Tova Leigh - F*cked at 40: Life Beyond Suburbia, Monogamy and Stretch Marks

This edition first published in the UK and USA in 2020 by

Watkins, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited

Unit 11, Shepperton House

89-93 Shepperton Road

London

N1 3DF

Design and typography copyright Watkins Media Limited 2020

Text copyright Tova Leigh 2020

Tova Leigh has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publishers.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Lapiz

Printed and bound in the UK by TJ International Ltd.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78678-269-4

www.watkinspublishing.com

To the old me, I owe you one Fucked

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

I am walking in the woods. The air is cold and its not quite morning. My feet lift above the wet ground. I am not afraid. I am free. I am fine, nearly fine, almost fine, a little bit fine. Not at all fine.

Youre probably wondering how I got here? Twelve months ago, I lost my mind.

I woke up one morning and felt like I was about to explode. It was as if my blood was boiling and I couldnt cool it down. I was bored. Angry. Tired. Sad. Empty. And I felt all alone.

My life on the outside looked perfect. I had nothing to complain about. I had a good job, a husband who wasnt shagging his assistant, three children who apart from being the occasional assholes were pretty good kids, a house, a dog and everything else we are told as little girls we should aspire to.

But on the inside, I was restless. I was sick of having the same dull conversations about meal plans and the kids afterschool activities. I was frustrated with having the same married sex Id been having for the past eight years, or no sex at all. I didnt want to be looked at as a mom. I wanted to be desired, to take someones breath away, and make them go crazy for me. I didnt want to live by some label that didnt define me... I didnt want to dress like a mom, drive a mom car, have a mom haircut, or be so and sos mom on someones phone.

I wanted to be me.

I had friends other women, other mothers; but for some reason I had no one to talk to about any of it. Everywhere I looked I saw women seeming to be happily living the suburban dream: two kids and a messy minivan, one holiday a year, dinner parties, and yoga on a Tuesday morning for me-time. I wanted to vomit on it all.

The truth is that when I looked in the mirror, I had no idea who I was anymore. What I saw was, at best, a faded version of me, of who I used to be before I had kids and before I completely lost myself.

I found myself fantasizing about a gardener Id seen a few months earlier. I had been dropping off my twins at daycare and as usual I was running late. I was still wearing my yoga pants and a tea-stained T-shirt under a denim jacket, and as I was trying to shove the twins into their double stroller while they tried to run in different directions, I saw him. With his shorts, killer abs and the massive leaf blower he was carrying on his shoulder. He looked like one of those tanned Australian surfer boys youd see in an ad for an energy drink. Only topless. No lie. He was walking out of someones house and heading for his van, which was parked right by my car, and I wondered if he could tell I was staring at his tattooed arms from behind my dark shades. I wore those shades often. They had become a part of my mom uniform for the kids drop-off because they brilliantly hid the dark bags under my eyes from the lack of sleep (because my kids regularly woke me up at night to discuss carrots). But also, because I had convinced myself that despite the mom bun, mom bra and granny pants, those big dark shades that covered half of my face made me look a bit like Jackie Onassis. Clearly they didnt.

I didnt really care if he could tell I was checking him out. All I know is that as I pictured him lifting me up and throwing me against the wall, he was holding that goddamn leaf blower.

That evening I found myself smiling for no reason while putting my three kids to bed. My seven-year-old was fighting with one of the five-year-old twins over some insignificant shitty toy theyd never played with before till that moment, and I was trying to pretend like reading with a five-year-old is fun. Its not. They never tell you that in parenting books how challenging teaching a kid to read is going to be. Forget potty training, listening to them repeatedly sound out C A T and still get it wrong can send anyone off the edge. My husband, Mike, was out and, lets just say, it had been one of those really long days. But none of that mattered because I was too busy thinking of leaf blowers.

At night I would lie in bed and drift in thoughts of love affairs, travelling, being someone else, being with someone else, and being twenty again. What would life look like if I werent a mom or a wife? I would fly in my imagination to remote places where I wasnt Tova, the mom of three kids who lived in the suburbs and tried to find healthy snack options for her kids. A place where I wasnt the mom who couldnt set foot in Nandos ever again because her toddler peed all over the floor and she pretended it was apple juice. True story. Where I wasnt the mom who was constantly looking up ways to make quinoa more interesting. (Lets just all admit it it doesnt taste of anything and it most certainly does not give you the satisfaction a potato covered in butter would.) In my fantasies I would be someone else, not bound to any external expectations, free to do and say as I please. And then I would wake up in the morning feeling trapped again.

Every day that hollow feeling grew stronger. I was like a caged animal whose skin was going up in flames, and who could smell blood and almost taste it. I was ravenous, only I didnt know what for. I started parking my car in the same place I saw the gardener every morning, hoping I might bump into him again. I told my best friend, Ionit, about him, and wed both walk up and down the street with our baby strollers and peer into peoples gardens, hoping we would see him. I even wore actual pants and shaved my legs for the first time in months. But we never did.

I knew I should be feeling shame, guilt or at least embarrassment. After all, I was a wife, a mother, a woman. I had responsibilities, commitments, a purpose in life, and I was over forty. How could I possibly feel this way? This was not my time to shine. This was not my time to question my life. This was my time to shrivel up like my boobs had done and disappear among the other 40-plus-year-old women who are treated by society as irrelevant. But I didnt feel any of those things. All I felt was an urge for more, even though I didnt know what more was at the time. So instead, in order to fill that gap, I would eat. Every night was a fest of chocolates, crisps and cake, sat on the couch with my husband Mike, watching TV in silence with nothing but the sound of chewing between us, till I physically felt sick and swore the following day Id start an epic diet. I never did.

For a while I thought it was just a phase. A hormonal imbalance. Something I could perhaps pop a pill to numb or take up meditation to get rid of. I took up yoga, focused on my breathing and even tried one of those green shakes everyone raves about. Horrendous. Bottom line, I hoped the storm would soon pass. That I could go back to living my life the way I had been for the past seven years without having that feeling like I was slowly dying.