Addressing the audience during her final show in Munich, Germany, the Grammy-winning artist said she wanted to go and “live my life that I’ve been building”, after three years of non-stop performing and touring. “I will miss you terribly,” she added. Now, I like Adele as much as the next guy, but I’m no super fan.
And yet her announcement delivered a sucker punch straight to my solar plexus. What was this feeling? Melancholy? Loss? Abandonment? Nope. It had the unmistakable green tint of pure, unadulterated .
At her words, I felt a kind of weary craving descend upon me. Oh, to be able to just stop working and check out “for an incredibly long time”! Or even a medium-length time! Anything over the standard amount of annual leave would be fine, to be honest! In fact, her “stop the world I want to get off” sentiment stirred up such yearning that it was nothing short of a Damascene moment, flashing the piercing light of clarity onto other confusing feelings I’d been grappling with of late. Because while Adele, globally acclaimed singer and multi-millionaire that she is, can afford to lightly hop off the daily grind treadmill “just ’cos”, there’s only one viable way for most other women to do likewise.
As a woman in my late thirties, I’ve seen friends get pregnant and briefly disappear off into the newborn ether many, many times over. They often come in batches, three or more at once, mysteriously syncing the same way menstrual cycles do. It’s nev.
