October 31st 2019

Dearest Woolworths,

In reference to the product I purchased from you in the naïvety of my youth, that being middle age - er, I want my money back. On the grounds of it being mis-sold. I was led to believe that life would be settled, calmer, and I'd know who and what I was. More fucking poignantly, where I was going. None of the above boxes have been ticked and I am (it would appear) heading, if not in the midst of, that hallowed time of life. I feel, in some ways, more in flux and turmoil than I did at 18 or even 25 (and 25 was a pretty dire year).

I'm confused...does middle age occur after a mid life crisis or does a mid life crisis occur amidst? I think I'm having one, and although I'm currently referring to it as an existential crisis, I'm gathering that's just a fancy name. Everyone I know seems to be having one (it's very fashionable darling) and, I've checked and read over the small print a 1000 times and you didn't mention that anywhere. The Marks & Sparks middle age package mentioned a 'brief period of adjustment' and it was also more expensive, hence me going with you Woolworths, so I assumed, wrongly, that it would be a smooth passage. I think I want my money back...I think a lot folk do... This is not what I paid for!

I'm confused, about who and what I am. Find myself inexplicably drawn towards things, people, places, haircuts, objects that I think will add meaning and then - they don't. I push people away, am still changeable and erratic, I have even less capacity to hold my tongue and, to make it worse, my sex drive has done the opposite of decrease. You said it would! You added that as a negative actually. At the point I bought it, I saw that as a positive because, Good Lord that takes up a lot of energy and is distracting. I was looking forward to a reprieve. You lied Woolworths. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

I understand that you've now gone out of business (probably lost all your money being taken to court by people like me, angry at missold middle age) but I just needed to say my piece. Middle age is NOT, seemingly, about being settled and feeling calm; content and cosy, it's about feeling a raging fire deep within you to find the right path before... before it's too late...aghhhh! Too late for what I wonder...too late for happiness, to have the energy to keep shifting gear? Mmm...

Yours Ms gonna be 44 next birthday and wondering what's next.

Dear Ms gonna be 44 next birthday and wondering what's next.

We are sorry you feel let down by our mid life package you purchased 20 years ago. If you refer to paragraph 6 it does state that;

<this package works slightly differently for different people and if you don't fit the spec of our *standard individual* then you will not get the prescribed outcome. It needs to be varied in accordance. Fluctuations and anomalies may occur in those pre disposed to free thought and prone to creativity.>

Your 'existential crisis' therefore, may be a result of your not fitting the spec of a standard individual and being prone to the aforementioned free thought and creativity. Perhaps you should have worked harder to conform in your youth? No money will be returned but we can offer you this free calender from 1994 featuring weather.

Kind Regards

Madame Woolworth

May 11th 2021

Dear Woolworths,

Thank you for the calender featuring weather from 1994, it did little really to smooth the wrinkles of my distress but life in this last year has seemingly done the trick. I am now not far off 45 and in the last year and a half since I wrote to you I have begun on a new path career wise and in many ways am feeling less like I don't know where I'm going or who I am. But. I still query the necessity of adding in a full scale global pandemic, a knee operation, a still as yet undiagnosed and bizarre health condition and the rigours of a child going through puberty (just as my hormones are on the wane), to make that crisis consolidate into the goal at hand; transition; mid life. That barrage has been unnecessary and a little excessive I must say. Just 1 of those items would have worked. I currently have no energy, time (not to mention the opportunity) to unleash, or even want to, an out of check sexual impulse on the world (or anyone actually) and I could no longer care less about many of the whiny preoccupations I had a year and a half ago. Does this mean I have been through my period of 'adjustment' and I am now fully middle aged? Post crisis, just IN IT...

I think in many ways, it was a stroke of genius to throw in 'the pandemic' idea, because I know soooo many people who have gone, rather speedily, from 'mid-life existential crisis' to feeling lethargic and full blown middle aged in this last year. Yes, removing freedom, distraction, adding in the threat to life, the constant fear of death/losing loved ones, and forcing most people to sit at home, watching TV, eating cheese and drinking wine is a good way to do it. FFS, I even sound middle-class now! How did that little feat of deracination happen? No, I don't eat ACTUAL cheese, I'm dairy intolerant (of course darling), but I do have slippers, a onesie and even a skin care routine. Because yes. I actually need one now, being old and baggy in the face.

I am far from feeling cosy, content and settled... I still have many things to work through but one thing I do know is that... Life can change dramatically from 1 year to the next - even within the space of a few months because, it was literally only a few weeks after I wrote to you that I started the wheels turning to be on the path I am now. Which no. Is not a grade A, certified, fast track to Buddahood and enlightenment, but we make changes when we are ready and sometimes...sometimes we only realise we are ready when we have spat our dummies out and realised we are lost.

Yours Ms Gonna be 45 next birthday and no longer as anxious about what is coming next.... Not quite found but definitely not lost.

Dear Ms Gonna be 45 next birthday and no longer as anxious about what is coming next,

I have recently set up business again on my own and would like to show you my new menopause range. I see you didn't think to include that in your mid-life package and I am just concerned about the short-sightedness on your part, seeing as you are edging dangerously close to that time of life my dear.

I am very happy that our mid-life package appears to have finally worked for you and urge you to consider trying at least 1 product from our Peri to Post range. Starting at just £9,859, the aim is to make you forget about what's going on inside your body by giving you something more poignant to focus on externally. Content is over rated - style is the way forward in these dark days! I also have a side deal going with Netflix, if you wanted to sell your menopause to them (as an NFT). Gwyneth Paltrow and Katie Hopkins have both done this if you need some inspiration!

I hope to hear from you soon,

Yours eggless, hollow and bleached of life but somehow working the body of a 19 year old (despite being 86), with a face closely resembling that of a Yunnan, snub nosed monkey.

Madame Woolworth

23 May 2022

Dear Madame Woolworth,

Thank you for your delightfully blunt yet somehow managing to completely miss the point letter. I feel, over this last few years, our interactions have been a valuable source of humour, yes, but also introspection for me.

I write this now coming up to 46 and I have to say, I look back on the woman who wrote that initial letter, 2.5 years ago, not long turned 43, with a sense of fondness but also sadness, because... I am no longer her. I have definitely come through something in this last few years, and call it what you will: an existential crisis (resulting in something perhaps closer to nihilism than existentialism), midlife crisis, middle age - I am definitely changed. And thank you for being here with me on that journey (it's gotta be better than Tarot or the I Ching, almost contemporary in how retro it is, this letter writing journal of navel gazing bliss).

You mentioned that I hadn't purchased a menopause package when I invested in the previously mentioned mid-life one. I suppose it is because in my mind it would just happen, and by that time I'd be old, grey and wouldn't care. Yes, I knew even less about what being menopausal - what going through menopause involves. Because, well, quite frankly men as well as women go through a mid life crisis so we can all laugh along together about it and discuss it openly without fear of shame or degradation. But the move from fecundity to barren is somewhat less of a laughing matter it would seem. Because I suppose, as women our sense of value and worth is tied up in our fuckability and our ability to produce children. Ie menopause equals game over to varying degrees for women.

Yes. I feel awkward about my expanding waistline, less toned body, reduced fertility and greying pubic hair. No. I do not think the solution is to make myself look younger. I see the lure of that but I think that is like chasing Buddahood. I will never be what I once was, so why try, and why even fucking want it...because surely acceptance of the here and now and self love is key. No, I'm not saying I should just become a quivering mess physically, mentally and emotionally in the name of nature... But... Your body of a 19 year old comes at somewhat of a cost, does it not? Because... You are not 19 and surely you must come up close to that reality every fucking day when you sneeze and piss yourself, or you forget why you walked into that room or you just realise that you actually don't give a shit about much of the banal emptiness you once used to, because you just don't have the energy.

I had a miscarriage recently... Despite my body preparing for menopause, my eggs are apparently still banging 😊 it made me come face to face with the reality of my imminent lack of fertility...that inevitable fading of fecundity all women anticipate beyond a certain age. I am lucky. I know I am, because I have had 2 beautiful children: I wanted children and was able to have them. And tbh I didn't want anymore... Yet still... This whole scenario has rocked my little world.

I don't wish to do it all again...the wet years...the years of blood and wrongly placed passion and tears. But I feel...severance...all of a sudden. And it's like...there is a nostalgia for something I never really appreciated I had.

No, I don't wish to look like or be 19. I wish to be free. Of the societal pressures placed upon my me, to value myself less as I become something more than simply... Life's whore.

So... Thank you Madame Woolworth, but no thank you. I do not need to have my menopausal years prescribed by you, or anyone else. I do not wish for my worth to be grafted onto me like a pig's heart and skin. I have grown thin after years and years of emotional and spiritual whim. Because life was always too short and I should've thought more about my wants, not *his*.

Yours, Ms Soon To Be 46 And No Longer Wandering.

Dearest Ms Soon To Be 46 And No Longer Wandering,

Madame Woolworth passed away suddenly some months ago and all correspondence shall desist from hereonin.

You are now, I'm afraid, on your own...

Woolworths Ltd ™️

Happy MLC folks... ♥️