A brief housekeeping note: My posts have been a little erratic lately. I’m sorry. I’m having back surgery next week and I’m not sure when or how often I’ll be able to write during my recovery. Please bear with me.
And in the spirit of making up for lost time, I’m sharing an essay and 10 Things in one post this week.
I’ve been thinking about aging a lot recently. When you’re dealing with a back problem caused, in large part, by osteoarthritis, it’s hard to avoid the subject. I spent years looking far younger than I was, and as a kid — especially as a teen — that really bothered me. But, just as every adult promised, I came to appreciate the fact that I didn’t look my age. And that lasted well into my 40s. Today, I can tell you that the body does indeed keep the score. I am the 52-year-old mother of three young adults and I feel it in my bones.
So I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how I feel about aging. As I’ve said before, there’s much to appreciate — and even celebrate — about mid-life. But there are also certain negative realities that cannot be ignored. My skin sags, my metabolism has slowed to a crawl, my hair is getting thinner and my middle is getting thicker.
But look at that list. I’ve just rattled off a bunch of superficial complaints. Besides the weight gain, none of these things make me any less healthy (and my doctor tells me my BMI is still fine). There’s so much goodness that comes with age: personal and professional wisdom, financial stability, a stronger sense of self — and the increased confidence that comes with all that.
Still, I find myself susceptible to suggestions that I should be getting Botox injections, considering plastic surgery and just generally doing everything I can to look younger than I do.
Swimming upstream is hard, but if you know me, you know I have a lot of experience doing it. Sometimes having role models helps. So lately, I’ve been looking for “aging role models.”
When we talk about role models, we’re often talking to children who are trying to figure out who they are and what they want. On more than one occasion, my husband and I have encouraged our kids to find someone who has the career they want and work backwards. What job did they have before this one? And what about the job before that? What did they study? And where did they study it? The idea isn’t to copy and paste someone else’s life, but to expose kids — to whom a career path is a very abstract idea — to an inspiring example that might move them towards what they want.
In the last decade or so, I have found myself at more crossroads than I ever imagined this stage of life could involve. And at each of those intersections, I’ve found identifying and imitating role models immensely helpful. Now, when I use the term imitating, I don’t mean it in a single white female sense. I try to emulate, not replicate. I’ve found parenting role models (Wendy Mogel and Lenore Skenazy), professional role models (Toni Morrison, Kate Baer and my colleagues at Cog) and personal role models (a category too deep and diverse to name a lot of names, but my parents are at the top of this list).
When I found myself looking for aging role models, I noticed that I was drawn to women who are, as the media so often describes it, “aging naturally” (or, at the very least, more “naturally” than others). Brooke Shields who declared, “I don’t want to chase youth. I want to chase now.” Sarah Jessica Parker, who told Vogue, “I know what I look like. I have no choice. What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?” Isabella Rossellini, who has talked about “redesigning” her life after being fired by Lancôme at age 40 for being too old. Emma Thompson,who said, “If I don’t love my body, who will?” (This statement is hard to separate from the fact that Thompson stripped completely naked at the end of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” in a moment of full-frontal appreciation.)
These women are all celebrities — which is why I can quote them — but there’s another commonality: They’re all badasses. They’re smart and articulate, daring and ambitious. I wouldn’t mind looking young again, but I’d rather be a badass. And maybe the level of badassness I aspire to only comes with age. I had been looking for physical role models, but what I realized was that the women who embrace aging rather than raging against it don’t have faces I want to emulate, they have lives I want to emulate.
I was stewing on all of this as I ran errands last Saturday. I was in a small shop a few blocks from my home when I complimented the woman behind the counter on her gorgeous platinum hair. She launched into a bit of a monologue about the complicated process of “transitioning” to gray, which involves adding silver highlights. (Who knew?) She talked about how as we age, we often fixate on one thing that we think “ages” us. About how that kind of obsession projects the exact opposite of youthful energy. You’re resisting — not embracing — your own self, she explained. Finally, she shrugged and said, “I just don’t want to fight with myself.”
Holy shit, I thought. That’s it: I don’t want to fight with myself either.
When we talk about beauty, what we’re really talking about is youth. And as a middle-aged woman, you’re supposed to fight to look as youthful as possible. But our youth is gone. It’s a losing battle that can only end in depression or disfiguring plastic surgery.
I may not always recognize the woman I see when I look in the mirror, but I am curious about her. Look, I can’t pretend I’ve made peace with aging. On most days, I would love to still be my younger, blonder, fitter self. But I have too many hopes and dreams to waste time and energy trying to turn back the clock. Most importantly, I’m not going to fight with myself. There are too many other important things to fight for — and against. I’m going to try to focus on that instead.
10 Things
I would be Erin Jackson’s first customer if she opened up a little boutique “grudgery.”
I’m always on the lookout for a great hand lotion. This one from Trader Joe’s is my current favorite.
Over at my day job, we published some fabulous work last week. My two favorites: Eclipses are certain. Most everything else is not and There are 1,000 Caitlin Clarks out there, if you’re paying attention.
Speaking of WBUR, Beyond All Repair, a true crime podcast about an unsolved murder case from my colleague Amory Sivertson, is climbing the charts. Listen to one episode and you’ll understand why.
“Hi, I’m Frank. I collect secrets.” I loved reading the origin story of Frank Warren’s PostSecret project. (My favorite sentence from this piece: “The self, he had observed as a grade schooler, was always in a state of flux”. Gah!) If you don’t own any of the PostSecret books, this is a good one to start with.
The Phony Negroni from St. Agrestis is my new favorite mocktail.
I got together with a few girlfriends the other night and my friend Devereaux made the simplest, yummiest dessert. I failed to take a photo, but she served Effie’s almond biscuits on a narrow cheese board with a small bowl of peach jam and another small bowl of cream cheese that she whipped up with a little bit of powdered sugar and a dash of vanilla. In one of those it’s-a-small-world-after-all coincidences, she told me the recipe came from another Skin reader, who uses mascarpone. Since Dev didn’t have mascarpone — and is the best culinary improviser I know — she used the cream cheese concoction instead.
“Middle names reveal more than you think.” All three of my kids have the same one: Neale.
Quiet luxury is such BS. I’m a much bigger fan of loud budgeting.
Instead of ending with a poem this week, I’m ending with a poetry hotline. (It is, after all, National Poetry Month.) Dial (641) 793-8122 for a “public poetry service” that has been around since 1968.
More soon,
Hope your back surgery and recovery go smoothly, Kate! Sending you good vibes and healing thoughts. I like your idea of an aging role model. This NYT interview with Isabella Rossellini inspired me, too. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/magazine/isabella-rossellini-interview.html
Yes! This is what I’m hungry for lately: women our age are talking/ writing/ singing …..or, whatevering!-about this.
Pamela Adlon does a great job of addressing it in her show Better Things…she’s one of my aging role models…I’m googling some of yours and sharing this with several 50 something friends. Thank you, Kate❤️