Depending on when you are reading this it is either about to be my birthday or it is my birthday.
“Yay, Happy Birthday Molly”
I can hear you all saying/typing and thank you that is lovely but
I mainly hate my birthday. I have written before about having a complex relationship with my birthday and at one point the 40th birthday party that Michael threw for me made me feel positive warm thoughts about the annual day of my birthday but as the years have gone by that seems to have slowly diminished and I am back to place where I wish we could just skip it. Actually the real truth is I wish I could turn the clock back.
Oh I know I am meant to embrace it, I am meant to celebrate that I am in my 40’s, it is meant to be liberating and fabulous. Kick arse older women are all the rage after all, expect there is somewhere in my head where I think/believe/know that it is all bullshit spouted by women to make them feel better about getting older. After all, there is nothing you can do about it, you can’t turn the clock back, you just have to go on, so why not embrace it and celebrate it, own it, right? Well I try, really fucking hard but sometimes in those private moments when no one is looking but me and I see the crows feet around my eyes, the grey hair that every time the dye washes out shows itself to be increasing dominating my hair, the wattle I am starting to sport beneath my chin, the fact that gravity is constantly tugging at my tits and I even like my tits, but damn can they just stop moving south for like 5 minutes I hate the fact I am getting older. Sometimes it is almost shocking to me how much I have changed in the last 5 years. I look back at pictures of me in my late 30’s and I think I still looked youthful and now I feel like I have to search for that in my face and sadly increasingly in other parts of my body too.
Don’t get me wrong I am not going to start ‘dressing my age‘ or throw out my heels and replace them with a collection of sensible brogues, or cash in my lingerie collection for some of those big cotton pants (just to be clear if those are your thing then yay for you, nothing wrong with them, they are just not my thing) I shall continue to be me, because mainly I don’t feel 45, I feel pretty much like I did when I was 37 but my body, well my body is betraying me and not just in the way it looks but in the way it acts too. I have noticed that my metabolism has slowed down and that no matter how much exercise I do, which used to burn off the calories I now need to drastically reduce the calorie intake to try to shift even a few pounds. It is just all really fucking annoying. I am not ready for this. I liked it how it was before much better than this.
I pretty much hate being 45, I am definitely not one of those women who all rar rar 40’s are epic and I am currently in complete denial that 50 might ever be a thing for me one day. It is not that I am unhappy in my life, I am not. I have the most amazing husband, I have a safe and secure home, my kids are happy and healthy, I am even for the first time in my life carving out something I think you can call a career for myself (those are not words I ever thought I would write) but I just wish the years where not spinning by quite to fast as they are and most of all I wish they would stop leaving their mark on me, they are not the kind of marks that make my cunt wet.
I have seriously thought about deleting this post. I am pretty sure I sound like a self-absorbed bitter knob and I really am not but these are complex and challenging thoughts and emotions that are for me all wrapped up in powerful feelings that I also battle with that I wasted the best years of my life sitting at home being a good wife and Mother. When I was truly young and nubile I failed to enjoy it. I read books, had fantasies, kept secrets but I didn’t DO any of it and yes I have regrets about that. I making for up for it now but that does not mean that I don’t sometimes feel very angry about that wasted time and when I say angry I mean rage worthy type anger. Aging doesn’t help that battle one little bit I have found. They are in fact personal battles that are tied up fairly tightly together. They are not fun, or pretty or nice or sexy, they make me feel raw and emotional and they bring out the worst in me. I am not proud of any of these feelings, in fact I actually feel quite ashamed of them but deleting them from this page isn’t going to help with that one little bit, in fact it will probably only make it worst so here I am on my birthday eve spewing some pretty ugly shit because holding it in sure has not helped silence it so maybe showing it some light might work. In fact, oddly, surprisingly even, as I read this back I feel incredibly calm having written this and even like maybe lurking somewhere inside me right now is the faint glimmer of something that might possibly be happy anticipation about my birthday tomorrow.
Postscript
Michael just finished proofreading this for me and when I said it is horrible isn’t it, I am horrible, he turned to me and said.
“No not at all, it is you being open and honest about a subject that you find difficult, there is nothing horrible about that. And just so you know, despite the fact that you see your birthday this way, I see it as a day to celebrate that you are you and here with me. It is a day to be happy and for me to show you just how much you mean to me and I am sorry I have not been able to change how you feel about your birthday but I am never going to stop trying. And you should always remember that all the people who wish send you birthday wishes tomorrow they are doing it for that reason too.”
And that is just one of the many reasons he is the best husband EVER
And for those leaving birthday wishes, thank you, I really do mean that, it is a lovely and welcomed and fabulous just if I am little quiet about it, well that maybe be because I am off in the woods somewhere with my camera ignoring the fact that I am another year older in the best way I know how…
23 comments
Thank God for Michael. I’m going to wish you a happy birthday… and Happy Cake Day… have some and feel good about yourself, Molly… because there’s a lot of us out here that love you and are going to say “Happy Birthday!”.
((HUGS)) I mostly just want to hug and cuddle you until your birthday passes and you can pretend it’s not a thing for another year. But Michael is right – it’s a celebration if you being you and a day for some of us to realize and remember what a privilege it is to know you. ((HUGS))
Happy birthday and I hope you spend the day naked with a camera and all the kinky fuckery Michael can dream up for you.
Not everyone likes birthdays (for a variety of reasons) and that’s perfectly OK (I can relate to your thoughts on the subject)! That said, I hope your day is whatever you wish it to be, and spent with those you love. Hugs to you!
Singing, in my best Mad Hatter voice:
There are three hundred and sixty-four UNNN-Birthdays, and that is why we celebrate with cheeer–!
/end serenade/
You are not required to like your birthday.
There are 364 other days from which to choose when it comes to celebrating You, and you can do so in ways that have nothing to do with age.
I hope your next turn around the sun is fantabulous. 🙂
Oh wow Molly what an amazing post. Thank you for writing, and not deleting, it.
I have a complex relationship with birthdays too… I was awful to myself when I was young. I despised my fibres.
It’s only by getting older I’m learning to love myself. So whilst I can’t turn back time, it would have been good to appreciate myself a bit earlier.
I’m in my forties and fast approaching the age my mother died… to me, this is feeling younger and younger with every year that flies by.
I totally understand your utter rage.
And I love you so hard for writing this and being so epic to post it.
X x.
I’m glad you wrote and kept the post, not only as it seems to have proved to be a little cathartic for you, but because it reflects how I increasingly feel about birthdays. However, as I age and worry about the things I should have done ten years ago, I think about future me and how I should be doing all that I can to enjoy life now so as to give future me less to worry about. It seems to me that you’re living life to the full, celebrating your superb body in beautiful pictures and giving future you nothing to worry about at all.
I hope you have a most enjoyable birthday with your wonderful husband.
O x
Hi Molly. I have so much empathy for this post. You’re right it isn’t easy reading, the rage springs off the page but so does the pain. You have every right to feel it but I encourage you to transmute it into something beautiful if you can as you do the pain Michael gives you.
Your late forties and fifties (and I am now looking beyond that 60th birthday celebrations at Eroticon 18 anyone?), could be exciting and vibrant if you can.
Love to you for putting this out there x
What a remarkable post! Obviously I’m one of those women who is a bit ‘rah rah, forty is awesome’, although tbh, I am a bit like that at any age. I do recognise some of what you say though; like you when I think too much about my late twenties – late thirties I do feel like a wasted a decade – not professionally (that was fabulous!) but definitely personally. I wish I hadn’t worried so much or been so nervous about trying things/finding what suits me. That’s part of the reason I am so rah rah I expect. Also, I hear you on the weight thing. I have three weddings this year and went to try on my pretty frocks earlier and none of them do up. I’ve got so relaxed learning to love my body that I didn’t realise it had swelled alongside my confidence. *giggle* *sigh* I used to be able to lose weight at the drop of a hat but I think this time is going to be a bit harder! Anyway, thank you for being so honest and I hope Michael manages to convince how important it is that we celebrate Molly Day!!! Xxx
I’m not going to wish you a happy birthday I know it’s not your thing. Instead I would like to say you are an inspiration and a delight, and whether you like your age or not makes no difference to the things you do. So keep on doing them they make a huge difference in the world.
Wonderful post. We love you, you silly old bat.
That was very English. 😛
Youth is wasted on the young. Silverdom and I both feel that we wasted our best physical years with people who didn’t appreciate us, and failing to understand that there were things we would never get to do again if we didn’t take the chance while we were younger. I tell my younger friends and relatives to enjoy their youth, and they look at me strange. They won’t understand until they’ve learned their own lessons. And if I don’t have the body I had in my twenties, at least I don’t have to relive all of those painful times.
Have a happy random spring day, which is no particular numerical day of significance.
?????
My mom and my best friend are exactly the same as you – they don’t like to celebrate their birthdays and they don’t like getting older. Many years ago, I think when my mom turned 50, we agreed that she can celebrate her birthday once every five years. She turns 70 this year, and she has to celebrate it, if she’s still with us. I respect the fact that birthdays don’t mean the same to everyone. Some love to celebrate it, others don’t. But like Michael loves to celebrate your birthday because it has special meaning to him, I celebrate my loved ones’ birthdays because I love them and love that I have them with me for another year.
Rebel xox
Oops, already sent you a birthday greeting before I read this.
It’s fine to feel however you feel about your own birthday. I wish you happy times anyway.
Don’t know if this will help or not but… I will be 53 this year. I’m not *wild* about being a bit more saggy and wrinkled than I was, but turning 50 didn’t hurt that much, and I try to tell myself that I can carry on being me as long as I want, and that there are advantages to being able to remind the youngsters that they didn’t invent kink/misbehaviour/pleasure.
And, having had yet another abrupt reminder of mortality yesterday (sudden death of someone I knew) I would rather all my pals had many more birthdays to come.
xxx
I posted recently on FB and the blog about depression I’m suffering lately which is related in part to turning 40 this year. And there are those folks assuring me that 40s are wonderful, they liked their 40s better than their 30s. I appreciate that but…I have a lot of health problems. I’m getting closer to the age my father was when he had his first heart attack. I worry ALL the time. I’m also noticing my grey temple hairs, my WHITE EYEBROW HAIRS, etc and hating them. I hate that I have jowls now, whereas my plump face has thus far covered up other signs of aging. I am not ready to turn 40 a month from now. So yeah, totally know how you feel.
Nothin’ wrong with this post, I feel so the same about getting older, except, except, I’m not carving out a career for myself, my kids aren’t that happy, I don’t have a relationship and the failure to hit milestones makes 41 and the droopy boobs all the more … worrisome.
Fuck it, be honest. It’s not like you’re not enjoying yourself too – you get to complain! It is your birthday! ? xx
‘I have seriously thought about deleting this post. I am pretty sure I sound like a self-absorbed bitter knob and I really am not but these are complex and challenging thoughts and emotions that are for me all wrapped up in powerful feelings that I also battle with that I wasted the best years of my life sitting at home being a good wife and Mother.’
So here is the thing. It *is* sad that you don’t like your birthday (and it saddens me further that you feel you wasted years of your life being a good mother while I’m wasting years of mine worrying about whether I’ll be a mother – it seems to me that motherhood is almost always holding women hostage one way or the other), but posts like this are what make you the huge asset to the community that we all think you are. Sex positivity, body positivity, age positivity – they’re nothing if they’re just a tight, painted on smile that people wear to pretend everything’s ok. Real sex/age/body positivity is about having the bravery to tackle the issues head on, publicly, shamelessly, even when it’s difficult, even when it’s not positive. It’s about letting people know it’s ok to talk about this stuff.
And you do that. And you do that amazingly well. And it’s just one reason I’m proud to call you my friend.
Charlie xxx
I like this post as some parts of it are familiar to me.I like birthdays but no big celebration.I celebrate your birthday and the ones coming next.Knowing you through this blog has helped me a lot and guess that is about a year since I read the first entry.I thank you so much and wish you had a pleasent day with your beautiful family.
I’m all for denial, re age. So please, girl, never ever act or dress in an “age-appropriate” way.
As for birthdays, remember that they’re really a celebration of you, and not really about age or ticking off another year at all. A whole lot of people, including the ones you love, saying, Molly, Molly, you’re fucking wonderful.
And make them give you presents, and bring you cake and champagne.
That is all.
And thank you for this post!
Wow ok I have actual tears here. I know exactly how you feel. Time is unstoppable but that doesn’t stop us wishing we could go back.
I’m 40 this year and I’ve had to beg my family not to throw a party because I just don’t want to celebrate. Right now I can’t see its anything to be happy about.
Reading this made me realise I’m not alone in my dissatisfaction with the changes each year brings.
Thank you for being brave and not deleting.
Candy xx
This has the painful ring of truth. I love being 45. HOWEVER, yeah, what you said.
I find comfort in the saying “Getting older sucks, but it is better than the alternative.”
“When I was truly young and nubile I failed to enjoy it. I read books, had fantasies, kept secrets but I didn’t DO any of it and yes I have regrets about that.”
Yes! So much this. When I was young and slim I didn’t appreciate it one bit. I still thought I was fat and lumpy and unattractive, but when I look back at pictures I was not! At least not until my mid 30s when I gained a lot of weight, which I lost again, and then gained again, and then lost again.
Ah youth, and it’s passing. It’s a cliche that it is wasted on the young, though how true cliches often are 😉 Our only currency against age is wisdom, the wisdom we wish we had when we had most need of it, when we had the freedom of our youth and our bodies, but our natures prevented us from taking full advantage of them. Eheu fugaces, labuntur anni. And so we go on and age gracefully 😉 Nevertheless, a sincere Happy Birthday dear Molly x
Ok, I won’t mention the “B” word. I will add, though, looking at the accompanying pic, that I hope its bite is better than its bark!
=f=
I’m sorry you feel this way, but I don’t think it makes you a ‘self-absorbed, bitter knob’ or anything remotely similar!
I think it’s so important that people are honest about how they feel, whether that is positive or negative. I’m sure there are people who feel really empowered by, and proud of, their age, who love their bodies more as they get older, or whatever. But there are also people who feel as you do, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Obviously I hope that you begin to feel happier with ageing and your body soon, and I think you are stunning inside & out for so many reasons. But please don’t feel bad for sharing your experience of ageing, your experience and feelings are valid *hugs*