A wisdom of chin hairs: 12 collective nouns every midlifer should know

Life is dizzying as it whizzes past our ears and punches us in the guts, and whirls around before our eyes and over our heads. It’s never just one thing at a time now, is it? So how to group these clusters of wonder and horror and angst and awe? Like this, maybe…

1. A wisdom of chin hairs - So learned, are we. So distinguished. Sometimes they’re grey. Which is fine. 

2. A flamboyance of hormones  -We’re hot, we’re cold. We’re fat, we’re thin. We’re spotty, flaky, angry, hungry. It’s all day, every day. Who even are we? And what the hell is hormonally going on?

3. A scold of sales purchases - Shoes two sizes too small. Challenging knitwear (now there’s an oxymoron). A feathered cape (Annabel). A white puffball skirt (Emilie). We could be rich, we tell you. RICH. Instead, every morning, we are greeted by our Wardrobes of Shame. Capsule? CAPSULE? If you’re talking pills then we’re with you all the way.

4. A murder of laundry - Apparently there is a theory circulating the interweb that all lost socks are reincarnated as mismatched Tupperware lids. We couldn’t possibly comment as we are just lying, rigid, holding our breath under a pile of someone else’s dirty washing.

5. A regret of herbal teas - How did we end up with this cacophony of nonsense? Anyone feel like a cup of Womankind? A mug of Harmony? A pot of Restoration? A thimble of Spirit Animal? We’d much rather have a Diet Coke. But we probably won’t.

6. A shiver of demons… - Haunting our every move. We laugh. ‘You sound like a dick when you laugh,’ mutters Dennis the Judgemental demon. We cry. ‘Where’s your backbone?’ barks Mary the Victorian demon – at 3am. ‘You’re going to die alone and on the streets,’ hisses Barbara the Banker demon, ‘because of all that money you spent on Womankind tea.’ A hell of people Why are all these people here in this cinema/pub/bathroom? Or queueing in front of us or on this train? Or lying in wait on this bottomlessly overpopulated WhatsApp group? And then we realise we have just reached one of the circles that Dante was always talking about. A social circle. 

7. An ambush of missed-delivery slips - Perhaps we have already done our Christmas shopping. And perhaps you are reading this and gnashing your teeth, thinking, ‘That can’t be possible…’ Don’t worry, because we are going to be spending the next few weeks in line at the Post Office with all those delivery slips. 

8. A battery of balls - There are a lot of balls in our lives at the moment. Balls. Too many balls. Everywhere. Balls that we are juggling. Balls that we have dropped. Balls that are in our court. Balls we should be growing in order to deal with everything that is going on. Or maybe even, actual balls. As in tennis balls.

9. A rapture of cancellations - It gets truly heightened when we can just roll out the excuse ‘something’s come up’, night after night. We might even moan with relief and joy. 

10. A skulk of ex-lovers - They pop up, don’t they? When you are least expecting them. When it’s not convenient. But we have stumbled upon an ‘elegant’ solution. We just extend a hand and say, ‘How do you do?’ And then they understand how this is going to work. 

11. A charm of potential lovers - Never say never. *winky face*

12. A dazzle of friends - We sometimes look at our wonderwomen and find ourselves struck by their sheer magnificence.

I’m Absolutely Fine! A Manual for Imperfect Women, by The Midults, is out now (Cassell, £16.99); themidult.com