To whom it may concern: my complaint about turning 60

I recently had the great pleasure of performing in a local Perth show called To Whom It May Concern: Complaint Letters Live.

The brainchild of local award-winning author and storyteller, Annabel Smith, the monthly live performance sees people from all walks of life stand up on stage and read a complaint letter to anyone – or anything – they like.

Equal parts hilarious and thought-provoking, I can highly recommend this original and entertaining night.

My complaint letter was about turning 60 and some of the annoyances that have come with that. After a few requests for copies of my complaint letter, here it is in full. I’ve also included some links to the statistics I talked about.

If you have a subject you’d love to vent about in a room full of like-minded people, you can contact Annabel via her social media.

Dear Department of Sixty,

I’m a Generation X woman who recently turned 60 – and I have concerns.

Your ‘contact us’ page says you welcome feedback – at least that’s what I think it says –  I couldn’t find my reading glasses.

In any case, squeezing my complaint into your online form was like trying to zip my 2025 post-menopausal belly into my 1988 Faberge stonewash jeans.  

So, please forward my letter in full to your Marketing Director – because this is more than a complaint. I’m calling for a total rebrand of the entire concept of turning sixty.

First, the number. I’ve been saying it a lot. I’m sixty now!

Oh my GOD!  people inevitably gasp. You don’t look sixty!  My friends report similar conversations.

The issue isn’t what anyone does or doesn’t look like. The problem is society’s idea of what sixty is supposed to look like.

You say ‘sixty’, and our collective consciousness fades to black and white, and we see grainy images of cracked faces, hunched-over women (it’s always women) wearing hessian sacks; a cigarette wobbling where their front teeth used to be.

The reality is, If I’m sixty – if my friend, my sister, my boss is sixty – then we are what sixty looks like.

We’re just ordinary.

I wonder if the ordinariness of sixty is what makes people afraid of it?

At sixty, women are done with menopause and we truly do not give a fuck about anything.

For anyone currently “on their menopause journey” – there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not your gynaecologist’s examination lamp. You will find a new normal.

But wouldn’t it be great if more women could find the help they need right now? Something that actually works for their unique set of experiences.

Don’t call them ‘symptoms’. Let’s ditch the language of illness.

I’m starting to think of menopause as a metamorphosis – I think that’s why it hurts.

I really struggled with menopause.

Forget the years of hot flushes, night sweats, depression, brain fog, terrible insomnia – the worst problem was the brick wall I continually ran into when seeking answers.

I’m an educated white woman. Imagine facing language, cultural or economic barriers.

Far from being a woman who ran with the wolves, I felt thrown to them.

“Oh, we don’t know why this treatment isn’t working for you – there’s so much about menopause we don’t know!”

What the fuck? How can we not know? Is it because women’s bodies are weird, unknowable places veiled in infinite mystery? Or could it be a slightly less mysterious research funding gap?

So I got to sixty feeling completely betrayed by my own body, which of course I’d spent decades hating anyway.

Since I was fourteen I’ve always done what I was told. I’ve starved myself, bought the lifetime gym memberships, done the Jane Fonda workout; I’ve grapevined and step-ball-changed, binged and purged; I’ve cleansed, toned, moisturised, I’ve Elancyled my cellulite, I’ve Aapri’d my dead skin cells, I’ve permed and straightened and bleached and waxed and I’ve reapplied my lipstick every fucking hour!

And despite my best efforts – you’re telling me I still got old?  And there’s a whole new set of rules!

I’m supposed to wear pastels and quite literally fade in to the background. Is my hair too long? My skirt too short?

I can still work, but only in a maternal, caring-adjacent, low-pay, low-status job – or as the ball-breaking CEO.  

If I’m dating, I must be sexy at all times but never “mutton dressed as lamb”. (What the actual fuck?)

And God forbid I look my very ordinary age.

Which brings me to anti-ageing. What is ageing, anyway? Isn’t it just –  living?

Every year, Australians spend more than one billion dollars on non-surgical cosmetics treatments – Botox, fillers and the like.

A recent study claims more than half of our young women – that’s women under 30 – are either spending, or thinking about spending, part of their gender-pay-gap incomes on what amounts to anti-living treatments.

I’m a writer  – if I’ve got a few hundred to spare, I’ll be buying groceries, thanks!

But more than that – My face is living proof of my existence, my triumphs, my history. And aren’t we done with erasing history in this country?

It says: I was there. I am here.

I will not erase my own presence and replace it with a Stepford face.

So, sixty – you need a rebrand. We’ve got at least another 25 years to go, so don’t call us old, ageing, senior, elderly, or any other term you insist on applying to our parents –  for whom we are still caring.

Finally – friendly reminder: Generation X will always be cool. We’ll always be the Breakfast Club –  even on pensioner discount Tuesday.

Kind regards,

Sharron