Never Too Old for a Gap Year
AS I search the shops for a shiny green backpack, I wonder, shall I go to Mongolia in September or Guatemala in November?
No, I’m not an 18-year-old organising my gap year; I’m a 50-year- old woman who, after 30 years behind a desk, is exploring the world.
And according to both Saga Holidays and recent research, which has dubbed women like me The Nifty Fifties, I’m typical of the new breed who have swopped their slippers for safaris and Bournemouth for Bhutan.
I’m even thinking of taking a gap year myself some time soon, as I missed out first time round. Like a lot of students in the late Sixties, I went straight from school to university. When I dropped out after a year, I worked for 30 straight years in an office.
I may take my gap year when my son, now aged 16, has his. We could even arrange to meet somewhere like Australia or Thailand, if he doesn’t find the idea just too embarrassing.
If my husband would come with me, we could rent out our home for a year to cover the cost of the trip. If he can’t, I may just damn the expense, take a marriage sabbatical and do it on my own. After 22 years together, don’t I deserve time off for good behaviour?
People ask me how he’d feel about not having me around to do the laundry and share his bed. But the two of us have always been fiercely independent and he says if it’s what I really want, he’s all in favour. Plus, the thought of travelling solo doesn’t scare me like it used to. I’m far less likely to get hassled than some nubile 23-year-old.
I’m delighted to discover that ‘If you’ve got it, spend it’ has replaced ‘Save it for a rainy day’ as a motto for the over-50s. In a recent survey by Age Concern, only 25 per cent said they would rather save than spend.
So, following intrepidly in the footsteps of Genghis Khan or bravely traversing the towering volcanoes in Central America? It’s a tough decision.
Either way, I shall be raising thousands of pounds in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust, and look forward to bedding down in my sleeping bag as opposed to the Egyptian cotton sheets at some swanky hotel.
FOR us babyboomers, born between 1945 and the late Fifties, growing old gracefully has never been an option.
With later marriage and childbirth and longer life expectancy, by the time we’re in our 50s we barely feel we’ve begun. Among my closest friends I count one who has just ditched her job as a graphic designer and published a novel for teenagers, and another who has swopped her dreary husband for a lover ten years her junior.
The 50-year-old men I know are a little less brave – they just buy themselves a Harley and shave their hair trendily close to their heads to disguise the fact they’re going bald.
I’d love to tell you that it’s absolutely fabulous being 50, but of course it’s not that simple. In many ways, society is more ageist than ever and the only time women get lauded for being 50-plus is when they look at least a decade younger.
Not a day goes by without my looking in the mirror and discovering a depressing new wrinkle or blemish. But we fifty- somethings learn to focus on the positives.
When I was in my 30s and 40s I lived the life of a whirling dervish, stopping only to sleep – and even in my sleep I was making lists of all the things I had to do the next day.
Hitting 40 was far more traumatic for me than hitting 50. I was at the peak of my career – award-winning magazine editor, mother of a gorgeous baby boy – but all I could think was that having got to the top, the only way to go was down. How foolish I was.
When I stopped working fulltime to go freelance, I became a mean cook and got myself a dog – the hour-long walks every morning have worked wonders on my thighs.
Now I don’t think of my life in terms of ambition or regard it as necessary to follow any particular trajectory. I’m not happy just to sit still, but I’m happy to plan for now rather than to try to look too far into the future.
My latest incarnation is as a Travel Editor. I’ve just spent a week in Mauritius on a Press trip in the company of two women journalists and a PR girl, all attractive and single, aged between 28 and 31.
Only twice did I have a senior moment. The first time was when we went sailing and I couldn’t help but notice how much more snugly their skin seemed to fit their bodies than mine did.
The second was halfway through dinner on our last night. We were dining above the sea, on a jetty lit by torches, and being serenaded by local musicians.
How lucky I am, I thought: 52 years old with a new job getting paid to roam the world, and a husband and son at home ready to welcome me back. These women, for all their youth, have so much of the journey still to go – finding the right man, achieving their ambitions, embarking on parenthood.
Cellulite and batwing arms aren’t such a bad price to pay for all I’ve got, I decided smugly as I went to bed that night. I drifted off into a cosy reverie, then woke again at 3am bathed in sweat. The same thing happened the following night after I got home, and the night after that.
WAS this the punishment for my smug selfsatisfaction? A head-on collision with malaria from all those mosquito bites? And then it hit me. They haven’t had malaria in Mauritius for decades. This was more like a head- on collision with the menopause than a mosquito.
And that, I guess, is the bottom line. You can disguise getting older, but you can’t stop it happening. And with that in mind, you might as well just get on your hiking boots and start climbing mountains.