I think I started calling myself middle-aged when I was in my early 40s, but I can't remember now. I went sifting through my blog archives to see if I could find an answer but instead I found that time when my brother left me a comment in which he pasted in the expanded version of (8!)!, a number with 168,000 digits. (And you thought *I* was geeky.)
Anyway. I am going to turn 53 on Wednesday and it has been brought to my attention a couple of times that the window in which I can call myself middle-aged is closing. I decline to regard it as closed, because the internet has a bajillion things (or perhaps (8!)! things) to say about "women at midlife," by which the authors mean "women around 50." It is probably just the preferred euphemism for "women whose ovaries are closing or have recently closed up shop," but it would be silly for women to be "at midlife" when they are 50 and straight-up old when they are 53 or 55.
I do acknowledge that I have almost certainly crossed the midpoint, with fewer years remaining than years lived, but here's what I propose: what if "middle-aged" means "in the middle quintile"? If I live to be a hundred, the middle quintile will span the years from 40-60. I'll be old when I'm sixty-- how about that?
Tell me what you think, but be nice, please.
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