The Sun-Herald

Wanted: a toyboy for the tree fairy

Every Christmas, I ponder the march of time. It's been happening for a few years; right around now, the same unwelcome thought pops up like a stray credit card bill in Santa's sack and suddenly I'm wondering why the decades are hurtling by so fast.

Perhaps it's because Christmas consists mainly of things you see just once a year, and everything looks older after 12 months hidden away. Then it's only a small step from the box of fading tree decorations to the mirror, and wondering exactly how many of your own Christmases are starting to show.
"I hope I'm ageing gracefully," Mum said to me recently. "No-one seems to, these days." She reckons no-one's willing to surrender their youth any more and soon real young people won't be able to enjoy themselves because their clothes, music and culture have been hijacked by the world's growing army of ageing 'kidults'. You know, the ones who read Harry Potter and buy streetwear well into their second half-century. And the forty-something man who lives near me and rides a skateboard to work. (I don't care if he's in a creative industry - it looks daft. I work in a creative industry too, but I don't feel compelled to ride a pink tricycle to work.)
And yet forty-somethings and teens buy the same labels. More men than boys will find Playstations under their tree next week.
In my thirties, I frequently ask myself: am I ageing gracefully? You can very easily take your eye off the ball and before you know it, people are muttering 'mutton' as you totter past in something small from Dotti. Last week I reached for a hot pink hoodie on a clothes rack and a teenager beat me to it. I like the same music as my 13-year-old cousin. She's been eyeing off my MAC lipsticks.
Down at her end of the age spectrum, ageing gracefully just means doing it as fast as possible. When I could still count my years on two hands I remember believing that really, I was old enough to wear heels and make-up and catch George Michael's eye (of course, I had no idea this was an ambition best left to the little boy two doors down who liked Barbie). Back then, just like now, I had two ages: the real one and the imaginary ideal. We all do.
These days, though, they're the same thing. That's what's disturbing Mum; the old yardsticks for charting our progress through life have gone. Marriage and kids don't date you the way they used to, and besides, they're just one of a zillion choices available during that extended window called life. Demi Moore may raise eyebrows, but with her definition-defying mix of kids, career and toyboy husband, she's flying a proud flag for our century's latest phenomenon: ageless living. Whether you call it your prime, peak or even 'kidult', it's simply where you happen to be at, and it isn't measured in numbers.
One of the saddest poems about ageing is TS Eliot's The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, about a man mourning his lost youth. He ogles young beauties and sighs: "they will not sing to me." Well, these days they'd hand him the Viagra and bear his children. Even better, their younger brothers could be dangling off my arm when I'm Demi's calendar age.
There are pitfalls to ageless living because we're still learning how to navigate a life without landmarks, but on the whole I'm glad those landmarks are disappearing. Agelessness can be confusing, but it's liberating.
Besides, those Christmas baubles don't look so bad. The fairy on my parents' tree is the Goldie Hawn of decorations; keeping it together with her abundant blonde hair and two-centimetre waistline. You wouldn't know she hasn't been young since the sixties, or that she's had work done - a ballpoint pen under her skirt in place of legs that dropped off years ago. I think she should have a toyboy this year, because it's lonely at the top.