Talk talks | Midlife & Midsize

Howdy from Texas, dear readers,

I turned 39 this week, an age that's slowly falling under the label of "midlife." How do I know that? Every day, the almighty algorithm feeds me articles about it. "The new life from your mid-30s. No more desire for sex, back pain, excess weight," is the title of one, for example. Reader comments are divided into the braggarts and the outraged, the former writing things like, "I'm 50, I don't know pain, and I'm constantly having sex," and the latter complaining along the lines of, "What's this about middle age? 35 is young!" Both annoy me. I constantly encounter the former with yoga-ultrafit and super-slim women who are stronger than me, but could be my mother in age, and who constantly brag about how they do yoga every day. Fortunately, we don't know each other well enough for any other kind of confession.

I have plenty of the latter in my circle of friends, women my age who vehemently deny midlife accusations. Why, exactly? In Germany, life expectancy for women is 83, for men 78 (haha). In the US, it's 82 vs. 77 years – here, too, a well-deserved five-year bonus for us ladies. "Midlife" isn't a mathematically determined number that only lasts for one year, but a long phase that entails an entire lifestyle. And that could well begin between 35 and 40, especially for people who have always felt a bit older than they actually are, like me. But even more so for my friends who go to bed far too early and hate going out because, as they admit, they've "become boring." Why not embrace the label "middle age," where such a thing is considered normal?

The main characteristics of midlife are different for this generation than for previous ones. The male midlife crisis is no longer what it once was: leather (inhumane), sports cars (too expensive), and affairs with secretary (hello, "work from home"!). I'd rather have hedgehog goatee extract, hair transplants in Turkey, and Sydney Sweeny's bathwater soap (I'm old-fashioned and find affairs more decent). For women, the fabled perimenopause dominates the crisis, which, according to the media, can begin up to ten years before actual menopause, which in turn lasts an average of another decade. Perhaps we should rename female midlife Menolife! Women have to arm themselves against both with an arsenal of medications, they say. At least we're taken more seriously with the symptoms than our mothers were back then. Also becoming increasingly popular in this new phase of life are girls' marathons, laser treatments and watching every TV and film production featuring the wig-wearing queen of the privileged bimbo role, Nicole Kidman.

Experts say, by the way, that midlife lasts until the age of 55 to 60. How do I manage to enjoy this time without becoming unbearable to those around me? I have a concept: 1. Ever since I read somewhere that prison inmates love routine because their sentence seems so much shorter, I've become a categorical hater of routine and try to be spontaneous as often as possible. It comes across as very bohemian, carefree, and mysterious. 2. No clichés or old-people noises! "Oh, time flies!" or "The rain is good for the roses!" Or a quiet groan before getting up from your chair? Not at all! I pull myself together while I can and do all of this within my own four walls. (Because the rain is indeed wonderful for my roses, which are my very typical favorite midlife hobby.) 3. No corny couple accounts on social media, no tattoos à la "my kids are my everything"! Just act like the family has to thank you on their knees for being there at all. Cool and carefree, like Nicole Kidman. She's 57, by the way, and would undoubtedly crush me in a yoga marathon.