Wheel of Time

Getting older is no picnic.

For one thing, maintenance becomes a full time job. All that effort to look young again – the pruning, tweezing, plucking, dying, (of the hair, not physically expiring. Though come to think of it, the latter is also happening.)

In my head, I’m still twenty-something; the youngest person in the newsroom, happy to be referred to as a ‘girl’ and not find it condescending, capable of working 24/7 and function on all cylinders. Now I’m one of the older presenters on screen and a mentor to some of the younger staff. If I don’t get seven hours of sleep a night I’m more grouchy than a grizzly bear. And if anyone calls me a ‘girl’ it’s because they’re short-sighted or being ironic.

I think the hardest part is the knowledge that I am no longer cool.

I used to be cool. I was a war reporter and the Home Affairs Editor for a national news network. As a young journalist, I fearlessly blagged my way into Serbian territory in Kosovo. I once got made an honorary member of the RAF when I flew refuelling missions with them in the Balkans. I launched Aljazeera – the first face on a network that now gets viewed regularly in hundreds of millions of homes. And I did it with the eyes of the world on me, not to mention the Qatari royal family. I’ve interviewed world leaders, terrorists and celebrities.

Fast forward twenty years. I am still a TV presenter, I still interview powerful people and I still hold a position of authority. And yet, somehow,  I am not cool anymore.

I can pinpoint the exact moment It happened. It was when my daughter became a teenager. It is a commonly known fact among teenagers that their mothers are never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, cool.

My daughter cringes with embarrassment when I meet her friends. I’m not allowed to talk to them lest I use my ‘journalist’ voice. “What’s my journalist voice?” I ask, puzzled. “The one you use to ask questions,” she replies darkly. So that‘s it then. I’m not even allowed to ask how they are.

I am also a Young Adult author, and some of her friends have read my book, Daughter of Kali Awakening. They seemed to enjoy it. The school even asked me to go in and do an author talk for the girls. My daughter is mortified by this. Obviously, appearing at school will reveal how deeply uncool her mother is.

I’m curious to know whether this phenomenon holds true for people in really cool professions. Did Neil Armstrong’s kids roll their eyes when dad started talking about the  moon landing again? Do Michelle Obama’s girls forbid their mum from talking to their friends in case she uses her ‘First Lady’ voice?

But I suppose I had it coming. When I was a teenager,  I considered my own parents to be old-fashioned stuck-in-the-muds. I loathed it when they tried to make well-meaning conversation with my friends, cringing when they made jovial jokes and tried to be matey with them. Three decades later, I finally know how they feel. What goes around comes around.

Now you must excuse me. Those grey hairs won’t tint themselves.