I'm not middle aged yet, but I too love my long hair and don't want to chop it all off to look "grown up". And for all it can be a pain to dry and keep untangled, I think short hair can be higher maintenance (all that having to go to he hair dresser, and needing to blow dry it into styles and so forth... of course there are more practical short cuts but you do still have to have it cut sometimes to keep it that way).