I think as we get older, we can either put the wild rebellious side of us in a box, accept the many series of defeats we go through in our 50s (redundancy, divorce, illness, death of loved ones, loss and more loss – the midlife collisions NOON talks about) or think fuck it, life is too short to hide away – defeated, that this is a time for reinvention, to embrace ‘Wild’ almost as an alter ego and to just go for ‘it’. Whatever ‘it’ may be.
My ‘Wild’ first emerged in my late 20s. I had been made redundant from my job as a management consultant and for various reasons, I couldn’t tell my parents. So I ended up putting on a suit and going to work. That suit routine lasted 8 months – that’s right 8 months! I spent most of my time in the library writing my first novel. Redundancy was a brilliant opportunity to be a writer. I sent out my manuscript to various publishers but unfortunately, they all came back rejected. Then I heard ‘Wild’s’ audacious idea: It was to self-publish Gypsy Masala and promote it under an alter-ego alias. I first dismissed it, but the idea persisted and there seemed no other viable alternative. So I followed it.
After the first small step … I took a bigger one
To cut a long story short, I set up a publishing company and created a PR company. I knew I needed a press person to promote my book, but I couldn’t afford to hire one. I created an alter-ego named Pru to hype my novel.
Pru was the total opposite of myself – untethered and fearless of rejection. She would get rejected on 99% of calls and wasn’t bothered. She would just pick up the phone and continue, calling again and again.
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After 2 years of a roller coaster of a journey and countless rejections, alter-ego Pru managed to get Gypsy Masala into the book charts. I was so proud of her. (Ha.) Pru was then shortlisted as Publicist of the Year! The ceremony was held in a grand space, with person after person taking the stage to accept. “Pru” naturally didn’t attend the ceremony as I couldn’t thank the various parts of myself, especially ‘Wild’.
Soon after, I signed a 3-book deal with a major publisher.
‘Making it’ wasn’t my dream come true
It was a dream come true, the validation I had been longing for, the success, the opportunity to keep doing what I loved on a larger scale and for a time, I truly enjoyed every moment. However, after my third book was published, I wasn’t happy. ‘Wild’ was disgruntled and didn’t enjoy the process of being with a big publisher, of having decisions made that were wrong. I kept telling myself that this was the dream and so I compromised various parts of myself, reiterating that I was happy. I put ‘Wild’ in a box and asked her to be quiet. She remained in a box for many years.
And on the outside, it all looked great. But inside, I was falling apart. I had lost my mum, had a baby, got married and moved house all in the space of a year. There is this chasm through which many of us wander and it is the space between how we think we should feel and how we actually feel.
What set me free
I got lost in that space for far too long. I stopped writing – pretending that I was fine. I curated a life that I could present to show that I was happy whilst ‘Wild’ was screaming in her box, desperate to be freed. It was a chance encounter with a 50-something-year-old woman who gave me the keys to set her free.
To the outside world, this woman had a great life: Great family, friends, a beautiful home. But for some reason, she invited me in. I mean really let me in and showed me the mess. She had hidden it from herself, from others. I sat there and listened to her tell the truth for the first time and in telling the truth, I saw her setting herself free. Then I met another woman, and another, all with the same story. Regret, disappointment, the longing for things to be different, the wild side of them squashed into a box.
Why we need to speak about our dissatisfaction
The truth is amazing. It has the power to crack open any carefully constructed façade, to make you want to start again. This is what happened in my interactions with all these women who spoke the truth for the first time. It made them want to change their life. It made me want to be braver in mine.
So, I tentatively set ‘Wild’ free. She was back in full force with an idea to write a one-woman show and I listened. It was about a woman who pretends she has the most perfect life. On the eve of her fortieth wedding anniversary, her first love reappears and asks her to come away with him. Her perfect life begins to unravel as all is not what it appears to be. It didn’t take long to write the show, Sari: The Whole Five Yards. I had so much to say.
I tried to find a home for Sari but was told there was no market for this type of show about a 50-something woman. We are invisible. ‘Wild’ – infuriated – told me to book a theatre in the West End to perform and produce it myself. There was a slight problem, in the sense that I had never acted before, not even at school.
Despite this, I hired a director and rehearsed for over a year. I played all 20 parts. It was the most terrifying and exhilarating thing that I have ever done and for the first time, in a very long time, I felt alive. The show sold out, we were offered a bigger theatre, the producer of The Crown came to see it and Sari was optioned for television.
How I unravelled
What Sari wanted to be was a novel but I didn’t want to write it. I didn’t want to go down that whole publishing path again. ‘Wild’ was persistent, insisting that I write it, that we would figure out the steps later, but the first step was to begin. So I started adapting Sari into a novel called Unravelling. And then Covid hit, a multitude of other things happened, and I got ill. Many times, I wanted to give up. Unravelling took me 5 years to write, when I moved into my 50s.
In writing it, I have unravelled. Perhaps this is a process that we all go through in our 50s. Shedding layers, unravelling who we are to become who we truly are?
I was offered a fourth book deal with a big publisher. But ‘Wild’ was urging me to turn it down, that this was NOT the way. Fear on the other side of me was shouting even louder, saying that it would never see the light of day if I turned down that deal. That I am a woman now in my 50s – that it’s hard to begin again.
You probably know what happened without my even having to say it.
I turned down that fourth book deal to begin again, to follow ‘Wild’ and go solo. There is no alter-ego this time. There’s just ‘Wild’ and I. And another adventure ahead.
Unravelling is out on 27 September 2024 – buy it now!
Preethi Nair is the author of 4 books. She is a visiting professor at various business schools, teaching creativity and storytelling for personal transformation. She speaks often on resilience.
