For subscribers
Teetotally tuned: The painful pleasure of moderation
The moderate life can mean the end of rebellion. And yet in middle age it can be a comfort.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Maybe moderation isn’t just a lifestyle but a wider philosophy. A changed way of seeing the world as middle age binds and alters us.
ST ILLUSTRATION: MANNY FRANCISCO
Follow topic:
My friend with beautiful, smiling eyes is having injections in them. A sheet with a hole is tugged over her face, her eye is clamped, a needle slid into the inner corner. It hurts just to write this. Imagine her.
She is 55, curly-haired, spontaneous, has never met a type of alcohol she doesn’t like and recently discovered she has a serious eye condition. And so now, even before her doctor could counsel caution, she’s embraced that most hideous of words which is familiar to people in their 50s and 60s.
