After a life spent taking care of everyone else, one woman finally asks: what about me?
Joanne has always supported others — first her brother’s sports career, then her partner’s ambitions as an architect, and eventually the full-time demands of motherhood. But now, in her forties, she finds herself lost in the chaos of daily life… and one too many glasses of wine.
Determined to rewrite her own story, she makes a bold move that sends shockwaves through her family: her puzzled husband, the estranged brother she reconnects with, and her almost-eleven-year-old daughter — who actually thinks her mum’s new “fun-weird” side is kind of cool.
A feelgood novel about second chances, quiet rebellion, and the surprising joy of choosing yourself.
Midwest Book Review says about this book: "Original, deftly crafted, emotionally engaging, and a simply fascinating read from start to finish. This paperback edition of "Midlife, Mayhem and Merlot" from Nanda Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists."
After a life spent taking care of everyone else, one woman finally asks: what about me?
Joanne has always supported others — first her brother’s sports career, then her partner’s ambitions as an architect, and eventually the full-time demands of motherhood. But now, in her forties, she finds herself lost in the chaos of daily life… and one too many glasses of wine.
Determined to rewrite her own story, she makes a bold move that sends shockwaves through her family: her puzzled husband, the estranged brother she reconnects with, and her almost-eleven-year-old daughter — who actually thinks her mum’s new “fun-weird” side is kind of cool.
A feelgood novel about second chances, quiet rebellion, and the surprising joy of choosing yourself.
Midwest Book Review says about this book: "Original, deftly crafted, emotionally engaging, and a simply fascinating read from start to finish. This paperback edition of "Midlife, Mayhem and Merlot" from Nanda Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists."
My pants are too tight, my head is too full, and my heart is screaming. I’ve had enough. I’m done. It’s not a rational decision and certainly not well thought out, but it’s over, and immediately.
The kids are at school. I lock the door. Let everyone deal with it. A storm has risen within me, and I missed the warning signs. Suddenly, I’m in the middle of it. The whole world can go to hell, that’s how I feel.
Especially my husband, of course. With his job. The meetings with his employees. In my house, because it happens to be my house too. Even though I haven’t earned enough in ages to even pay for the interior, naturally, the choices I, that we, made. I look around the room and see furniture that’s too dark, too masculine, too industrial. His taste.
What have I done…
I am Joanne Victoria, pleased to meet you. I am slim and just shy of model height. Yes, why not? My blonde hair flows like a mane over my slender shoulders. I am the rising star of my class year, and in about five years, I’ll surely be a partner in a law firm or a sought-after speaker, unless, of course, I get snatched up by the modeling or film world, but in that case, it will just be a temporary detour. I have countless friends, love going out, and enjoy organizing dinner parties—followed by a night out. I love sailing, keep a dedicated journal, and whenever I can, I participate in writing contests.
No, wait, I’m saying it wrong. I know that: I was Joanne Victoria.
Again.
I am Joanne Reynolds-Victoria, pleased to meet you. I am the loving partner of Bryan (45) and a devoted mother to Sam (12) and Julia (10). After our second child was born, and after Bryan’s career took off around the same time, I eventually quit my job at the municipality. When it turned out that our eldest was dyslexic, I dedicated myself even more to guiding our little ones. It’s all worth it. Yes. I am the regular volunteer at school.
Twice a week, I go to the gym—at least, that’s the plan—and every month, I have lunch with my friend Josie. We call these get-togethers “cozy with Josie,” so yes, that’s how I’m doing. My husband Bryan has his own firm, Reynolds Architects, and he is very busy with it.
You could say we’re successful. He as a designer, and I as the wife-of. I host council members and organize wine tastings on behalf of the Reynolds family—that’s what we like to call ourselves. Whenever we send a corporate gift, I decide which wine it will be this time and make sure the right labels are placed, both on the bottle and the shipping box. I love floral prints, so everyone just has to deal with that—I get to choose. My husband is the owner, which in my case mainly means that I have to squeeze myself into a gala dress or other formal attire every now and then so he can network.
Two years ago, when we celebrated my fortieth birthday, Bryan whisked me away halfway through the party to Schiphol, Amsterdam, and from there to Rome, Italy. He had arranged everything: plane tickets, a babysitter for the kids, the right clothes packed in our suitcases. It turned into a spectacular weekend full of sex and culture.
Well, as much as it could be for us.
It wasn’t a college-style sex weekend with the occasional museum visit but a married-people weekend—full of culture, with also a bit of sex. A small but evident difference. For some time now, we mostly just “cuddle”—sometimes, at least. I’ve stopped worrying when weeks or months go by without the act. The fact that there’s still any physical intimacy at all is already a miracle if I were to believe the magazines. So many sexless marriages, so many stories and pieces of advice: “Then just make an effort,” “This way, I don’t even want it anymore”… At least we still have something. Occasionally.
Every now and then, I start a little online shop selling clothes, or jewelry, or other cute things. Until it gets too busy, and I quit again. But now, a week before my daughter’s eleventh birthday, I’ve suddenly had enough.
This morning, I got out of bed in a good mood, nothing wrong, and ready to tackle the day. The kids were downstairs at the table—they can do some things themselves, luckily. Still upstairs, fresh from the shower, I squeezed myself into my pants. Of course, it didn’t go smoothly, and slowly, my spirits began to sink—and they just kept sinking. Like breaking ice carving a deep trench through a landscape. It happened, and it kept happening.
Size 12. To be honest, I’m bursting out of them. Rolls of excess fat spill over my waistband. I should really buy a size up since that would at least make me look less fat in the end. But size 14, that’s XL/XXL. I ignore that and stubbornly keep buying size 12.
Well, that’s not entirely true either, because I don’t actually buy new pants. I just keep wearing my old ones, the ones that are already a bit faded and stretched out. At least my big butt still fits into those, because there’s no way I can squeeze myself into the ones in the stores anymore. Do you know that animated movie The Incredibles? In it, the super-slim superheroine Elastigirl marries the man of her dreams, Mr. Incredible. About fifteen years and three kids later, they go on a superhero mission again for the first time, and suddenly, she critically examines her own backside. She’s turned into a big pear. That’s me too, but I’m still in denial.
Sometimes I see fellow women-in-too-tight-pants walking around—I do know exactly what it looks like, and if you’re really unlucky, you’re even rocking a camel toe. But I don’t want to know, and what you don’t want to know doesn’t hurt, as I like to say. You have to keep life somewhat bearable.
Size 12… It’s the average size of a Dutch woman. I am the average woman. Kind, pretty, warmhearted, caring… and exhausted. I used to be a unique girl, full of sparkling ideas and a ringing laugh. Now, I’m just sitting here, worn out. I’m done.
There was no reason, at least no obvious one. I was just squeezing myself into my pants, like always. For a former model like me, that shouldn’t be any trouble at all. I stood there, my hair still wet, making my shoulders feel cold and clammy. My legs were hairy and, to top it off, dry. I had forgotten body lotion again—getting into the habit of moisturizing just hasn’t worked out for me since my mornings started being so stressful. So, for about ten years now. Rarely body lotion.
Plucking my eyebrows regularly? That I still manage. Haircuts often enough too; my hair could still flow beautifully if I stopped stuffing it into an elastic. At the back of my head, every day: a messy bun. I just can’t stand having hair in my face, and over time, I’ve gotten used to it. Of course, I still use face cream, since my skin always reminds me right after showering by pulling tight.
There I stood. My underwear was wedged in my butt crack. From behind, you’d soon be able to see the ridges the seams had carved into my rear at the schoolyard. But I didn’t care, and you know why? Because the other moms weren’t much better off either.
A MILF, a Mother I’d Like to Fuck—yeah, that sounds nice, but that only really applies in the first few years, when the kids are still babies or toddlers. When there’s still youthful strength in the mother, enough to carry the sleep deprivation, the constant not-being-able-to-do-what-you-want. And I do try my best. I’m not Roseanne Connor or Linda Carter, even though I feel like it sometimes. I still use lipstick and even a curling iron—when I get around to it.
At the schoolyard, you see a lot of familiar faces when you have two kids in the upper grades. Take the mother of Job, one of my son’s classmates—I sometimes try to picture her in a flirty situation, once upon a time, maybe ten or fifteen years ago. I just can’t do it. Was she ever at a bar? Did she do sports? There’s no way of telling. The way she walks now, with that non-hairstyle, grown-out color, the drained look in her eyes—I try to picture her sitting at a barstool, but she instantly slides off, all blubbery, let alone ever having been a sexy teen or twenty-something.
And don’t even get me started on the men, but that’s not what I was thinking about this morning. I was thinking about myself and how I haven’t exactly become more attractive. Always in my jogger-fabric blazers. My wet hair stuffed into a messy bun on my makeup-free face. I thought about where it all went wrong.
Where…?
I slid my (hairy) legs into my jeans and held my breath to get them buttoned. Denim is sturdy; it won’t just tear, and it knows how to keep your flab in place. I buttoned up my blazer, shook my breasts (huge cups) into position, and thought: I don’t want this anymore. Without any clear reason. I just didn’t want to anymore.
Bryan had already left for the gym, as always. The moment his alarm goes off, he jumps out of bed and heads out. Working out lets him “charge up” for the day and “let off some steam” before he has to sit behind his desk. At some point, I decided to let him have that. He enjoys it, and it’s healthy—how could I refuse my husband something like that? But suddenly, I wonder what on earth I was thinking. What could I have been doing with my mornings all this time?
Drinking coffee in peace, without rushing. I’ve tried before to just sit there stoically, blowing on my mug, but in the end, I always find myself yelling at the table anyway. That it’s time, that they need to hurry up, that we’ll be late. Stressing with a cup of coffee in your hand is still just stressing, in the end.
Let him make the kids’ lunch—while I just sit and drink my coffee. That’s what I should have done. I should have invested in that: a man can do it too, even when he discovers they don’t take their lunchboxes out of their bags; that they come back with the sandwich still inside. Even when he gets irritated finding mold in there and realizes he doesn’t have a lunchbox for them now. That there’s juice spilled all over the bag. That it stinks. I shouldn’t have solved it—he’s perfectly capable of figuring it out himself. I did, after all. Once the frustration builds up enough, you realize you have no choice but to start managing. You can punish them, punish them even harder, but you won’t change kids who forget everything. Unpacking bags, making sandwiches, setting out supplies, picking up shoes, grabbing jackets off chairs—that’s just how it is. Be glad they can finally dress themselves and brush their own teeth!
Let Bryan look for the geography worksheets—while I, mmm, sip my coffee… How different would my marriage have been if I had done that? From the upper grades on, every Monday, Sam brought home a geography assignment, and two weeks later, there would be a test on Friday. In our case, I usually overheard a mother at school talking about her child’s tears, how they could hardly stop studying out of sheer anxiety. That’s when I would say, “Is there a test?” Sometimes I checked with the teacher, and sure enough, there were papers handed out. So where was Sam’s worksheet? We usually had about three days left—”we,” yes, by now it was my test too because I didn’t want to hear that my kid had broken down crying during a test because he hadn’t been able to study. At home, the great search would begin—between newspapers, in the mess in his room, among the papers that had all been dumped from his schoolbag, untouched—flyers for charity runs, notes about lunch duty, school themes, who-knows-what. And, apparently, also his homework. Then, after an hour or so of grumbling in frustration, the missing worksheet would suddenly appear in some random toy chest. “No idea how it got there, Mom. I didn’t put it in.” And then we’d start studying. Dyslexic kid, with his mother. After dinner. While Dad sat alone watching The Daily Show and laughed out loud.
You know what else sounds amazing? Apparently, on some planets, it actually exists: reading the newspaper in the morning without having to answer a question after every paragraph about something your kids can’t find.
“Do I have gym today?”
“My shoes are definitely not where I took them off.”
“I did hang my jacket on the coat rack, but it’s gone anyway!”
But if you decide to go to the bathroom for just one second before tackling the hellish bike ride to school, suddenly it’s, “Mom, hurry up. I’m gonna be late because of you!”
Petting the cat and just sitting there… With a newspaper. And a warm cup of coffee.
On the way to the schoolyard, on our Dutch bikes, because of the small streets and the short distance to school, I felt my aversion grow toward everything that made up my daily life. Biking through the city to school is a trial every single morning. Who are these lunatics speeding past swerving schoolchildren at fifty kilometers an hour? You can see they’re still learning! We ride in a line, and the whole way, I’m shouting ahead, “Not so close to the curb!”, “That car has the right of way.”, “Stop, Sam, just stop!” Neck craned forward on my bike. There was a time when I moved through traffic with a bit more grace…
Well, we arrived alive, and the kids took off. Off to their friends and classrooms. For show, I wandered through the hallways for a bit, as if there were still some invisible child I actually had to escort all the way to class. Along the way, I greeted three other moms. That was the social part of my day—the greetings, I mean, not the moms. The highlight of my day—to quote Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. At least he was talking about masturbating, and I, for God’s sake, about a greeting! Those little “hellos” are my reason to put a smile on my face, and because my neurons respond positively to that, they form my social life.
Julia is ten. Next week, eleven. She’s in fifth grade, and her big brother is in sixth. In less than two years, I won’t have to pick anyone up from school anymore, and those brief interactions will be gone from my life too. The small talk that means nothing, yet somehow fills my heart. And then? What will I do then?
“Is Julia excited for the performance?”
“Yeah, kind of. Is Erdal?”
“Yeah, very!”
And just like that, we’ve already walked past each other…
“Can you help out on sports day?” the teacher called over the children’s heads. In the Netherlands, it’s very common for teachers to ask parents for a helping hand. Sometimes it is every week. It puts pressure on the parents, but there are always a few who make room. Like me.
“I’ll check. When is it?” But I was only asking out of politeness, because I already knew I would help, and so did she. That’s why she asked me and not Camilla’s dad, who was standing right next to me. You can ask me for anything. Lice checks, the autumn nature table, the St. Nicholas parade, and decorating the Christmas tree. I organize reading mornings and serve as a judge for the talent show. I am her right hand. Joanne, the teaching assistant.
I also often bike along with the kids, wearing a fluorescent vest, neck craned again, keeping an eye on them. I complain to Josie sometimes about how busy it is, but in reality, it gives me something to do.
I waved. “I’ll get back to you. Bye-bye!”
I closed the classroom door and read the notes taped to the outside. Requests for parents to help (cleaning), donate materials (cardboard milk and juice cartons), and bring food (class lunch). But today, suddenly, I found myself wondering why on earth I was making hot dog mummies for the entire class. Why was I driving four kids to the Nature Center?
Confused, and a little worried, I turned around. What was wrong with me? A rising feeling took hold of me. A feeling of… sadness. In my stomach, there was a lump, a thing, a heavy mass growing warm until it started to hurt. Before long, an unstoppable wave of tears would come pouring out of me. It made me feel suffocated. Like I couldn’t breathe.
I hurried out of the school. I tried to calm myself down by taking a detour on my bike. A little distraction would help. But nothing could lift my spirits. Not the market being set up, not the flower stand, and I didn’t even sit down on the bench by the canal. I had to go home. The door had to be locked.
Nanda Roep’s Midlife, Mayhem and Merlot presents me with something of a conundrum when it comes to rating and reviewing. On the one hand, I found parts of it tiresome and somewhat repetitive, and it was sometimes difficult to keep reading. On the other hand, I am glad I persisted, because it carries a powerful message that I think all women, and probably many men, can relate to. And it does that by doing what great writing does: putting you in the protagonist’s shoes and making you feel the character’s deepest emotions, think her thoughts, relate to her actions… be her, for just a while. If you sometimes feel a little tired and jaded, it’s perhaps because you have become a woman who is exhausted and bored with life. Thankfully, though, regular flashbacks to this character’s better times lift your spirits and keep you engaged.
Joanna Reynolds, Roep’s protagonist, is a typical early-middle age mother. Anyone who has experience of mothering preteens will relate, readily, to the frustrations, the too-business, the exhaustion, and the feeling of having lost the joy of living and fallen into a mundane routine, feeling that it’s all too hard. Joanne wants husband Bryan to work less and be more involved in his children’s lives. She wants him to notice her more; to be more spontaneous. She wants the good sex they enjoyed in their earlier years as partners. Don’t we all? She reminisces, nostalgically, about her fun student days, courting, the early years of marriage and the delight of those first months with a newborn baby. And then along comes the second child, and gradually life falls into an exhausting and monotonous rhythm. No wonder reading feels exhausting at times. Roep is prompting the reader to feel Joanna’s exhaustion and frustration. She is making the reader be Joanna. And isn’t that what great literature does?
Nanda Roep writes in a rather unique style. It is character-focused. It is witty. It is funny, but it is serious. It blends humour with earnest messages and important themes. It reveals an extraordinary depth of understanding of what drives women to hang on when it’s all too hard, and what prompts some to just run away. But there is a message in the story: that it’s never too late to shake things up a bit, be a little selfish, and find joy in the mundane - even it requires being just a little crazy or daring.
Nanda Roep’s Midlife, Mayhem and Merlot is a story about real life… the messy, the crazy, the exhausting, and the frustrating. It urges us to find joy in our lives by, with love and patience, letting go of the ‘must’ and the ‘have to’ and the endless quest for approval; and daring to break free sometimes, and just find joy in the ordinariness of day-to-day family life.