Thoughts and prayers, please, for those of us born in 1974, as the global news event that is Kate Moss turning 50 continues. Given the blanket coverage, I probably don’t need to tell you much about it, but just in case you’re a high court judge, here are the bullet-point basics. Moss went to a “spiritual retreat” on Mustique, then private-jetted to Paris for a party at which she wore an incredible vintage sheer lace dress. Guests included Venus Williams and Stella McCartney, but the lack of gawping paparazzi pics suggests it was mainly her friends in attendance; the whole thing seemed high on glamour and low on scandal, as befits a 50-year-old style icon with absolutely nothing left to prove.
It’s not my turn for months yet, but it’s pretty clear that my 50th will be less catsuit, more crying into my crisps. It could be a tricky year, self-esteem-wise, as my peers – Leonardo DiCaprio, Victoria Beckham, Robbie Williams, Penélope Cruz, Chloë Sevigny – hit their half-century. Do you remember how at the start of secondary school, kids in your class looked wildly different ages, anything from eight to 28, depending on genetics and gender? Well, 50 seems to be the same: some of us (me) look as if they’ve been excavated from a Valley of the Kings antechamber after multiple graverobbings; Moss, despite the decades of cigs and partying, looks better than ever.
I know it’s stupid to compare myself, a civilian, with same-aged celebrities. It’s no better than comparing myself with other Sagittarians or people called Emma. But it also comes naturally – we start doing it with people our age at school (if you didn’t, what kind of well-adjusted weirdo were you?) and some of us just never stop, the second-guessing of our own choices, the gnawing unease and dissatisfaction at our own comparative failings – job, shape, home – becoming an ingrained habit. The famous ones just make it very easy for us, by being so publicly successful (and able to pull off a sheer dress).
I also know there are people who don’t do this: unbothered, moisturised, in their lanes. My best friend didn’t even know her celebrity twins; I had to make her Google them (“Heath Ledger, good start. Pete Doherty? Jesus Christ.”). I can’t imagine having a solid enough sense of self not to compare myself with other people: there must be so much time and mental energy to spare. What do you do with it – read Proust? Grasp global geopolitics? Make a positive contribution to the world?
In some ways, letting others make me feel bad has been a positive force in my life, I think: without the galvanising sense of inadequacy they gave me, I would just be a puddle on the floor. Maybe a contented puddle? I’ll never know. But I do know that approaching 50, it’s time to try to let go of the thief of joy.
It’s not like most of my twins lead utterly idyllic lives, anyway. You only need to watch the Robbie Williams Netflix documentary to know he has been made (or kept) awfully fragile by fame and God knows what void at the heart of Leonardo DiCaprio makes him date women he could have fathered (when I talked to some sixth-formers last year, their bracing contempt for his dating choices was a pure delight). Moss can’t even have a birthday party without a million news outlets being weird about it, and ghouls like me commenting on it.
I hope it’s not too late to change – Moss has taken up wild swimming, moonbathing and meditation now, after all. To spur myself on, I tried imagining my birthday described like hers. “A downbeat Beddington cut a casual figure, sporting a worn Millets fleece as she browsed the aisles of her local Boots alone, before plumping for a tube of Canesten and packet of sweet chilli Snack A Jacks. At a nearby bus stop, the morose freelancer tucked into the rice-based snack, shared a remark with a passing pigeon then consulted her phone, perhaps hoping to read birthday wishes from absent friends.” The horror. Maybe there really is nothing to envy?
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
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