The Midult's Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan on 20 things you know if you are a Midult, imperfect women, and why they wrote their book
If you are already a signed up member of The Midult, you'll know exactly what we're going on about. By turns, utterly hilarious, chivvying, wise and a virtual shoulder to cry on, Annabel's and Emilie's website, 'listicles' , instagram posts and now book, help on all those days where the sky feels dark and low, the dog is sick and your brand new jacket now has a coffee stain on it. With headings such as, "Accidental overspending', 'Where are the grown ups?' and excitingly, '20 Top Plumbers', The Midult has every aspect of your life covered - ignore at your peril.
a typical Midult Instagram post - why do we relate so so much??
Before we knew what we wanted to do, we knew we wanted to do something together. From the moment we met in a London magazine office 15 years ago, desks jammed up together, clinging to each other like life rafts, we knew our friendship was an important one. A daily touch point. A life enhancer. And suddenly, as it often does in your late 20s, life hit us hard – between us we’ve had dead dads, crippling anxiety, PTSD, addiction, heartbreak, chronic insomnia, terrorist friends, shame, oh god all the shame. 
But shame cannot survive being spoken. And so over a decade later, as we wrestled with our lot, as we talked about it all - the every day indignities, as well as the major lifequakes - we wondered, if we are having these conversations isn’t everyone else?
So we created The Midult. To remove the filter. To end the conspiracy of silence around the inner lives of grown-up women. To continue the conversations, to ignite little fires of recognition. And when women started stopping us in the street to ask how the hell we knew what they were thinking; to say that we were ever so slightly saving them from sinking, we knew we were onto something. So we wrote a book. For all the imperfect women out there. A book that recognizes that we are all more alike than we are unalike. Because, if we are not in it together, we are not in it at all.
BY ANNABEL RIVKIN AND EMILIE MCMEEKAN
another instagram post that resonated with Cucumber
20 things you know if you are Midult
Nothing good happens at three in the morning.
You should never buy the smallest size you can fit into.
Everyone needs therapy.
Grey hair is beautiful, grey roots make you look deranged.
Time flies.
You are probably a little bit of an alcoholic. Unless you are actually an alcoholic, in which case you may have given up drinking.
You are always hungry.
If you check out of technology, you are checking out of life. Don’t do it.
If someone has no old friends, there is a problem.
Infidelity doesn’t necessarily mean it’s over. Contempt does.
Things get stuck in your teeth.
Something always hurts.
And then you think it’s cancer.
You know more and less at the same time. You think they might cancel each other out. So where does that leave us?
Good sleep is better than good sex.
Moths make you panic. Even talking about them makes you panic. MOTHS. PANIC.
You have 25 different kinds of herbal tea. You don’t much like any of them.You’d rather have a Diet Coke. But you probably won’t.
Swearing fucking helps.
This is the rush hour of life: we have spots, wrinkles and possibly braces.
If you need to cancel, you need to cancel.
I’m Absolutely Fine! A Manual for Imperfect Women by Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan, Cassell £16.99, is out now
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