Page 16 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

It’s certainly not on a par, however, with sitting on the sidelines at London Fashion Week or writing a pithy monthly column à la Carrie Bradshaw.

I dare say Ms Bradshaw would have a stroke if she poked her head in my wardrobe and tried to find inspiration from my shoe collection. I doubt she ever had cause to pop her head into Matalan to pick up a new pair of heels before a night out, or ever whooped with joy at grabbing a pair of shoes for just £3 in the Primark sale.

As for teen me’s ambitious plans to travel the world? I’d let myself down on that score too. Yes, I’ve been on a few holidays, none of which could ever be described as particularly inspiring. I’ve been to Spain and Portugal a handful of times, enjoying the best all-inclusive family fun offerings our budget would allow. I’ve even been for a week in a beautiful but absolutely arctic cottage in the Scottish Highlands, but aside from the cold, there really wasn’t that much to write about. Scenery? Lovely. House? Freezing. Too remote to hear the lovely lilt of the Scottish accent half as much as I would’ve liked. The wine was good. The end.

I’ve never climbed a mountain – not even a small one like Mount Errigal in Donegal – or driven along Route 66. I experience ‘the fear’ driving on the M2 into Belfast, which is one of only a smattering of motorways that exist in Northern Ireland. Any road with more than two lanes going in each direction gets my IBS gurgling. I have sworn at my satnav much too often for comfort as I found myself trying to navigate four lanes of traffic to turn right only to be told to make a U-turn if possible.

It is rarely possible.

My world, and my life, is therefore relatively small. It’s not much bigger than my own mother’s has been if I really think about it. I’ve always put the grand adventures on the long finger. I’ll do them when the boys have gone to university. I’ll do them when I’ve lost a bit of weight. I’ll do them when I can afford to take some extra holiday time. I’ve consoled myself all these years with the notion I have time to do things. But I’m not sure that I do any more. More and more I watch TV and there are adults on my screen who tell me they were born in the year I left school and I wonder how, in all that is under God, that is even possible. I’ve noticed that I’m slipping into that invisible stage of life that only a middle-aged woman can truly recognise. Too old to be noticed in the street, too young to be offered a seat on the bus. If middle-aged women were a colour, we’d be beige. Or worse still, greige. The kind of fad colour that everyone loves for a while and then gets bored of seeing everywhere so they just paint us out. Replace us with someone fresher and bolder.

I feel sad as I snuggle down under my covers, wishing I’d left reading the letter until morning. Nothing ever seems as bleak in the morning – not even the wistful witterings of a former incarnation of myself when compared with how my life has actually panned out.

I hope that Laura and Niamh have kept their own missives unopened. Today has been tough enough.

‘I’m not sure I’m a fan of this being a grown up carry on,’ I whisper into Daniel’s ear as he curls his body against mine. I feel his paw touch my arm and try to convince myself it’s his way of providing a reassuring hug. Chances are he just wants me to get out of the bed altogether so he can claim it all for himself, but I pretend not to be wise to his carry on and just give him an extra little hug back.

Nope, sixteen-year-old me definitely did not envisage that my only nocturnal companion at forty-six would be a dog with boundary issues.

12

A REAL FIXER-UPPER

I have realised I have a limited number of choices available to me at this time. I can choose to laugh at the letter and at how naïve young Becki was. I can scoff at her, fuelled by my years of life experience which have taught me that there are more than two certainties in this life. On top of death and taxes, there is also ‘shit happens’.

I can then toss the letter in the bin and forget about it, and given my memory at the moment, that would probably happen quite quickly. I really must look into some sort of supplement to try and save what is left of my cognitive ability to remember anything at all.

If I’m feeling really dramatic, I can get the old metal bucket that normally lives in my shed, stick it in the middle of the garden and set fire to the damn letter in it. It could be some sort of cleansing ritual. I might even get some sage in and burn it to ward off negative vibes. Then I can forget about the whole sorry episode and continue on with my unremarkable life.

Or, is it possible this could be something positive? Maybe it’s a celestial kick up the arse from Kitty or my dad, or my poor guardian angel who must despair of me at times.

I don’t turn forty-seven for another ten months. That gives me oodles of time, or more accurately probably just one oodle of time, to try and achieve some of teenage Becki’s life goals.

Okay, it’s highly unlikely I’m going to get to travel the world, take an Italian lover, suddenly lose the puppy fat that has stayed my life-long companion, or get a monthly column in Marie Claire or Red magazine for that matter, but surely I can do something. Can’t I?

I can fast-track this if I really put my mind to it. I can’t argue that I have the distraction of children under my feet – unless we count Daniel who is a de facto child. My parents are no longer forbidding me from having any kind of a social life. I’m even old enough, and in possession of a house of my own, so if I wanted to invite friends back – and by friends, I mean a man – for some alone time together I can. That thought makes my tummy feel funny, but not in a good way. I have not had the right kind of alone time with a man since Simon left, and if I’m being honest with myself, there wasn’t much alone time with him in the year or so before he cleared off either. No, he was too busy enjoying alone time with another woman whose name we do not mention. Ever.

It might be late on a Saturday night and it might just have been a long and stressful day, and I may be on the drunker side of tipsy on wine and peach schnapps but I suddenly feel more focused and awake than I have done in years and I know there is little to no chance that I’m going to get any sleep any time soon.

I read over the letter young me wrote once again, before grabbing a notebook and pen from my nightstand and scribbling down bullet points under the headline of ‘Key Objectives’.

Live a fabulous life: Young Becki wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or walk along the Great Wall of China. Middle-aged Becca already refers to her left knee as her ‘bad knee’. She gets incredibly, irrationally angry when it is too hot or worse still, too humid. But that doesn’t mean she can’t still do some of the fabulous things.

I could definitely still go to Brontë country and feel the stiff breeze on the moors. It might even be more fun now I know the true hero of the piece was Brontë herself and not, as I thought at sixteen, Heathcliff. What a disappointment he turned out to be!

Wash my hair under a waterfall like in the Timotei ad: First of all, I must ascertain whether they still make Timotei. Secondly, I must research a fabulous tropical retreat – with really good air con – which has a waterfall shower so I don’t have to stand under a freezing stream like I’m taking part in a Bushtucker Trial. Tropical retreat must have a hammock in which I can snooze/read.

Drive along Route 66 listening to the Gin Blossoms or Hootie and the Blowfish: No. Hours in a car with my post-twin pregnancy bladder is not a good idea. Nor, given my ability to get lost driving into Belfast, is giving me a car to drive across an entire continent. But, I suppose, I could do Ireland? Hire a convertible, turn up the Hootie and drive along the glorious Antrim coastline. I’m almost guaranteed not to get lost in those circumstances.

Find a love interest of Italian descent or who resembles David Duchovny in the early X Files era: As much as there is a little, tiny, teeny frisson of a long-lost libido eeping with excitement inside me at the thought of my taking a lover, there is a bigger, terrified screaming voice of my current libi-don’t laughing hysterically at the very notion. I have become comfortable in my big knickers and free growth of body hair. I don’t think I even remember how to snog, never mind perform any form of sex act. But would that be letting sixteen-year-old me down? Maybe I’ll look into dating apps. How bad can they be?

Have a very fancy house by the sea, with a den and a luxury lounge: Not going to happen on my salary. Sorry Becki.

Have a glamorous career writing for a glossy magazine and attending fancy media things: It’s a bit of a swivel to go from writing about the ten best ergonomic office chairs to getting a monthly column in Cosmopolitan. I’m not sure it’s possible in the space of ten months, but maybe I could do something? A blog? Definitely not a vlog or TikTok. Perish the thought! Could I approach any local glossy publications? Maybe Northern People? Didn’t one of my old school friends get a fancy job there? What could I pitch? Since More magazine is now defunct, maybe I could resurrect the Position of the Fortnight? But it would be Position of the Month, updated for menopausal women, and instead of sex it would be how to get comfortable enough to sleep despite night sweats and your bad knee?

Lose the puppy fat: No. Yes, I could stand to be a little healthier and not snack on all the lovely bad food so much. But I’ve been fighting this battle for almost half a century. Isn’t it time to just stop hating myself or thinking I’ll only be a decent person if I’m a couple of sizes smaller? I’m so tired of being so incredibly self-critical all the time. Maybe my goal should be simply to love the puppy fat, and myself, a bit more? Imagine how revolutionary it would have been to have embraced that message at sixteen. Maybe that’s something I could pitch a column about?

After writing it all down, I feel invigorated and inspired. I feel grateful, even, that I have uncovered the letter and the time capsule with still enough time to at least try and achieve some of young Becki’s goals. Maybe it’s also about time I stop referring to her as young Becki. She’s me. She’s Rebecca Burnside. And my goals might have shifted a little, or got lost by the wayside but I still have goals. I can still achieve things. I don’t have to ghost through life solely as a support act for the next generation. I’m not obliged to view myself like I would a carton of milk dangerously close to its use-by date – with suspicion and a reluctance to make any plans for it.

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