Almost Old #1 My mother turns 100

Apologies for changing the name of my blog yet again. But I have decided to write elsewhere about child estrangement and to make this a place where I can talk more broadly, with a focus only on ageing, something that matters to all of us but starts to matter more, especially for women, after fifty, the age I am at currently, an age I think could be described as 'almost old'. 

My mother turning 100 last month hasn't helped, though the cake was nice or should I say cakes.

They tell you you are only as old as you feel but when your mother reaches three digits that makes you feel even older than your are. I have to hasten to add to everyone who finds out my mother is 100 and there mouth snaps open in disbelief that she had her kids LATE, all three of us in her forties, me the middle one but of course. 

Then there is menopause, the most self-harming age for women, statistically speaking. It's not just teens that are vulnerable. They have their youth to fall back on after all. Society is generally very pro youth. You don't learn that till you are over forty or fifty, especially as women. 

I don't want to go into too many details, but the blood situation becomes extremely erratic and intense before it stops. It goes down with a fight, why, nobody knows. Possibly to tell women they are done with baby-making.

But despite all the concerns of ageing and menopause I reckon there is an 'age edge' too, an idea I am working on for the stand-up stage for a show I might call 'Almost Old' too. I'll let you know how the idea sits in a week or so.