A contemporary one

By Lizzie Nelson

When my daughter was five years old, she came back from school and said to me, “We light the way. Not you and Daddy, me and my friends, we light the way!” Blimey! To this day, I have no idea where that came from but now she is nineteen, I see her and her generation forming opinions and moving towards their chosen careers to ultimately take the reins. And lead the way.

As they move up, where am I? At 56, have I had my day? Can I still be considered contemporary? My daughter’s generation, born on the internet, have their fingers on the pulse of popular culture and with it, in my opinion, a fair bit of nonsense. I mean, do I know what an NFT is? Not a clue! Do I care? No!

As trends come and go, I am aware of them but not in any great detail. I remain a product of my formative years and I still think that it is cool to reply to most things my daughter tells me with …‘cool!’, I mean it’s a classic, isn’t it? I personally feel like a classic, not Helen Mirren quality perhaps, but you could wheel me out and stick me anywhere and I am fashionable yet nicely representative of my age and time, and likeable and informed enough to generally fit in anywhere. I still feel meaningful in a changing world. So yes, I can consider myself contemporary.

In this moment, we women are taking the reins and bringing attention to our ongoing value in society as menopause and ageing trigger old preconceptions. While our children are gaining relevance, we are saying that we are relevant. With all the momentum we are creating, just think, when our kids enter midlife and menopause, they will reap the benefits from whenwe lit the way.

How ‘cool’ is that?!

I’m quite behind on pop songs because the eighties were the best! I couldn’t tell you who’s number one or hum a Kanye West. I’m a bit behind on diets like Keto, Paleo, and fasting. I find the only result that’s guaranteed is intermittent farting. I’m way behind on emojis because they’re far too small to see. A word of caution, do double check what you stick with an RIP! I’m also behind on acronyms embarrassingly so, I admit. Who knew TOT was Tongues Out Tuesday for dog posts and not about flashing your…err… bits! I’m well behind on makeup, it seems you now spend ages to get that no-makeup-makeup look, in fifty thousand stages. But I’m way ahead on midlife; feeling feisty, in my prime. I sense my lasting value to the world because it’s never not our time!

Lizzie Nelson is the author of Fair to Piddling: A Journey Through Midlife in Humorous Verse.