Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up

by Alexandra Potter

I’m just someone struggling to recognize their messy life in a world of perfect Instagram ones and feeling like a bit of a fuck up. Even worse, a forty-something fuck up. Someone who reads a life-affirming quote and feels exhausted, not inspired.

This keeps happening to me now. It’s the weirdest thing. I read articles about middle-aged people as if they’re my parents or something, and then I suddenly realize—hang on, we’re the same age! But how can this be? I don’t look anything like that. At least, I don’t think I do.

“Don’t worry about getting older, worry about becoming dull.”

Life moves on. It has to. And yet . . . And yet how can the world keep on turning, business as usual, without them in it? As time moves on, the further away you become from the last moment you saw them. They retreat into your past as you travel into the future. The distance between you growing as their voice fades and the memories blur.

I’ve found friends and acquaintances keep their distance because they don’t want to upset you or say the wrong thing. What they don’t realize is you’re already upset beyond anything they could ever say or do. It’s their silence that upsets you. You feel isolated. Abandoned.”