There are some disadvantages of reaching your middle years: you need glasses to read the small print; sometimes your knees make a weird clicky sound when you get up and you realise that unless you're very lucky indeed you now have more years behind you on this planet than ahead.
But the advantages outweigh all this: the main one being I genuinely no longer care what people think of me. Oh yes, when I was twenty I claimed to be an individual, disregarding of other people's opinions, but that was only because that was the fashionable thing to say.
Let me clarify: there are still people whose opinion I care about and trust: if my other half tells me a dress doesn't suit me I'll have a good look in the mirror and probably won't wear it when out with him at least, and if my son decided I was a crap mother and he never wanted to speak to me again I'd be devastated.
Because, let's face it, we humans are a convivial lot: we like to feel we are part of a mutually appreciated group, liked and maybe even admired by our tribe: we are all a strange mixture of self absorbed and needy of external approbation. Our forefathers had the mutual support system, of their family and their small village, beyond whose confines few travelled. They also had the approval of God - subject to the relevant requirements.
Our culture is now global and for the most part secular: we are subject to the approval not of one tiny local group of humanity but potentially of anyone in the world via the Internet.
Which should make things easier: if you happened to be the "only gay in the village", a single middle aged woman who knew a bit about herbal remedies, or were born with a noticeable birth mark, in medieval times, you were probably headed for trial by water: if you drowned, at least you'd proved you weren't a witch and had escaped burning. Nowadays, wherever you live, you will be able to converse with people with whom you have something in common, even if that something is train spotting, following Justin Beiber or collecting marmalade jars.
So your tribe can be, and often is, formed around personal interests. Nothing wrong with that: Internet forums and appreciation societies have spawned thousands of friendships and indeed marriages. The problem is, being open to global friendship also opens you up to global criticism, whether personal abuse by Twitter trolls or far more subtle and persuasive media pressure.
Do you have the perfect beach body? Do you work out five times a week, drink eight litres of water and eat eight portions of veg every day? Have you got a capsule wardrobe full of this season's must haves? Is your car/laptop/TV/fitted kitchen the envy of your friends? What are you going to do about it?
Well, as it happens, no, no, no, no and nothing actually. Because I genuinely don't care.
I take care of my health, try to be kind and loving, and live my life to my own rules.
I have gone from 'Oh my God, how can I fit into society?' to 'Why would I want to conform to what the media - or anyone else - demands of me for their own agenda?'
And that feels good.
