I’m fooled into believing I’m a twentysomething like my kids | Life and style

I’m fooled into believing I’m a twentysomething like my kids | Life and style

A certain amount of morphing occurs when you live cheek by jowl with others. I have begun to be influenced by my adult children’s sartorial style, and to adopt some of their mannerisms and phrases. I listen to their music. And until I’m confronted with the brutal truth in the mirror, it is easy to kid myself that I look like the bright young faces around my table.

As the necessity for parental management fades and we spend more time together, I regard them as friends (albeit friends who are getting financial benefits). Suddenly, we are not just a family, we are a tribe. We share jobs around the house, rotate the cooking duties and squabble, like a bunch of students, about whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.

When I notice a 5Rhythms session close to us, I am enthusiastic about trying it. I read the blurb to Ed, explaining that it is meditation through movement. No talking, no drinking, just dancing. Ed is appalled. But I am undeterred â€" I still have a choice of companions among my housemates. The girls turn me down flat. Zac says he would rather stick pins in his eyes. That leaves Jake. “I’ll pay you,” I tell him.

“Barefaced bribery?”

I nod. He agrees. Neither of us has any idea of what to expect. The venue is a church, and I imagine a few middle-aged ladies skipping around the altar in floral skirts.

We walk through the door. The place is heaving. I gasp. They are all so young. I’ve never seen so many attractive, limber people in one place at the same time. (Maybe that is because I don’t leave the house much.) The men have beards and long hair tied into buns. There isn’t a floral skirt in sight. There is much expressive and extravagant choreography going on. I have a moment of doubt. Am I too old for this? But Jake is already warming up in a corner and I follow him across the dancefloor like a dog, anxious not to get left behind in the sea of gyrating bodies.

The next two hot and sweaty hours pass quickly. My only anxious moments are when we have to turn to the nearest person and dance with them. It is worse than a party when you are left with someone you have only just been introduced to and you are certain they are thinking of a way to escape. I keep wanting to apologise for stepping on their toes, but there is no talking allowed.

At the end of the session, I am exhausted, but triumphant. I survived. Jake is surrounded by new friends and having a great time. He should have paid me, I think.

Everyone is getting dressed and chatting. I slip on my shoes and try to attract Jake’s attention so we can leave. My waving arm accidentally hits one of the bearded young men in the face. I am mortified, but he is nice about it. We chat. He makes me laugh. I make him laugh. I begin to wonder if he is flirting with me. I have a lurch of panic, wondering how old he thinks I am. Then, sod it, how often do I get the chance to flirt with attractive young men? After a while, I point out Jake and say I must take my son and go home.

“Your son?” He’s unfazed. “Cool. I told my mother she should come to this too. She’d love it. You’d get on.”

Suddenly my face is burning. He wasn’t flirting, just being polite. I am the mother figure in this scenario. How could I have thought otherwise?

This is the problem with being part of a household of twentysomethings, I lose my identity, slip backwards in time, think I’m someone I’m not. On the way home, I tell Jake that he should wrap up or he will catch a chill. I remind him to empty the recycling bins when we get home. He looks at me with one eyebrow raised. “What’s with the nagging? I don’t need you to mother me, Mother.”

He is wrong. I’ve got to hang on to my job title while they are at home, because things can’t be equal while Ed and I pay the bills. More than that, as much as they need to move out in order to grow up, Ed and I need to have our house back to ourselves so that we can stop pretending to be students and start acting our age.

Some names have been changed

• Saskia Sarginson is the author of The Stranger (Piatkus, £7.99).

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