In the book How to Age, Anne Karpf also talks about mourning: “Although it might seem paradoxical, mourning is an essential part of ageing with gusto, because it helps say goodbye to some features of life freeing you to welcome in new ones.” I think about everything I am now that I wasn’t three years ago, the age I felt I ‘lost it’. With every enlarged pore that appears I am more empathetic than ever, I feel wiser and, wonderfully, age has made me more selfish, in that I now do more of what I enjoy. I’m definitely a more interesting dinner party guest, too. Acknowledging that the young are beguiling and mesmerising because they can’t help but be, helps me. It is not my role to be young and beautiful (unless you’re 55 and looking at me, soz), and accepting that takes the pressure off. Wouldn’t everyone, myself included, benefit if I invested my mental energy in being an awesome girlfriend and a fun friend rather than fretting about no longer being sexy? Even I can see that my friends who accept their age are having far more fun than those sporting Invisaligns at 38.