Aging is Power When You Let It Come Through You
The joy of limits and the secret riches of aging
Dear friends! I swear on my dog-eared Gemara, one of the best places on the internet is Oldster Magazine. Founded and run by the delicious Sari Botton, it’s the only place in media that gives a megaphone to people who are biologically old. I love it because it’s a corrective to our societal obsession with youth. I love it because the people she features (some of whom are very old and some of whom are not that old) are hilarious and candid and sage. And I love it because it conveys the infinite variety of experiences WITHIN a social category (i.e. “the elderly”), which is one of the only ways to measurably reduce stereotypes. Sari is an editor, anthologist, and author of the memoir And You May Find Yourself. Here, we talk about the secret riches of aging, the changing flavor of ambition, and what happens when you stop pretending. (Shakira said it best: hips don’t lie.)
Jess: Sari, you’ve done hundreds of interviews with elders. Are there certain themes that resurface over and over?
Sari: Definitely. I see a lot of people surprised and happy to discover that their lives got better when they got older. I've been expressing my anxiety about turning 60 this coming October. And they're telling me, “Guess what? My life took off at 60. I met someone new, I got a new career. I found a hobby I love. I became an artist at 60, at 70.”
That has been surprising for them and for me. We live in a youth-obsessed culture. So when you hear actual aging people say, “My best decade was 60 to 70 or 65 to 75,” it's like, “Oh, wow.” Advertisers don't want you to know that. The culture doesn't want you to know that—it wants to tell you that everything's going to be terrible, so it can sell you things. But that's been the best trend I've seen.
Wow.
People are also reporting on what's hard about being their age, and a lot of those things are consistent. Losing so many people—you say goodbye to people and you have to survive them, and that's painful. The physical aches and pains, the expense of getting older. If you don't have family money or a lot of retirement or big pension, it's scary because you can outlive your money.
So being older is similar to being younger in that some things are great and some things are really hard. One isn’t better or worse, they’re a different combination of joys and sorrows.
Yes.
And certain aspects of getting older consistently show up. Among them, people get to know themselves better. They stop being false in ways they have been. They stop caring what other people think about them. Getting older, we are able to go back to who we were as children, when we were more purely ourselves, before we started performing, you know, professionalism, gender, whatever, to seem like we fit.
Liz Gilbert, in her Oldster questionnaire, talks about returning to the 9-year-old she was. I feel like I've returned to the 10 and a half, 11-year-old I was, getting back to the essence of who I truly am.
That’s beautiful. I'm really interested in later-blooming artists, too. One of my favorite poets of all time is Stanley Kunitz, who started publishing poetry in his 20s, but I think his best work came after age 70. His work from 70 to 90 is incredible; all the other work feels like preparation for it.
Why shouldn't we get better with age when we are practicing something? If you have a writing practice, you should be better with age. The publishing industry is so obsessed with “30 under 30.”
Our culture is obsessed with youth because it's unattainable in reverse.
Why is the art world is so obsessed with the first bloom of talent?
I think our culture is obsessed with youth because it's unattainable in reverse. Capitalism likes to present us with things we can't attain and tell us, “If you do this, which is going to cost you a lot of money, you might have a chance at having the unattainable thing.” You can't attain it, but we can give you the illusion—we can give you a $10,000 brow lift.
It's a more interesting story when somebody has earned their bona fides—when they've stuck with something, despite having a demanding day job, and then they publish a novel later. That is much more interesting to me.
I completely agree. If the culture can keep you in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction and anxiety, you are a much better consumer than when you feel peace and gratitude! Robin Wall Kimmerer's new book The Serviceberry talks about research that when people feel gratitude, they consume measurably less.
Yes.
Do you notice people become more ambitious for their work as they age, less ambitious, or does their relationship to ambition change?
The flavor of ambition changes. It stops being about “I need to keep up with people” and more “I just really want to do this.” But the commitment becomes stronger because there is an awareness that we've got limited time. There's a changeover to an ambition that's more competing with myself and fulfilling my dream.
That's so interesting. And I wonder if it also connects to what we talked about earlier—becoming less concerned about approval from others and more concerned with what's authentic.
Older people are so much less interested in what other people think about them and more interested in how they feel about themselves, how they feel in their lives—what gives them satisfaction. I mean, people still have their issues, but there's a transcendence that takes place. You have less time, you know which roles you've been playing that really aren't you.
In your memoir, I notice an arc from a strong desire for approval—particularly approval from men—into a more self-approving, self-accepting kind of state. What was that journey like for you?
The great project of midlife for me has been connecting who I am as an adult to who I truly was as a child—connecting the weirdo that I was then with the real weirdo that I'm allowing myself to be.
I built up all these false personas. I didn't know I was doing it, I just thought that’s what you're supposed to be. As I got older, I started to see how much of what I'd created was a) false, and b) making me unhappy. Now I feel the most “me” I've ever felt. There were a lot of fake me’s that I invented to appeal to other people, to get by in the world and at work.
It’s a coping strategy, right? A way to cope with difficult or impossible situations.
It's coping. You take cues from the culture and try to do your best to get what you need in the world. And then you get to an age where you're like, “I just can't do that to myself.”
I had friends here this past weekend I used to play poker with in the nineties. I was legendarily bad. I couldn't remember the rules. And I admitted to these friends and to myself, for the first time, I don't like poker. It was a group to be part of, but I was so eager to be part of this group that every Saturday night I played a game I didn't enjoy. This weekend, I said, “I love you guys, but I'm coming out as a poker-hater right now.”
I think covering up our authentic self is really about wanting to be loved.
Oh, completely. It's wanting to fit in and be loved. I felt like a misfit just about everywhere I've gone in my life. I was even weird to the theater geeks. Everywhere I've gone in my life, I felt a little bit out of place. Even with the friends I'm closer with.
You reach a point in your career, in your marriage, in your life where you just can't pretend anymore. It comes unbearable to keep pretending.
Same, by the way.
But I think I've figured out, we all feel different. We all think we're misfits. It’s a really common thing.
And when you hit a certain age, it’s a common thing to excavate your true self, the self you papered over to make yourself fit smoothly. You reach a point in your career, in your marriage, in your life where you just can't pretend anymore. It comes unbearable to keep pretending.
Was there a particular catalyst for you to stop pretending?
I'm very slow in processing change, but I would say from my mid-forties to mid-fifties, this all started to reveal itself to me. I realized a) I was pretending and I didn't realize it, and b) I can't pretend anymore.
For example, I live in an area where there are lots of beautiful hikes. I'm really more of a walker. On my 40th birthday, my husband took me to this crag in New Paltz that's a scramble. And when I got up high enough that it was going to be hard to go down, I started to cry. I said, “I hate this. I don't want to do it.”
Because I'm slow at things, I still kept doing the hard hikes until—well, arthritis helped. Physical limitations tell me, “You can't pretend to be outdoorsy anymore. You have really bad arthritis.”
You are met with limits when you get older. Doing the false thing is less feasible.
You're met with limits, some of them physical, some of them emotional, some of them cultural. When you are confronted with certain kinds of limits, it opens your eyes to what you can't fake anymore.
Experiencing age discrimination on the job front was also a limit. It told me, “Oh, I can't go about work the way I used to.” Realizing which doors were closed to me, I started to pay attention to where the doors were open, and where I could open my own doors.
Limitations are very useful if you let them be.
That is so interesting, Sari, because you’re really reframing hard things about aging. Physical limitations, age bias— these are seen as purely negative. But you’re describing an opportunity to focus on what actually matters—to create a unique, fully original path.
Yes. I hadn't articulated it before until this conversation—realizing the value of the limits you confront as you get older. It's helpful to have my hip say, “No, sorry, we're not going up this scramble.” It's helpful to know nobody's going to hire me to be the personal essays editor of their magazine at 60. I have to make my own magazine, which feels better than working at any magazine. It's useful to realize certain people aren't interested in being friends with older people. Let me stop banging my head against a closed door.
Those limitations are very useful if you let them be.
Yes! If you listen to what the limits are telling you, they can be a gift.
I'm especially interested in this idea of the body putting up a hard stop. The spirit might be like, “Well, I guess I could still do this.” Then the body is like, “No! I am going to step in and protect you.”
My body has done this for me a lot.
I was afraid to know that I didn't want kids. I put myself through so much unnecessary medical effort on the childbearing front. My husband too. We were going through fertility stuff-- expensive, difficult, painful. Only when I learned that I needed a hysterectomy was I able to just let go. It was the most liberating information. I was 43 years old. Three doctors in a row were like, “You have adenomyosis and you need a hysterectomy.” I felt my shoulders descend: “Oh my God, I don't have to do this.”
I wasn't able to give myself that permission. Sometimes I need to be confronted with a limit that my brain can't override, that my people pleaser tendencies can't override.
Wow, our body can really be an ally if we let it.
Totally.
This is also maybe a gift of aging. When I was younger, I would push through—my body would be like, “I don't think this is a good idea, I don't feel well, this hurts”—whatever. And I was like, “No! The body is something to be dominated and controlled! I'm going to keep pushing!” As we get older, we’re like, “I need to take care of this body. It's not going to last forever.”
I used to be very punishing toward myself about exercise. Then I injured myself spectacularly. I've sprained every joint, torn every ligament in my knees and ankles, and now my right hip. I can't do that to myself anymore. And it's so freeing. There's no more over-exercising. I always weigh within three pounds of the same thing, even over-exercising. So what was I doing?
A lot these themes were in the album Free To Be You and Me, which you and I both grew up with! My sister and I listened to it over and over on our plastic Fisher-Price record player. Those songs were all about self-liberation. They were brilliant.
I wrote a post called “Free To Be You And Me Didn’t Prepare Me for This Moment.” Free To Be You And Me was this document of how life was supposed to be and what we were supposed to be doing—letting boys have feelings and cry and have dolls, and appreciating girls whether or not they were pretty.
Yes! And teaching kids to beware of advertisements because they’re trying to trick you into buying things! And “don't dress your horse in galoshes,” don't make people be anything other than themselves.
It is brilliant. But also it misled me. My parents gave me that album. I felt like they were handing me the Constitution—I got the impression that we're making a better world.
On the album, the elders have great wisdom. On “William Wants a Doll,” William's grandmother is the one who says that yes, William can have a doll—he wants to be a father someday, and this is how he'll learn.
I knew that the world didn't match what Free to Be You and Me showed me. But my understanding was that we all agreed we were supposed to be moving toward something better, that we had started in that direction. That's the disillusionment I have.
I got a bone to pick with Marlo Thomas!
Maybe it's a document to see as an aspirational utopia. William wants a doll. Boys can cry. And Atalanta doesn't have to marry the Prince—they just become friends and have separate adventures.
I really thought that I was going to get to do whatever the hell I wanted, even though I didn't have family money. Free to Be You and Me doesn't let you know about that there's really no meritocracy, and that the people who come from money get the opportunities before you do. I didn't know that. I got a bone to pick with Marlo Thomas!
Friendship is another theme in your memoir. You tell a story of female friends turning on one another. When I was in third grade, my teacher Mrs. Grover gathered all the girls and said, “Girls, third grade is when girls become WOLVES!” Then she gave us this whole talk about the dangers of cruelty. It was so wise.
How has friendship changed for you as you've gotten older?
It's still challenging. There's the challenge of retaining old friendships because you no longer overlap the ways that you did. And with new friendships, it's hard to establish continuity. I think that the pandemic added to the difficulty-- so many of us had disruption to our social lives, it’s been hard to reestablish the rhythm of my friendships. I do have four friends from childhood and young adulthood who are still in my life—no matter when we talk, it's like no time has passed.
Right now everyone is in rough shape emotionally—people are on edge, they cancel things a lot. They get sick or they're just overwhelmed from everything going on. As you get older, the more solidified you are in who you are, the harder it can be to meld with other people.
Hm, maybe it’s the flip side of us becoming more sure of ourselves. We become a little bit less fluid in what we're willing to do—we just don’t want to play poker anymore, even though that would be a social thing to do.
One thing I have been thinking about a lot with friendship is how to handle conflict—what depth of friendship has to be there to feel like it's worth bringing up an issue.
Absolutely. I think about this all the time. I've also been thinking about how to end a friendship in a humane way. There's one particular friendship with a real underminer that I've wanted to get away from much of my adult life. I don't have the courage to say, “Listen, I’m not interested.” But every time I see this person's name on my screen, I want to scream. Recently a friendship completely imploded when I said one thing about a change I needed to make. It was painful when it happened. And it happens.
Once I met the writer illustrator SARK. When she starts becoming friends with somebody, one of the first questions she asks is, “What happens when you get angry? I want to be prepared for it.” Anger is particularly difficult for women to express.
The perspective of people who have been at something—like friendship—for a long time is so helpful. Why do you think Oldster has resonated with people?
I think what really resonates is, it's people talking about what it's like to be exactly their age, in their own voices. I'm not doing the classic service journalism—“Five cruise lines that serve people over 50!”
One of my objectives was to center people who are older, but also to include voices of people who are younger, so it is intergenerational. I wanted to destigmatize aging by showing that everyone is going through it at all times. We're all passing through time.
I want younger people to learn about what older people are going through. I want older people to also learn what younger people are doing. I think we can learn from each other in both directions.
It's also very counter to our tendency to corral people with their age group. I mean, it starts in kindergarten—you’re separated from the first graders who seem so old and different! We don't really bring people together intergenerationally.
I was the personal essays editor at Long Reads for five years and launched and ran a series called Fine Lines, about age and aging. After I left, I wasn't done with the topic, and I knew that I wanted to approach it in a new way. I knew I needed a new title.
One night, I dreamt that I started a magazine called Oldster, and I made a joke about it on Twitter. And then I was like, “Wait a minute, this is actually good!” It was a way to take a word that had been a slur and repurpose it, reuse it in a subversive way, the way that the L-B-G-T-Q community uses queer. And it took off.
The End of Bias: A Beginning, my book about how real people and communities become measurably less biased, is now out in paperback.
I am SO glad Oldster is not doing classic service journalism! There is enough, and maybe even too much, of that. The biggest compliment anyone has ever paid to me was to describe me as authentic. I don't know how I got there, exactly, but here I am and making the most of it. A few weeks ago I attended a huge party my brother and his wife had, 400 people, sporting all sorts of sartorial finery, and I wore a pair of lavender overalls and a teal turtleneck and I was utterly at ease and comfortable because I was entirely myself. I looked as if I had just fallen off the apple truck. Who cares? Not me! And if anyone did, that's their concern and not mine.
I love this. Being 80 has freed me at last. Doesn't matter how long it lasts. I'm doing what I want.