t forced by any stretch, but it was also never something I saw as being on the cards). In my 40’s we spent 3 years travelling and working around the world, kids in tow, and it was the happiest and most free I’ve felt.
Through all of these stages there was a constant goal that you were chasing. A feeling of progression, a supposed clarity on ‘what’s next’.
Literally none of those goals make as much sense in the world we find ourselves in (aside from the travel, that always makes sense to me, but it’s harder to do now financially). Buying a house is out of so many people’s reach (and when you have one it’s a money pit that doesn’t give back). Marriage is increasingly questioned as the end aspiration (and if you’re like me, we are now in the era of multiple divorces and co-parenting, luckily not me personally). We were the generation that spoke out for the first time about the numerous downsides of having kids, a streak of honesty that accompanied a rise in social media. It means that most of my younger friends have no interest in having kids at all, we’ve officially put them off.
We find ourselves having achieved these goals we were brought up to believe in, and now there’s a collective cry of “WTAF is next?”
Having it all means thinking about it all, and man, our brains are tired. Life jenga has literally given us brain rot.
I spend my life trying to escape whatsapps (which is ironic given I’m about to start one for Board Women, but that is pure joy, which is an altogether different thing).
Parent group whatsapps telling me I’ve got to remember £1 and no uniform for the next day. School whatsapps directing me to the new school app which directs me to a different app altogether to pay for the multitude of school trips in the lead up to Christmas. Work whatsapps with communities of people all trying to hustle to get work in a tough market. Family whatsapps with updates on what everyone’s kids have got up to, and attempts to find time in the year to catch up.
It is truly endless. Add a full day of being on a laptop, and a social media habit on top, and it’s no wonder our brains are fried. I read a book over the summer called ‘The Mental Load Diaries’ by Cat Sim’s, talking about why women in families tend to carry the load for everything. Spoiler: it’s not all men’s fault by any stretch. It’s also because we’ve been brought up to expect that we carry so much, we almost demand it, lean into it. The perfect house, the perfect life, we’ve bought into a narrative of success that we don’t know how to escape, and we’re drowning.
However, there is hope in sight. I’m watching people drop out of this treadmill, one by one. Friends are ditching social media, or becoming almost uncontactable on whatsapp. Others are walking away from big careers to more hands on (far lower paying) roles that keep them close to what they love. The focus for many has been on bringing down their living expenses in any way they humanly can to give them choice, and ultimately freedom.
Freedom has become the new currency, and I am absolutely here for it.
Board sports are providing the mental escape that our generation is crying out for: freedom through flow
I can have had the shittiest day and if I head out for a surf, or a skate, my mood is transformed. The sea in general does a similar job, but it’s more a case of working through a problem, rather than literally switching my brain off for a couple of hours. If you’re dropping in, or navigating a break, you can’t think about anything else. That is both enticing and addictive if you’re a woman in midlife desperately trying to escape the to do list.
Women all over the world are picking up boards. Surf, skate and snowboarding groups are emerging in every country, filled with women deciding that they want to lean into the kind of joy and adventure they had as kids, that their life needs, no, deserves that feeling at its centre. The Board Women community alone has almost 4,000 women spread across more than 20 countries in it.
Escaping the brain jenga makes you better at every other area of your life. Filling my cup in this way makes me a far better mum (less snappy, less frustrated), partner, colleague, person. That sense of ‘WTAF is this all about’ seems to dissipate when I get on a board. I’m not even very good at it, but in some ways these sports reward me to an even greater degree, because the learning curve of a beginner is steep. There’s always something more to reach for.
So this is my cry for a new measure of success. One with spontaneity, joy, and freedom at its heart.
We have so many plans afoot as a family to achieve this goal, not least the fact that our house is up for sale, as we experiment living in some different places with our kids, unshackled by some of the financial responsibility we have now.
But as I turn 48 this weekend, alongside the appreciation I do feel every year, that I am lucky to have my kids and my partner, lucky to have somewhere to live, to have a good life - it will 100% feature some time on a board to feel that joy and freedom, even if it’s just a taste of it. I hope you get to do the same.