The Golden Middle

I recently had a birthday and true to my female vanity, I refuse to divulge my age. Suffice to say that I can safely be described as a woman of gracious years, serene and collected. It is a polite way of saying that I am looking down the barrel on the wrong side of forty. I have hit the golden middle!

If current trends in life expectancy are anything to go by, the forties are the new twenties. A time when you come into your own a time to ‘rock’ yourself, the time to rock a cradle hopefully, thankfully long past. A time to ‘reverse age’, whatever that may be. But most importantly a time to finally have some time to yourself, be who you want to be, do what you want to do and perhaps discover that you can safely leave a good bit of unnecessary baggage behind. As far as leaving the unnecessary baggage behind goes, you swiftly discover that it is easier said than done. Mental baggage can be shed no sooner you make up your mind. The physical baggage however is another story altogether, possessed as it is with a mind of its own.

Much to your horror you find that the body has spent many of the intervening years developing new ways of metabolism. It has apparently developed its own hitherto unknown short cuts from the lips straight to the hips. Gone are the days when you could subsist on a diet of sinful sweets and savories with nothing to show for it on the waist-line. Now, the rationing of intake for any upcoming festival season (and believe me, in India we have plenty) requires more planning than the general elections, aided and abetted by complicated diet charts, fit-bits, apps, yoga and Zumba gurus and smoothies so enchantingly ghastly that they will put you off food altogether!

If you are lucky, you still retain the title of ‘Bhabhi’ or ‘Vahini’ from your household help, sundry grocers, vegetable vendors and their ilk, but otherwise it’s a swift descent into ‘Auntie’ or even worse, the ‘Auntieji’ hell. Of course, this has been somewhat mitigated thanks to the now popularly ubiquitous ‘Madam’, which cloaks all ages and sizes under its forgiving wings. But the great deference with which you are now treated manages to raise hackles along the way!

If middle age is the golden middle, why, you wonder sadly is it the age when your hair develops a mind of its own and decides to start turning silver? Oh, the irony! The skin decides to cash in its chips too and begins to develop its fine lines rather like an expert artist who has not yet decided how much of pencil shading to put into a particular picture. You tend to thank your stars that you now need ocular prosthesis (glasses or contacts for the uninitiated) so that the finer nuances of age are left undiscovered! It is a world obsessed with youth you discover much to your horror, when the perfectly sane colleague who was the epitome of chic in elegant silks or handloom cottons at formal dos suddenly shows up in a tight ball-gown making you take in first- hand the sight of mutton dressed as lamb. Looking around, the number of ‘lifts’(no, I refuse to mention all of them) and hair transplants which abound make you realize that while plastic pollution may or may not be the undoing of us, plastic surgery definitely may!

A slight creak in the old bones on lifting something which you would have in a jiffy just a few years ago here, a slightly deranged blood report there, a tendency to walk into a room and wonder what you are doing there in the first place and an occasional feeling of being overwhelmed at the thought of boogeying away at yet another round of social dos are among the first few signs of a body trying to take it nice and slow even if you are desperate to up the ante and give it your all. The mind not only wanders but also boggles on occasion when you find that the one snifter too many (or in case you are teetotal like me) the one pakoda too many does not sit as well with a protesting tummy as it used to in the good old days.

The dear old mind is of course charting its own merry course during this time. It worries, it wanders hither, tither and yon, wants to have its say and strangely enough tries to rebel, much in the style of a wayward teen rather than the calm, cool, collected sophisticate that it is supposed to be. So much better for some unfortunates to suffer from a mid-life crisis, my dears! But, by and large, most of us have been down the “been-there-done-that” path by now. Also, having weathered a few quite a few knocks along life’s path, we tend to acquire a new kind of resilience, which keeps us swimming even when sinking seems the only option.

This golden middle is filled with its own golden challenges which often make people burn their candles at both ends. You tend to spend most of your time walking the family tight-rope between aging parents and their needs on the one hand and rebellious teens who are ready to take on the world and us on the other. Being called on constantly to fix this, that and the other creates paragons of patience of the most ratty of us. Many a time all that you long for is a bit of peace, with small mercies like watching a sun-rise or sun-set, drinking a hot cup of coffee while you catch up on your reading or just chatting with a stranger taking on a whole new meaning. While we miraculously learn not to sweat the small stuff, we tend to notice small miracles everywhere and they are what prevents us from turning into cynics.

Of course, for most of us, the children have grown into ‘adultish’ and scarily parent-like versions of their former selves, no longer cute and cuddly, but not completely detached either. They tend to think of us as people who are not to be trusted to take care of things on their own, especially if technology is involved, who might put their foot in things, or God forbid who might embarrass them with their misplaced sense of dressing or humor, especially with their peers or teachers. It is often with a sense of loss that you see your teen zipping out of the car while it is still running and a couple of hundred meters from the school gates and dash away, keen to put as much distance between themselves and you before you corner a couple of their friends and start talking to them! Wails of “Can’t you dress more appropriately for the Parent Teacher meet?” greet the best dressed of us, leaving us wondering on the wonders of parenting.

It was the Greek philosophers Aristotle and later Plato who advocated the concept of the ‘Golden Middle’. The term itself means finding a state of balance between two extremes so that a common view point is achieved. Unsurprisingly therefore, attaining this fine balance is what middle age seeks in human life. The trials and tribulations notwithstanding, it truly denotes an age when you can be at peace with yourself and look back upon some remarkable achievements even as you set your sights firmly ahead on all that remains to be achieved still.

The greatest fear of the human mind is fear of the unknown and when you find yourself floundering in unchartered waters without the familiar yardstick of youthful strength, it is perfectly fine to be thrown by this unknown. For this is what the golden middle truly is, a time of peace between the uphill battles of youth and the downhill ones of old age. It is the time to accept frailties, fallibility and foibles which are part of our make- up and yet walk on undeterred on the journey of life, to cherish and to accept what we have rather than running after the mirage of what might have been.

And thus, it is time to accept rather than fret over that slightly expanded middle. While age maybe just a number and youth just a state of mind, acceptance and wisdom are the true gifts we can give ourselves so that our entire life becomes golden and not just the middle.