NOTES FROM THE MIDDLE
Age, Life, Everything
December 14, 2025 Issue No. 04
A Small, Honest Moment From This Week
The Speed of Decline (According to Other People)
There is a particular kind of comment that lands not as an insult, exactly, but as a prophecy.
It’s usually delivered casually. Over lunch. Or coffee. Or as a passing observation that the speaker does not realise will live rent-free in your mind for the next decade and a half.
“The speed of decline is what shocked me the most.”
That was my friend, years ago, talking about her mother. A woman who had worked in the fashion industry her entire adult life. A woman who knew how clothes should fit. A woman who once treated tailoring as a moral issue. She believed there was a right way and a wrong way to dress.
And yet, after retirement, something shifted.
Bad-fitting jeans appeared.
Running shoes with a strong sense of purpose, but no aesthetic.
A general air of surrender.
My friend wasn’t judging the comfort. She understood the logic. No more office. No more clients. No more need to perform.
What unsettled her was the speed.
We all believe, I think, sincerely, optimistically, that we will age well. Gracefully. Stylishly. Elegantly. Like a French actress with cheekbones and a bob, photographed buying bread in a trench coat that somehow never wrinkles.
We imagine ourselves becoming more refined versions of who we already are.
A little softer, perhaps. A little wiser.
But still recognisably… us.
And then one day, without ceremony, sneakers happen.
And soft pants.
And a fleece enters the chat.
No one tells you how fast it can go.
This isn’t really about clothes, of course.
It never is.
It’s about identity erosion, the quiet, incremental shedding of versions of ourselves we once assumed were permanent. The parts that required effort. The parts that were shaped by external structures. The parts that showed up because there was somewhere to be.
Work does this. Parenting does this. Aging absolutely does this.
One day you realise that the version of you now is not the version you started as.
Which is both unsettling and oddly comforting.
Because if decline can happen quickly, so can reinvention.
That’s the part we forget.
We talk endlessly about aging as loss. Loss of energy, relevance, metabolism, tolerance . . .
And some of that is real. But aging is also a series of quiet edits. Some are lazy. Some are wise. Some are temporary. Some are reversible.
The danger isn’t fleece, exactly.
It’s unconsciousness.
It’s not noticing when comfort turns into disappearance.
When ease turns into resignation.
When practicality quietly pushes out curiosity.
I think that’s what my friend was really responding to that day. Not the shoes. Not the jeans. But the sudden sense that her mother had stepped out of the story she once inhabited and into a smaller one. Perhaps without meaning to.
Which, if we’re honest, is a fear many of us carry quietly.
Not that we’ll age.
But that we’ll stop becoming.
That one day we’ll look up and realise we’ve mistaken rest for retreat.
That we’ll confuse “I don’t have to anymore” with “I don’t care.”
So perhaps the work, at this age, in this chapter, is not to resist change, but to stay awake inside it.
To let go where it makes sense.
To soften where it helps.
To choose ease without abandoning presence.
And yes, to enjoy comfortable shoes.
But maybe not exclusively.
Because the truth is, we are always in the middle of becoming someone else.
Not declining.
Not arriving.
Just revising.
And if we’re lucky, the next version will look less like surrender and more like intention.
- Danielle
The Midlife Syllabus
Lesson #4:
Comfort is not the enemy. Unconsciousness is.
Beauty, Grace & Daily Artistry
I bought ice cube trays that make very large ice cubes — one square, one round. I tried the square first, in the short glass from Fable, with a splash of red vermouth.
For a few minutes, I felt like I was living inside an old, glamorous movie.
The kind where no one rushes and everything happens at cocktail speed. <br><br>
Grace was letting that moment be quietly theatrical.
Daily artistry was remembering that glamour doesn’t require an audience — just good ice.
What I'm Reading, Watching or Listening to
Listening:
Sierra Ferrell: Dollar Bill Bar
A smoky, winking little song that feels like a neon-lit jukebox confession. Equal parts charm and warning, it’s the sound of someone who’s seen enough hopeful hearts to know better, and is still generous enough to dance anyway.
» Hear it
This Week on the Blog
If you missed it, here’s the piece I wrote about a friend who used to send me a playlist every December — no announcement, no occasion, just this made me think of you, and that awful house party in Kits in 1997. A reflection on the small, unshowy gestures that somehow end up meaning the most. Read it, then maybe send someone a song this week.:
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