{"id":342281,"date":"2026-03-22T13:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T13:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/342281\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T13:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T13:42:10","slug":"at-60-i-have-no-home-no-husband-and-no-children-but-i-refuse-to-call-my-life-a-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/342281\/","title":{"rendered":"At 60 I have no home, no husband and no children \u2013 but I refuse to call my life a failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pop quiz! What do me and rich, famous, successful, fabulous and beautiful Cindy Crawford<\/a> and Meg Mathews have in common? Absolutely nothing. <\/p>\n

Except we all just turned 60<\/a>. Sixty. Six-Tee. What? How on earth did that happen?! <\/p>\n

Getting to this milestone birthday<\/a> has blown my gently ageing mind. It would be easy to think it was the beginning of the end: Physically and mentally downhill from here. My Mum and Dad died young \u2013 40 and 64 \u2013 so I\u2019ve probably got 12 days left.<\/p>\n

But, no. Weirdly, turning 60 hasn\u2019t plunged me into despair. Instead, it has focused me (if not now, when?); calmed me (stop sweating the small stuff, Lynchy); and, beautifully, let me look at my life \u2013 a life where nothing worked out \u2013 a little more compassionately. <\/p>\n

My poor, poor life. Full of absolutely brutal mistakes. The first being\u2026<\/p>\n

Selling my flat and ending up \u201chidden homeless\u201d for 10 years. <\/p>\n

When I was 35, I bought a tiny flat in Chalk Farm, north London. As a single freelancer, with no financial help from Mummy and Daddy, this was a Big Deal. After five happy years there, a neighbour moved in who would swear down the intercom at 3am and harass me on the street \u2013 and then Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. My battered brain wanted out, so I catastrophically sold the flat instead of renting it out.<\/p>\n

The idea was that I would bank profit for the deposit for the next place. But there was no next place. Instead, there was the 2008 crash. This horrific recession crushed global banks and the housing market and took my career and financial security with it. Freelance journalists were no longer used, or if they were, they were now paid \u00a31 a month. I joke. Almost.<\/p>\n

The scarcity of work and big grief (Dad died as the recession hit) meant I had to live off my sold flat\u2019s profit and I found myself back in the world of renting \u2013 where a one-bed flat in London (then) cost \u00a31,200pcm. I couldn\u2019t afford it. In the 10 years that followed, I moved 30 times; 19 in an especially delightful 24 months. I slept on Twitter friends\u2019 sofas; stayed in friends of friends\u2019 spare rooms; and, in the flat with syringes in the bathroom, had the joy of a man I\u2019d never met walking into my room as I was naked in bed.<\/p>\n

I finally washed up on the shores of Hove, East Sussex. It was where I could afford to live and while it\u2019s gorgeous and chi-chi here, she\u2019s not my London. My belongings are here but my heart is not. And the future? As my peers celebrate paying off their mortgage, I\u2019ll be selling a kidney so I can keep making my rent. <\/p>\n

Having zero security \u2013 and having to try to find work until the day I die \u2013 is terrifying and not a little depressing. Thank God my sertraline prescription is now free. <\/p>\n

\"BlowBlow me down: Meg Matthews also turned 60 recently (@megmathewsofficial_)<\/p>\n

Of course, my housing situation wouldn\u2019t have been so bad if I\u2019d had a partner. About that. Mistake number two\u2026<\/p>\n

I only ever had one boyfriend. <\/p>\n

And that relationship, from the ages of 27 to 31, ended the day after Diana died. (Princess not Dors). My other dalliances have been one-night stands, three-month collapses and very many infatuations and situationships. (Google it, Grandma.)<\/p>\n

No true love since 1997, no second date since December 2024, and my last \u201cpotential\u201d spent our only rendezvous looking over my shoulder and smiling at the younger, prettier woman behind me. <\/p>\n

While a terrible love life makes great content, in truth it\u2019s pretty devastating to go through your whole life alone. I have never been loved and in love. I have never been someone\u2019s Number One. That\u2019s heartbreaking, isn\u2019t it? Which leads me to my third \u201cmistake\u201d…<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have children<\/p>\n

I do have to clarify and qualify \u201cmistake\u201d here: never meeting my person and never having babies were not one-off \u201cerrors\u201d, and not my \u201cfault\u201d. Those horrors were down to God, life, fate, the universe, whatever. But that doesn\u2019t make a snappy headline.<\/p>\n

There is so much to say about the pain of not having children when you wanted children \u2013 and the fury at how bigoted society is against the childless and childfree (don\u2019t get me started on \u201chard-working families\u201d, \u201cas a mother\u201d<\/a> and Musk deciding those without kids shouldn\u2019t have the vote<\/a>\u2026).<\/p>\n

I always wanted one child \u2013 \u201cFrankie\u201d \u2013 but never met my man. At 40, I was too old for NHS In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), so put my head in the \u201cI\u2019m still fertile\u201d sand. After Dad died, grief made me reassess. I decided to go for it alone. (Sans partner? Character-building.)<\/p>\n

By then I was 46, and the aforementioned recession and not-mentioned credit card meant even though I could just about afford follicle-tracking (I had eggs!) and sperm, private intrauterine insemination (IUI), IVF and egg-freezing were beyond me. So it was over. And I mean really over. From a piece I wrote at the time\u2026 \u201cI will never be pregnant, never be protected by the father of my child, never be loved as the mother of his child, never love like you love, and never be loved as you\u2019re loved. I will never mean as much to anyone as you do.\u201d This was all happening as I was grieving my dad, my home and my career. Alone. <\/p>\n

So, what a \u201clife\u201d. But I can\u2019t regret it. I won\u2019t regret it. I won\u2019t allow these brutal happenings to be my story \u2013 not while I still have time to change it. When I was young \u2013 59 \u2013 I rang my darling friend Shelly and sobbed down the phone to her: \u201cShell, why can\u2019t I catch a break? Why is my life so sh**?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not,\u201d she replied. \u201cIt just hasn\u2019t gone the way you expected, and you might not have what you wanted, but your life is spectacular.\u201d Spectacular. Honestly, those words held me. And continue to do so. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe one and only: \u2018I don\u2019t have a partner. But I have me. And I quite like me now\u2019 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

My brain \u2013 and heart \u2013 have now sort of gone there: I\u2019ve sort of found the perverse positives within my life \u201cchallenges\u201d. I don\u2019t have my own home, I have no security, and God knows how I\u2019m going to continue paying rent when my fingers become arthritic and seize up on the keyboard, but, today, I live in a lovely flat; my sweet landlord is now a friend; I can enjoy the calm of Hove and the thrill of \u201cjust a train away\u201d London. I also have no sticks to up, which means that I am free to still have adventures. I might not have children, but I do have an almost childlike ability to find joy in the simplest activities. My daily decafs with mates \u2013 and charity shop trawls \u2013 all these things make me genuinely happy. <\/p>\n

Sure, I don\u2019t have a partner. But I have me. And I quite like me now. I don\u2019t feel lonely. Certainly no lonelier than someone in a bad 20-year marriage. I\u2019m still excited about meeting someone \u2013 even with this back \u2013 but if I don\u2019t? Then I know that I have love, support, companionship, joy and strength from my friends. Being forever single has given me time to build and nurture relationships and, truly, my friendships are the success story of my life. (If you\u2019re reading this, I love you.)<\/p>\n

And, yeah, I didn\u2019t have my baby. But in the same way I won\u2019t – can\u2019t – continue living with regret, I cannot continue living with this level of grief. My forties and fifties almost destroyed me; I won\u2019t let my sixties do the same. Today, I know that you can mother without being a mother; you can be the cool aunt who is nurturing and relatable. I have many younger people in my life and they are a delight: interesting, interested, inspiring and just fun! <\/p>\n

Grief and loss can gift us all empathy, compassion, understanding, gratitude and strength. I think I\u2019ve been the recipient of all. So, no, my life didn\u2019t turn out as expected, but the rest could turn to gold. At this age, I can be fearless (I\u2019ve pretty much experienced everything \u2013 and survived); I can be ambitious (my 33-year career allows me to accept I\u2019m talented); I can be liberated! (\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter\u201d is my new mantra.)<\/p>\n

I am seriously psyched about my final third act. I\u2019m going to transform my life; make it really spectacular. I might meet The One (probably not the 26-year-old who messaged \u201clike \u2019em old\u201d on Bumble); I will get that six-figure book deal and of course write that Oscar-winning screenplay. I\u2019m 60 sweetheart \u2013 not humble. <\/p>\n

See you on the red carpet, Cindy and Meg. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pop quiz! What do me and rich, famous, successful, fabulous and beautiful Cindy Crawford and Meg Mathews have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-342281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}