life

THE TRUTH ABOUT TURNING FORTY

| sophiekemsley

Ten years ago, I wrote an article on this blog called “The Truth About Turning Thirty“.

Of all the 164858273 (or however many) articles I’ve written here, it’s still one of few that has had a life beyond this website. Thought Catalog published it, it had thousands of views worldwide, and was warmly received by a number of friends and acquaintances who shared it further.

An executive summary of “The Truth About Turning Thirty”? Well, essentially, it was about ignoring societal expectations and realising that ‘milestone’ years end up being a bit of an anti climax, and nothing to dread. In many ways, turning thirty was a relief. Didn’t have to think about it anymore.

Back in 2016 when I shared the article, a few older friends asked if I would do a similar piece in the future about turning forty. I remember wincing at that prospect at the time: “Forty?! I mean, I’ve just about handled turning thirty. Forty will be a whole new kettle of fat, oily fish. Really not looking forward to that one.”

If I’d historically thought I’d be married with children by thirty, then forty was a whole new thing. Not only should I have definitely had a family of my own by that point – and beaten that biological clock so many warned of – I should have also nearly paid off my mortgage by then too, be worshipping Himalayan salt lamps and all things magnolia, wearing cream linen suits to buy yoghurt-coated macadamias in M&S, and preparing for early retirement.

Or so I thought.

(An image which proves why AI isn’t a complete threat to art 😉)

The reality is, I’ve still not married. In fact, the closest I’ve ever got to an engagement is putting a beef Hula Hoop on my forefinger whilst snacking, and I’m unlikely to ever be a mother. One thing our generation of females was brought up leading to believe was a must do in life, is pretty much not ever happening for me (for a number of personal reasons beyond age, plenty of people become mothers after 40)… but, the Earth hasn’t imploded afterall. My mortgage is still massive and – thanks to the state of today’s economy – I’m probably going to have to carry on working when I’m a skeleton that’s been six feet under for 50 years.

But the interesting thing?

I care even less about any of that than I did when I was ten years younger.

Because there are two things that happen concurrently as you age, and they both repel each other slightly.

The first is that you think you should be continuously developing, progressing, moving forwards, and all that jazz. Just like all those well-intended lifestyle influencers on social media, who punctuate their prose with new-age words like ‘up-levelling’ and ‘manifesting’ – and who make us feel guilty for drinking Pepsi Max instead of turmeric-infused liquidised tree moss – suggest.

The second is that you have an ever growing appreciation of how fragile life actually is. And that if you’re just here, breathing, seeing, experiencing – then actually that’s enough – and that thinking about the next goal, whilst having its place and purpose sometimes, can actually become quite exhausting if constant, and detract from the things most precious.

And the latter of those two things is the one I find myself bowing into the most these days. A global pandemic that fell within my ’30s contributed massively to that. Remember that weird time, when suddenly we all realised how the smallest things – like shopping for groceries and finding one person to walk with – were actually exciting, and what mattered the most?

Maybe because they are. Always were, always will be.

After something like that, all those social milestones which had been plotted into the land ahead got dug up and chucked into a household refuse tip along with all the other fads of the past.

But even without a pandemic, I think it still would have happened.

In essence, the older you get the more you realise that time and headspace is better spent on the things we have than what we don’t have, and how precious time is. It’s nice to dream about tomorrow, but not at the expense of today, which is incidentally the only time we ever really have.

And then – as much as we wish to deny it – there’s a third element too. One which wasn’t as visible at 30. One which I hadn’t felt the need to account for when I was ten years younger, writing my previous piece.

It’s that of age, and the natural impacts it has on the body. Key limbs or organs beginning to struggle (for me it’s my peepers, damn you, recurrent corneal erosion…). Lines on the skin requiring more and more latherings of cream. Grey strands battling the brunettes and blondes for ownership of your head, making you feel less like Cruella and more like a full-on witch, pining for the halycon – by comparison – Cruella days of the past. The body slows whilst the days and weeks around it seem to accelerate.

The brutal truth that we are closer to the end than when we turned 30, even if we still – hopefully – have a long while to wait.

And what does that really mean?

It means ‘just press play‘.

Just effing press it.

Dance to the song that’s playing right now. Though there may not be as many DJ’s, cocktails and 2am boxes of fried chicken to go with it as there were ten years ago, there’s still a rhythm in there somewhere. But, if it’s taking a little while to detect it, then it’s also fine to take a rest for a bit. (‘Superstition’ by Stevie Wonder always served a great purpose as being a good time for a loo break in order to get back in time to celebrate the impending arrival of the Vengabus).

And eat more beef Hula Hoops.

Because ageing – turning forty – really isn’t a bad thing. At all.

(See you again when I’m 50. If I haven’t abandoned all things internet to join a magnolia-worshipping, tree-moss eating cult on some remote island in the Pacific).

LESSONS FROM A DODGY ELECTRICIAN

| sophiekemsley

My electrics blew out the other week. Completely.

The timing couldn’t have been worse, it was a busy Monday morning between important meetings and not only could I not get back online to attend said meetings, but nor could I boil the kettle to make myself a coffee with which to mentally deal with this drama.

Preliminary scoping of the problem suggested that only an emergency electrician could help me out here, so I got onto Google, did a few searches, deployed what I thought was a decent enough amount of due diligence and contacted the first one on my admittedly rushed list of contender soon-to-be superheroes.

He arrived 45 minutes later than promised and diagnosed the problem within seconds of pointing a technical looking thingy at my fuse box:

“Well, I’ve taken a look, and it looks quite a simple fix…”

My heart rose.

“…But it’ll basically cost you your left lung and a million pounds. So if you’re happy to just agree to all that right now and send over a 20% deposit along with all your remaining bags of Wotsits, I can get you back online within minutes, Ms Damselindistress”.

My heart sank.

I needed time to think.

So I thought about it.

And I thought that if that’s what it needed, if that was the only thing that would help me to carry on doing my essential tasks, then that’s what I’d just have to do, and worry about the cost later. I started to think about all the things I could sell to help fund this.

But then I observed a funny feeling inside, and considered the idea that this was all a bit quick and that this man might be a bit of a con artist.

And that he needed to leave immediately.

I channelled my inner Peggy Mitchell from Eastenders:

“GET OUT MA FLAT!”

Now clearly, it didn’t happen that way (although in hindsight I wish it had, as that would have been far more entertaining). In reality, it consisted of a sheepish call to my Dad for a second opinion and then politely, but also very socially awkwardly, asking the man to leave so that I could “process this”, and apologising for calling him out to effectively do nothing. So British of me.

“That’s fair enough, Mrs Kemzel. But everyone else is going to tell you the same thing. And they will charge you much more than we do.”

He left and – long story short – a more reputable electrician came a few days later and pretty much resolved the matter within minutes for a fraction of the initial quote. One 32nd of it, to be exact (I calculated it!). I then realised for certain, that I had been duped by the original guy. He had realised my knowledge of electrics barely extended beyond “switch it off and on again”, and tried to take advantage of that, to my – literal – expense. He created a problem that didn’t exist and threw jargon at me that he knew I wouldn’t understand enough to question, and I almost fell for it.

So what’s the point of this admittedly pretty boring story? Well, for one thing, it’s a lesson in realising that just because somebody might appear to be wearing the right badges and holding the right equipment, it doesn’t always make them trustworthy, or even right. It’s both hard and depressing to accept that there might be people out there with intentions that profit from the naivety of others, but it happens more often than we realise, and can have devastating, life-long impacts on vulnerable people.

I also thought more about our reliance on electricity and digital connection. There was a point during this encounter when I had my banking app open ready to depart with a considerable sum of money, not because I wanted to, but because I felt I needed to. And that’s a feeling that pretty much summarises most of our financial outgoings – bills, MOTs, boiler services, groceries (and I’m not talking about the fun stuff there, but the blendinthebackground omnipresents like celery and stock cubes) – all really boring stuff that doesn’t exactly excite us but is stuff we feel we need to pay out for because if we didn’t life would be a lot harder and we wouldn’t function.

Most of us sacrifice a lot of the stuff we want in order to pay for what we need. It’s a very lucky minority who don’t need to do that.

But I’d also argue that sometimes, we do actually need some of the things we want. We might be able to function without treating ourselves, but this life is too short and challenging to persistently do that without reprieve.

Being content and enjoying the limited time we have is also a need. Probably – definitely – the most important one of all, but when it comes to using money to buy things that can help us do this, it’s often the one we prioritise least, because we don’t get sent intimidating letters and our homes won’t fall down if we don’t do it.

I’m obviously not recommending that we all start spending our money irresponsibly, as that just makes things trickier in the long run, but I do think that sometimes we need to be as quick to consider handing over our cash for things that simply bring joy as we do for the more boring things that just support basic functionality.

Both because we want to, and because actually, sometimes we need to.

And if you still can’t convince yourself that it’s perfectly okay to treat yourself once in a while despite these tough economic times, then just pretend there’s a dodgy electrician in your home telling you that you should, and that if you don’t do it, your heart won’t function.

Photo by Malte Luk on Pexels.com

THE WHEEL THING

| sophiekemsley
Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

In a couple of weeks’ time, I’m going to be saying goodbye to the car I’ve been driving around in for almost eight years and saying hello to a new one. And though – on the surface of it – this is just a case of trading in one costly clump of metal, rubber and plastic for another, I think it’s going to feel a bit sad pulling up the handbrake for the final time and stepping away.

ThecarthatIalwaysintendedtonamebutneverdid and I have had a lot of adventures together over the years. It’s enabled me to get to many destinations for many different purposes, from rubbish dumps to mountain ranges, and all the places in between. It’s been privy to the worst of my language and the worst of my singing (which is also my only singing). It’s put up with my varied taste in music without casting judgement, and has never really let me down.

In recent weeks I’ve been driving a little more than usual (apologies, environment, I promise it’s just temporary) to enable some final adventures with TCTIAITNBND, and some of my favourite times to do this have been at night, when the roads are emptier. There’s something quite stimulating about it, and when you get a good long stretch of motorway it can almost feel quite meditative. No choice but to focus on the road ahead and nothing else. No phones. No emails. No aimless scrolling. Just the warming glows of blurring lights and the names of nearby destinations passing by, with the occasional illuminated views of people eating burgers in service stations overhead. You think about each of their stories – where are they heading to, and why? – and wonder what the wildest reasons are.

You are locked in the present in ways which can be hard to achieve during other activities, practicing mindfulness without even realising. It’s not always about breathing or colouring.

And when the tunes are blaring there’s the temptation to skip the junction that will take you home and just carry on driving, no particular destination in mind, and just seeing what happens. And you won’t, because you need to get back and fuel costs are still ridiculous, but you promise yourself you’ll definitely do it someday.

When’s your favourite time to drive?

SAY-SUN-ARA, SUMMER?

| sophiekemsley

This Summer seemed to go as quickly as it came, but there are still hints of it here and there (if you search hard enough!).

The other week I particularly admired the resolute energy of this ageing sunflower in a nearby field. It was clearly a bit beyond its best, a bedraggled, hump-backed figure swaying in a lilting September evening breeze, ochre petals that were once lemon yellow wilting and reluctantly falling to join all the decaying neighbours on the ground.

Gastropod inflicted holes. General bit of a mess. I think we’ve all pretty much felt like how this sunflower looks at some point, I felt myself developing a hangover just by looking at it.

But what I liked about it is that it stood tall anyway, desperately seeking out what final remnants of sunshine it could to prolong the time it had left to dance. And dance it would, even though everybody else had already headed home. Even if once steady sways were now somewhat more wobbly.

And maybe – at this time of year especially, as clouds increasingly come to nudge blue skies away – we could all do with being a bit more sunflower. This particular one, ideally.

Looking up, dancing on.

THE DIGITAL DICHOTOMY

| sophiekemsley

A couple of years ago, the watch manufacturer, Timex, took a swipe at the Smartwatch phenomenon by advertising an analogue watch (with actual moving hands!) that could ‘tell the time without seeing you have 1,249 unanswered emails’. The advert won a huge amount of plaudits and was considered to be very clever, whereas once upon a time – not so long ago – the reverse version of that statement would have been what impressed.

Promoting what a product lacks as opposed to what it provides has seldom been the foundation for excellent marketing technique, but in this instance it worked. It got people talking, and considering whether or not society is venturing into an era of digital malaise, in which our dependence on all things electronic is becoming as much of a pain as it is a convenience.

It’s something I have been thinking about more and more recently, triggered in part by the weekly notification I receive on my phone promptly at 9am each Monday. “You spent xxx more time on your phone than last week” it typically honks at me, and I’m never entirely sure if it’s trying to chastise me or for that or instead congratulating me for becoming further immersed into its features (and closer to 1984). Perhaps I should Google it, and see what other people think the intention of this notification is. All I know for sure is that it alarms me every time it includes the word, “more”.

Introverted extroverts like me can often make no sense to those who sit only one side or the other. You’ll think of us as chatty or shy, depending entirely on when you’ve met with us. We love nothing more than to feel connected with those we care about – in fact, we struggle if we don’t feel that – but we also crave regular access to personal space, and sometimes just don’t want to be ‘seen’. We view our phones as both a friend and an enemy at once, and since we need such devices for more and more things these days, we have to continually learn how to manage this somewhat complex relationship.

There are a lot of positives to it all. I think back to friends made in earlier parts of life and how as we diverted paths our friendship was restricted to the occasional letter received every few months (if that). The letters gradually stopped over the years and I could barely tell you anything about what they’re up to now, but had we been able to connect on social media, maybe we’d still be in touch to this day, and that would’ve been nice. I also think back to the times in which I’d only be able to resolve a bit of life admin if I was physically at home, on my computer, logged on to the internet. In many ways, I relish the fact that nowadays, you can tick things off your ‘to do’ list instantaneously, before they start weighing on the memory and mind. Transferring the money you owe to a friend whilst waiting for a plate of loaded fries to arrive. Applying for a postal vote whilst sat on a bus… digital technology is – without doubt – extremely useful.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Pexels.com

At the same time, I also worry that with a phone around, there’s never any real escape. We think about breaks – as a general concept- as a bit of an occasional necessity. They are. But is it really a break if you still feel compelled to respond to emails by way of the fact you have access to them 24/7? Or if you’re still reading all the same things that you would at home? I often recall being abroad a few years back and having a particularly lovely day out in which all I really thought about was what was around me in the there and then, throwing myself into the local culture and eating delicious food. I was feeling extremely relaxed and content, at a time when I had really felt I needed such a break.

Then, once I was back on WiFi, I stupidly opened up the Facebook app, and saw posts on local residents’ groups about people bitching about bin collections and the new charges for plastic carrier bags. I also had a couple of emails which prompted some anxiety. Within seconds, a small screen had transported me back to my day to day, the very thing I was trying to take a break from. I felt I may as well have been back at home, and then carried out a further act of self-sabotage by attending a yoga class. Two poor choices in a row!

You’d think the lesson from this would simply be to just not take your phone out, right? And a few years back, that would have felt possible to do, but nowadays – not so much. Going for a walk in the countryside? Better take a phone in case you get stuck or endangered. Breathe in that fresh air and panoramic surroundings!

Then see that text pop up about how your car insurance is due for renewal, and is likely to cost a limb (even switching off your data won’t have with that one!).

Heading to meet a friend? Better take a phone in case your train is delayed. But once you’re there you can put your phone away in your handbag and focus on your friend!

Until said handbag starts vibrating against your leg for too long to ignore, and you have to take the call because you don’t recognise the number, and it could be something important…

Up until it got soaked to death in a storm last year, I used to be one of the few remaining species on the planet who used MP3 players. Remember those? Just music and nothing else. It came with me everywhere for over a decade, and prompted many jokes from others alluding to my apparent love of antiques. Since phones can act as MP3 players these days and that’s what most people use, my traditional one was pretty impossible to replace, and so I succumbed to the trend. It’s been better in many ways, having no end of music to access thanks to Spotify and a decent data plan, but do I miss the days of being able to zone out to music whilst on the go without the fear of intrusion from emails and nuisance callers? Yes. Very much so.

If I sound like I’m bashing on technology too much, know that I believe the pros of it fully outweigh the cons. I would feel quite stuck and probably quite isolated if I didn’t have my phone.

But that’s precisely the problem.

Song of the Day: thenightsky – Lost Ocean

I can’t tell you anything about this band, as when I tried to find out more about them I got taken to a bunch of websites about custom star maps. Anyway, this is a nice Summer tune recommended to me by Spotify this week, so here you go.