Middle age isn’t a number. It doesn’t automatically happen when you turn 40 or at any age. It’s a state of being. It occurs in that moment when you realise you can’t do all the things you used to do. It’s that place where no matter how well you live your body falls apart. Some of the signs include…

• Needing to moderate your drinking so you don’t lose a whole weekend to one late night
• Being forced to give up alcohol all together because it doesn’t ‘agree’ with you anymore
• Being forced to give up wheat, dairy, soy, nightshades or all of the above so you don’t spend half your life on the toilet
• Needing to wear glasses for the first time in your life
• Developing sensitive teeth because your gums have receded and being forced to brush with Sensodyne for the rest of your life
• Needing other stuff done to your teeth that costs a shizz load of money and hurts a lot
• Needing knee/back/hip surgery
• Developing thyroid issues
• Developing a melanoma
• Developing a middle-aged spread that won’t go away no matter how many crunches you do
• Having hot flushes (although if you’ve always been a cold fish this isn’t such a bad thing)
• Being unable to get back on your surfboard/SUP/kayak when you fall off it because your arms just aren’t strong enough anymore
• Finding yourself going to bed at 10 when you’ve been a 2 o’clock in the morning kind of gal for decades
• Needing to get up early so you can actually get everything done in your life like you used to before
• Staying in on the weekend to recover from the week you had at work

And which Tarot card celebrates this delightful new stage of our lives?

This one of course…

Temperance: Finding a new balance

The scary part of middle age is that it if you live long enough you might have to do these things for half your entire life.

What other signs would you add?