Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mere acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on. Hello there, I'm Holly Wainwright, and I
Speaker 1: am mid midlife, mid family, mid holiday meltdown. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to jump in front of the mic here between
Speaker 1: seasons of the show we make here for you, just
Speaker 1: to reflect a little bit on the year that we've had.
Speaker 1: It feels in some ways like twenty twenty four was
Speaker 1: the year of mid I don't mean the year of
Speaker 1: this show. I'm not that deluded, although of course we
Speaker 1: launched in May, so I'll take it. What I mean
Speaker 1: is that it felt like the year that somehow the
Speaker 1: culture that uppercase thing decided that women over forty were,
Speaker 1: you know, a thing. In a serious way. Activists and
Speaker 1: advocates like Grace Lamb, who we had on the show,
Speaker 1: and many many more were agitating for a better understanding,
Speaker 1: more social and medical support for women going through the
Speaker 1: very many indignities pain, angst, and downright debilitating side effects
Speaker 1: of perry and menopause, and in a much less essential
Speaker 1: but very significant way, because people made art about us,
Speaker 1: lots of it, we were represented in movies by people
Speaker 1: who looked slightly like us, if through a soft haze.
Speaker 1: Anne Hathaway's character seducing a facsimile of Harry's styles in
Speaker 1: the Idea of You, Nicole Kidman mortifying her daughter by
Speaker 1: having afternoon sex with Zac Efron in a family affair.
Speaker 1: They're characters you understand, not them, Not Nicole and Zach.
Speaker 1: There was also a Big book. Many called it the
Speaker 1: first great Perry menopausal novel, which, when you consider the
Speaker 1: amount of dead trees dedicated to the male midlife crisis,
Speaker 1: is kind of overdue. I'm talking about All Fours by
Speaker 1: Miranda July. It's brilliant, it's unpredictable, it's a little dark
Speaker 1: and definitely wild, not unlike you know us. It's certainly
Speaker 1: spawn a thousand copycats. And then there was a horror
Speaker 1: film called The Substance that Demi Moore is going to
Speaker 1: win awards for. If you haven't the stomach for it,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. It's not a feel good flick.
Speaker 1: It's an exploration of the idea that looking older, wrinkles,
Speaker 1: sagging skin, the deepening of shadows is literally the most
Speaker 1: terrifying thing that can happen to a woman. Demi Moore,
Speaker 1: a woman who knows a thing or two about both
Speaker 1: being entirely judged by your appearance and about trying to
Speaker 1: fight the appearance of aging by any means necessary. Represents
Speaker 1: all of us who have ever leaned into a mirror
Speaker 1: and gone, who the fuck is that? And why does
Speaker 1: she look so tired? Moore's character loses her job because
Speaker 1: her job was to look young and lineless and fuckable,
Speaker 1: and so she goes to extreme bloody lengths to literally
Speaker 1: rebirth herself as a twenty two year old. It's a lot.
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of the year talking and listening
Speaker 1: to midlife women, and although they're changing faces and morphing bodies,
Speaker 1: are messing with their self perception, confronting all of us
Speaker 1: with the most visible signal that a clock is running down,
Speaker 1: it's actually not the most terrifying thing that they can
Speaker 1: imagine happening to them. That is more the big stuff loss, illness, irrelevance, abandonment.
Speaker 1: It's popular on the Internet to see memes and videos
Speaker 1: where midlife women have to choose from a fistful of inevitabilities,
Speaker 1: something like get divorced, give up gluten, start a sleep regimen,
Speaker 1: make menopause your whole personality, take up gardening. And yes
Speaker 1: it's reductive, because getting divorced is only almost as life
Speaker 1: altering is giving up bread. But gardening really is the
Speaker 1: divisive issue of this age, and someone needs to admit it.
Speaker 1: The thing is mids. It feels sometimes like this window
Speaker 1: of time, And I don't like to put numbers on it,
Speaker 1: because I'd argue that mid is more of a state
Speaker 1: of mind. But let's say it's forty ish to sixty ish,
Speaker 1: thirty five ish to sixty five ish. It's a window
Speaker 1: where a lot of big things happen. And if you're
Speaker 1: here at the end of the year, still standing despite
Speaker 1: maybe going through some of what we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show, divorce, bereavement, your body rebelling on you, finding
Speaker 1: yourself suddenly invisible, worrying about what the heck you're going
Speaker 1: to live on as prices increase and opportunities decrease, children
Speaker 1: growing up in a way, letting go of the idea
Speaker 1: of having kids at all. Then you're doing better than
Speaker 1: that fictional version of Demi shivering on the cold, hard
Speaker 1: tile of a bathroom floor, selling her soul to put
Speaker 1: her nipples back in the same spot they once were.
Speaker 1: Something interesting's going to happen to us Mids as we
Speaker 1: become more visible and audible and recognized as that most
Speaker 1: powerful of things, an economically powerful group, a desirable market.
Speaker 1: We're going to see ourselves in our lives, what matters
Speaker 1: to us, what doesn't reflected back to us in all
Speaker 1: kinds of ways. We're going to be sold solutions to
Speaker 1: our issues, from sleepless nights to itchy ears and wrinkly brows.
Speaker 1: And some of those solutions will work and soothe and
Speaker 1: enrich us, and so won't, and they'll infuriate us because
Speaker 1: we're in our trimey era. But while the world clamors
Speaker 1: around the Mids with its promises to keep us young,
Speaker 1: it feels to me like it's also been the year
Speaker 1: to lean into understanding that young isn't the only good
Speaker 1: thing to be, and that being Mid, with our cracked
Speaker 1: hearts and our wicked stories of adventures past and big,
Speaker 1: and our clear eyed plans for what's still ahead, is
Speaker 1: actually a very powerful place to be. It's just that
Speaker 1: as the clamor pushes in, we need to make sure
Speaker 1: we can hear the answer when we ask ourselves. But
Speaker 1: what do we want from Act two, from the next
Speaker 1: part from the Harvest, as some call it, the time
Speaker 1: when the fruits of all our labors are ready to enjoy.
Speaker 1: What do we want twenty two year old boobs like
Speaker 1: in Demi's horror movie. Well, absolutely, but more than that,
Speaker 1: we want choices. We want adventures. We want clothes that
Speaker 1: fit and delicious, nourishing food and exciting sex and deep
Speaker 1: belly laughs with all kinds of friends. We want our
Speaker 1: people all around us, whatever that looks like. We want
Speaker 1: work that sustains us, and art that provokes us and
Speaker 1: conversations that matter. And we want to know that whatever's next,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a fucking ride. Here's to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five mids. I can't wait to be back in
Speaker 1: your ears as summer ends and everything begins again.