Readers,

At the end of August, Oldster will celebrate its 5th birthday. That means I have now been “Exploring what it means to travel through time in a human body” here for going on FIVE YEARS. I can’t believe it.

I’ll celebrate with another evening of piano karaoke at Sid Gold’s Request Room on Thursday, September 10th. Once again there will be a few featured singers-slash-storytellers, after which attendees can take turns at the mic, accompanied by my friend, Sid Gold’s pianist extraordinaire Paul Leschen.

I’ve got another great lineup of featured singers-slash-storytellers: , , @Rakesh Satyal, , , and . If the first of these events in June—a big hit!—is any indication, this is going to be great fun.

Meanwhile, as many of you already know, Oldster runs on paid subscriptions, and I’d love it if some more free subscribers would upgrade. Oldster pays essayists and interviewers, and—at least for now—no content is ever kept behind a paywall. Paid subscribers make that possible, and I appreciate it. 🙏

Check out the rest of this series here.

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A chat about the new end-of-life planning tools from “Hello, Mortal” with founder Maura McInerny-Rowley...

I’m a fan of the newsletter , and recently its founder, , reached out to tell me about some useful end-of-life planning tools on offer.

McInenerney-Rowley began contemplating death and dying at a young age. When she was 5, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and when she was 20, her mother died. The experience made her realize there wasn’t enough open discussion about the end of life and how to prepare for it—not for her mother, and not in our culture, more broadly. As she writes in the newsletter’s About page:

I created this platform to offer what she didn't have: a place to boldly explore what it means to live well in the face of impermanence—and to create a modern, values-based approach to preparing for the inevitable. My goal is to empower you to contemplate your mortality, enable you to plan for it with clarity and love, and encourage you to share it, so the people you love aren't left in crisis when you die.

That led her to create Hello, Mortal, which has lots of great articles and essays about various aspects of death, dying, and aging. And now it also offers tools to help us make plans.

For instance, the new Final Body Disposition Quiz is a free survey that helps you decide what matters to you with regard to disposing of your corpse. Or, as I put it in The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire: What are your plans for your body when you’re done using it? It takes about three minutes to respond to, and asks thoughtful questions about what’s important to you spiritually, ecologically, in terms of your family and their traditions, and more.

I enjoyed thinking about this as I filled out my answers. When I was done, I was offered three options “that align with your values”: green burial, human composting, and water cremation.

At the bottom of my results was a link to another of Hello, Mortal’s end-of-life planning tools, the Death Dossier, where for $99, you can declare what you want to happen to your body after death.

There’s yet another Hello, Mortal survey you can take, Death Archetypes, which helps you to more broadly think about death and your philosophical approach to it. I enjoyed taking that one, too

Our conversation was interesting and brief, and you can watch it right here. ⬇️

Where we’re finding joy this summer...

And now for some things that make us glad to be alive.

Summer is my favorite season—although it can be difficult to enjoy it when it’s apocalyptically hot out, the sky is orange and the air smells of smoke from Canadian wildfires, and the world is basically a complete dumpster fire.

Despite all the horrors—or maybe in spite of them—I am doing my best eke out as much enjoyment as I can before I blink and summer’s over, and everything reeks of pumpkin spice.

Fortunately for me, there’s been a new local development helping me out on that front. A couple of weeks ago, New York State opened Lake Sophia, a public swimming facility in a former quarry, right here in Kingston, where I live.

It’s located inside Sojourner Truth State Park, and named for Truth’s daughter, Sophia. It’s beautiful, and big, and free—although it costs $8 to park, unless you have the Empire Pass, which is $80/year and can be used at many state parks throughout New York.

Brian and I have been going to Lake Sophia for half-hour dips, typically toward the end of the day, and it’s been a great source of joy, and refreshment.

What has been giving you joy this summer?

Leave a comment

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

I get the nicest notes from Oldster contributors and interviewees after they experience this readership’s reliably wonderful reception in the comments.

I know I’ve said it before, but it bears saying again: You are a wonderful audience. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading, and for always commenting so thoughtfully and supportively. You help to make Oldster not only a great publication, but also the kind of a warm, welcoming community I like to be part of. 🙏

By the by, Oldster runs on paid subscriptions, it pays essayists and interviewers, and—at least for now—no content is ever kept behind a paywall. Paid subscribers make that possible, and I appreciate it.

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…

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Meet my mom, on her 86th birthday...

Happy birthday to my smart, beautiful mom, ! 🎂 For the occasion, I thought it might be nice to have her take The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, verbally, over video.

In the interview, we talked about the struggles of getting older—especially losing people, like her mother, Clarisse, when my mom was 31, and her husband, Stanley, shortly before she turned 78. Also, overcoming her resistance to using a cane, for fear that it might affect how people treat her.

But we talked about more upbeat things, too. For instance, she recalled how much going back to teaching in her mid-30s enriched her life, and how hard it was to retire in her late 50s.

My mom was a much beloved teacher in Long Beach, NY. In a 2013 Teacher Appreciation Week video, congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said of her:

“She was my fifth and sixth grade teacher at Magnolia Open Elementary School in Long Beach, New York, and she inspired me and all of my classmates to study hard and dream big. She was part mom, part educator, helping her students realize that anything was possible for us. She picked us up when we were down and pushed us when she knew we could do better.”

We touched on my mom’s pride in still being around and relatively well, while continuing to enjoy time with friends and family, her political discussion groups, her book groups, and her weekly Rummikub group.

And we both talked about how excited we are to go see in her one-woman show, Common Knowledge, Off Broadway this weekend, to celebrate mom’s birthday.

It was a sweet conversation. Watch it here ⬇️

Please join me in wishing my mom a happy birthday! Here are some photos of her through the years, with family and friends.

And here’s me dressed as “my mom in the ’70s” at a ’70s-themed costume party that took place in 2010:

Back to my mom’s comment about finding her new cane useful, but resenting how she believes the sight of it makes people treat her differently. It’s similar to ’s experience of letting go of her internalized agism around what it means to use a cane, so she could embrace using one, as she told me when we spoke a couple of weeks ago.

It made me want to ask all of you about this:

Do you use a cane, walker, rollator or other assistive walking device? Did you at any point resist using it? Has it helped? Do you think being seen using it affects how people treat you?

Leave a comment

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

First, a big thank you to those free subscribers who converted to paid this week. 🙏Oldster runs on paid subscriptions, it pays essayists and interviewers, and—at least for now—no content is ever kept behind a paywall. Paid subscribers make that possible, and I appreciate it!

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…

“I have loved reading these posts every day since I subscribed. I am finding all these different stories and perspectives very valuable." - paid subscriber.

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Yesteryear, my PBS period comfort watches, and the problem with nostalgia for “the good old days”...

Over the weekend I tore through ’s bestselling satirical thriller, Yesteryear. The novel was so absorbing that for the greater part of 48 hours, I could not put it down. (Actress Anne Hathaway is adapting the book for Amazon, and will star in the film.)

Its protagonist, Natalie Heller Mills, is an Idaho ranch-based right wing Christian “tradwife” who makes her living as an influencer, peddling a back-to-the-land lifestyle (replete with her own popular brand of related products) that naturally also includes a return to retrograde gender roles.

But when Natalie finds herself time-traveling back to 1855—the pioneering period in American history upon which her business profitably casts a halcyon glow—she gets schooled in the dangers of valorizing “simpler times,” particularly for a woman.

I was primed for considering such contradictions because for the past year my “comfort watches” have been T.V. series that take place between the mid-1930s and the early 1960s. I’ve come to realize that I am anesthetizing myself against the news of women’s (and minorities’ and queer people’s) rights being systematically, frustratingly reversed by…doing some time-traveling myself, ironically to times when those groups had many fewer rights, and littler power to speak of.

Don’t get me wrong—I have loved losing myself each evening in the British early(ish) 20th century as depicted on PBS Masterpiece shows like Grantchester, All Creatures Great & Small, and most recently Bookish. And let me make clear that each of those nostalgic shows—all produced within the past decade or so—presents the limiting social conditions of the past as problematic. The viewer is meant to perceive the characters’ struggles as unfortunate matters of the past, and to appreciate how far we as a culture have since progressed past them.

That’s driven home in this behind-the-scenes look at how Grantchester head writer portrays the women on that show:

But when I watch Detective Geordie Keating struggle to “allow” his wife Cathy to take a retail job so she can get out of the house and be more than a homemaker…when I watch the endearing curate Leonard Finch go to jail for being “a pansy,”…when I watch the show’s third vicar, Alphy Kotteram, get physically and verbally assaulted for being Indian…I want to scream.

Because it wasn’t so long ago that those were the accepted attitudes and strictures, and in the time since, we really haven’t progressed far enough past them. And now there are people in charge in this country (and other countries) who are working in overdrive to re-establish them—people aligned, ideologically, with Yesteryear’s protagonist and her followers.

I’ve come to realize that I am anesthetizing myself against the news of women’s (and minorities’ and queer people’s) rights being systematically, frustratingly reversed by…doing some time-traveling myself, ironically to times when those groups had many fewer rights, and littler power to speak of.

I feel similarly when I witness Mrs. Hall on All Creatures worrying she won’t be allowed to divorce the abusive husband from whom she’s been estranged for decades. And also when I watch her performing hour upon hour of unpaid emotional labor in an effort to teach Siegfried Farnon, the temperamental veterinarian she keeps house for, how to act like a reasonable human being.

Ditto when I learn that Bookish’s protagonist, Gabriel Book, had to enter into a “lavender marriage” with his wife Trottie as the only reliable way for both of them, in 1940s London, to avoid imprisonment and discrimination, respectively—him for being gay, her for being a sexual libertine. As I watch, I think, How long before that kind of arrangement resumes being the only safe resort for some in this country?

What’s more, in all of these programs, so many of the characters are dealing with the effects and after-affects of one or both of the World Wars—whether they’re conflicted about enlisting, have injuries and/or PTSD from serving, or are grieving those they’ve lost.

Watching them, I find it unnerving to realize that since those wars, as a species, we’ve learned absolutely nothing. No matter how much art is made reflecting the human cost of war, no matter how much history we have to learn from, we just go on putting (mostly) young men in harm’s way so we can obliterate our enemies. We didn’t start the fire, etc., etc., but neither have we any clue as to how to extinguish it.

In spite of all this, though, I absolutely love those shows. I welcome the way they transport me to other times so that for an hour or so each night, I don’t have to think about the one I’m stuck in.

On the flip side, I have found refreshing the contemporary Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, and I’m looking forward to the forthcoming Marble Hall Murders (landing September 6th). They all feature the wonderful Lesley Manville as Susan Ryeland, a book editor with a knack for solving murders by channeling Atticus Pünd, a fictional detective from a series of books she published.

It’s a nice change to see a woman in the lead role—an older woman, as Manville is now 70, and would have been 66 when the first of the series appeared. Not to mention that she is unapologetically childless, unmarried, and appears to have commitment issues.

Incidentally, this also describes all three vicars who appear throughout Grantchester’s eleven absorbing seasons. But they’re men, so no problem. (Like one of those vicars, Alphy, Susan gets to drive a cool vintage red convertible.)

Surely Yesteryear’s Natalie Heller Mills would outwardly hate Manville’s Susan Ryeland. Inwardly, though, I wonder whether she might envy her. Me, I just love her.

What have you read or watched lately that made you think?

Leave a comment

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

This week we have an essay by in which she looks back at her first kiss—and her first kisser. It’s a sweet piece, and you’ll find it just below this section. ⬇️

Coincidentally, one of the writing prompts I use frequently in workshops is “Write about the first kiss that mattered to you.” So this topic felt like good fodder for a Friday Open Thread, in which I invite all of you to comment on your similar experiences. In the comments please tell us…

In the comments please tell us…

How old are you? Tell us about the first kiss that mattered to you. Who did you share that kiss with? Why did they matter to you? How did the kiss come about? Did it lead to more? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Me, I’m 60, and as was the case for Mona Gable, the first kiss that mattered was one I received from a boy I knew in elementary school and junior high, one I had a big crush on. At a party where games like Spin the Bottle led to pairing off in dark corners, my crush grabbed my hand and led me to the back yard, where we smooched and smooched, mechanically turning our heads back and forth, until our lips were red and swollen.

My crush was wearing the blue-and-white gingham party shirt he wore to all the boy-girl parties, and I was wearing a green-and-white gingham blouse from Chwatzky’s Department Store that I’d gotten to match it.

When we came up for air, he looked at me discerningly, and I wondered if he was going to “ask me go out”—which in those days meant becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. My heart pounded in my flat, 13-year-old chest. What was he going to say?

Finally he spoke. “I hate the color green,” he said, then led me back into the house. The next day, I threw the shirt in the garbage.

Despite how it ended, it was a thrill to have had that moment with my crush. For the next year or so I held out hope we’d someday make out again, and that it would lead to something more. But it never happened.

“The writing here consistently resonates as I make by way through this wild ride of aging. It encourages, motivates, commiserates…and makes me laugh often. Thank you for the effort!” - , paid subscriber.

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Mona Gable’s essay begins here. ⬇️

My First Kiss

Mona Gable looks back at an early love.

by

I bet that many of us remember our first kiss, however awkward or exciting or disappointing the experience turned out to be. I certainly remember mine. I think in part because as a girl whose father was remote and often away from home, and whose three older brothers mostly ignored or belittled me, I was aching for male attention.

And so it was in 5^th grade. His name was Jamie Phalen. I have forgotten many things about my childhood in the 1960s, but I have not forgotten Jamie. He had stiff brown hair and large green eyes and big muscles in his arms and a gravelly laugh. His skin was a lovely nut-brown. He smelled like the beach, a mixture of salt and sea air.

While most boys were like my brothers—jocks who played Little League and later became high-school football stars—Jamie wasn’t into sports. He was what I now recognize as a free spirit. We were crazy for rock bands like The Beatles and The Stones, and Jamie played the drums. His father was a doctor like mine, and he lived in a two-story house with huge windows on San Diego Bay, near the harbor where the big naval warships streamed in and docked, and across from the Kona Kai Club. When he wasn’t at school, Jamie spent hours swimming in the bay. Like many kids in Point Loma, I think he also had a tiny sabot that he maneuvered between the boats and ships crowding the water. Jamie loved the freedom and adventure that growing up by the ocean gave. I did, too.

I am trying to conjure the feelings I had then, so many decades ago. But I’m pretty sure my attraction to Jamie amounted to this: I was a good girl, an A student, and actual Girl Scout, while Jamie was handsome and wild. He was incapable of sitting still. When Mrs. Evans, our dour, middle-aged fifth grade teacher, would ask a question, Jamie never raised his hand. If she called on him he’d grin and say he didn’t know. He was the first boy I was aware of who didn’t care about school, who was rough and liked to fight. On the slippery dirt field where we played kickball and softball, the girls wearing shorts under our wool pleated skirts, Jamie was fierce. He threw hard and sure, and he could hit almost any runner with a kickball from anywhere on the field. I can still see the soft golden dirt rising up when he knocked some poor kid to the ground.

I have forgotten many things about my childhood in the 1960s, but I have not forgotten Jamie Phalen. He had stiff brown hair and large green eyes and big muscles in his arms and a gravelly laugh. His skin was a lovely nut-brown. He smelled like the beach, a mixture of salt and sea air.

I was just beginning to be aware of my own sexuality, enhanced by my mom’s antics. Those were what I like to describe as “the Mad Men days,” when affairs in my parents’ circles were as common as frozen dinners. My parents had slept in separate bedrooms since I was little because my mom was a handful, though it was hardly her fault. She’d had surgery to remove a brain tumor, and it had permanently damaged her bright and sweet nature. But I was 10, and knew only fragments of her complex medical history, so she alternately frightened or appalled me. I tried to avoid her, which was hard because we shared a bedroom.

Since my father was openly seeing a nurse in his practice, often spending weekends at her house in Normal Heights—yes, that was the name of her neighborhood—my mom felt she had every right to go out and meet men. On weeknights, she’d call a cab and head down to the bars on Shelter Island. Places with Polynesian names like the Bali Hai, where the waitresses wore grass skirts and served tropical-colored drinks with parasols and slices of pineapple.

I dreaded those nights. It didn’t matter to her if I had school the next morning. She went out anyway and would stumble in the bedroom door at 1 or 2 a.m., banging against my bed as she made her way to the bathroom, reeking of alcohol. I always woke up. I’d lie in bed, pulling the pillow around my head, willing myself not to hear her.

It was amidst this family backdrop that I found my first love, Jamie. When I think of him now—the way he conveyed his attraction in bold glances across the classroom, or took my hand after school and walked with me to Canon Street before we went our separate ways—it makes my heart flutter.

As proof of his love, he gave me a St. Christopher medal. This was the ultimate sign that we were “going together.” Did we talk on the phone? We must have, though my memory stalls on what we said. The phone was our lifeline. We were utterly dependent on it to communicate when we weren’t at school. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an extension in my bedroom, unlike some lucky girls I knew who had a pink princess phone next to their beds. I had to use the black rotary dial phone in the kitchen. This didn’t exactly lend itself to intimate conversations or confessions. My brothers often tried to eavesdrop. In this way, I learned the art of discretion, a skill that serves me to this day.

The first kiss with Jamie unfolded, like a photo in a darkroom, very gradually. In 5^th grade, our class handed out Valentine’s cards, notes, and those pink boxes of sugary pastel conversation hearts with the sappy sayings on them. “Be mine,” one begged. “All mine,” said another. “Forever.”

Valentine Day’s was a big deal because it was basically a popularity contest. We’d have small brown paper bags we’d decorated at our desks, and then each student would go around and drop their Valentines inside. I often felt sorry for the kids who didn’t get many, or whose cards went curiously unsigned. In the interest of nostalgia—and now of this story—I wish I’d saved Jamie’s.

Not long after, we arranged to see each other after school. One of the defining characteristics of this era is our parents rarely cared where we were or where we went, as long as we came home in time for dinner. No one picked us up after school. No one dragged us off to the next scheduled activity or practice. Our childhoods were blissfully unmonitored in that way. We walked or skateboarded or rode our bikes everywhere.

Our parents’ attitude was also key to furtive assignations. Just down the block from Cabrillo Elementary School, was a shopping area, with a pharmacy, a candy store, a liquor store, and a pizza place. One side of the street had an underground parking garage, right below the boutique where I sometimes bought my matching skirts and sweaters. That’s where we headed. Did Jamie initiate this furtive rendezvous or did I? Absolutely it could have been me. I was not a shy girl.

Jamie and I practically tiptoed down into the garage. I remember being nervous but excited. We looked around, scouting places we wouldn’t be seen. Then Jamie led me over to some cars parked at the farthest wall and I positioned my back against one. I don’t remember the make or model. But let’s just say it was a Mustang for verisimilitude’s sake.

That momentous afternoon, Jamie and I practically tiptoed down into the garage. I remember being nervous but excited. We looked around, scouting places we wouldn’t be seen. Then Jamie led me over to some cars parked at the farthest wall and I positioned my back against one. I don’t remember the make or model. But let’s just say it was a Mustang for verisimilitude’s sake. Jamie looked into my eyes and smiled. His green eyes grew large. I smiled back. And then he very slowly leaned in, wrapped his arms around my waist, pulled me close and put his lips on mine.

It was the best kiss ever. Soft, warm, and clumsy. We opened our mouths. I tingled all over. We kissed that way, my arms around Jamie’s neck, my body pressed against his, for god knows how long. Like a first kiss should be, we were oblivious to everything else in the universe. I never wanted Jamie to stop.

I kissed many boys when I was young, and have kissed many men in the years since; some were better kissers than others. A few were memorably awful, aggressive, and selfish. Fortunately, my husband happens to be an incredible kisser, which is partly why I married him.

And while many kisses in my past remain forgotten or vague, I will always fondly remember that first sweet kiss from Jamie. Wherever he is, I hope he remembers it, too.

Mona Gable is an author and writer in California. She writes about travel, social justice, culture, and whatever intrigues her. Her latest book is Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many. Check out her newsletter, Travels with Mona Gable.

Okay, your turn.

How old are you? Tell us about the first kiss that mattered to you. Who did you share that kiss with? Why did they matter to you? How did the kiss come about? Did it lead to more? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Big thanks to for sharing her story. And to all of you for reading, and commenting kindly and thoughtfully. Oldster has the best comments section around!

Thanks, too, to those who support Oldster with paid subscriptions. 🙏💝

Readers,

Greetings from Kingston, NY, where the sky is orange, the air smells like a campfire, and it all feels kind of surreal.

I’m busy working on the forthcoming Oldster anthology (it’s going to be such a good book), and Brian and I are getting up to speed on podcast stuff. We’re scheduling in-person interviews and video shoots—The Oldster Radio Hour is going to be both audio and video. It’s all very exciting!

I really love conducting interviews. I’ve always been curious about people—famous and not—and I love to ask them questions. I do it a lot, both here, and at , as I’ve done throughout my 40-year career.

For fun, here’s an interview I did with Jennifer Aniston 30 years ago:

I also play the role of interview subject now and then, and I particularly enjoyed a conversation I recently had I had with . She asked me questions other interviewers haven’t, and it led me to some different insights. Thanks for having me, Alexis.

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…

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“Unlearning” as learning as we get older: A conversation with anti-agism O.G. Ashton Applewhite...

Speaking of interviews, the other day I got to chat with someone I’ve long admired, anti-ageism “O.G.” , a long-standing author on the subject, who just launched a smart newsletter here on called Things I Used to Say.

I first became aware of Applewhite through her old blog, which shared a title with one of her books, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.

Applewhite has truly been a pioneer in calling attention to, and fighting back against, ageism in all its forms and presentations. She’s been educating people for years about age-related bias, and is truly an inspiration.

The gist behind her newsletter’s name is this: As she’s gone along through her life and career, she’s realized she’s had to do some unlearning. That means questioning—and sometimes dispensing with—old assumptions, dated beliefs, and no-longer-accepted ways of phrasing things.

We talked about that, and agreed how important it is to keep an open mind, be amenable to change, and to interrogate long-held approaches to things—if we want to evolve and stay relevant as we get older.

As Ashton Applewhite has gone along through her life and career, she’s realized she’s had to do some unlearning. That means questioning—and sometimes dispensing with—old assumptions, dated beliefs, and no-longer-accepted ways of phrasing things.

One of the areas where Applewhite says she’s always unlearning is ageism itself. We talked about how we all have some internalized ageism, thanks to the youth-obsessed culture we’ve been marinating in, and how important it is to recognize it when it rears its ugly head, then do the work necessary to reorient our minds.

I’ve been open in this newsletter about times when I’ve bumped up against my own internalized ageism, and tried to self-correct. Old attitudes…wrong assumptions…unfounded fears—all unconsciously absorbed, just by living in this culture. Gaining this new awareness has been one of the great learning (er, unlearning) adventures of publishing Oldster.

We also talked about a new development in Applewhite’s life: At 72 she’s started walking with a cane. She had to dispense with some old biases in order to embrace this assistive technology, but now that she has, she’s glad to have the support a cane provides, since she’s grown less stable on her feet.

It was a fun conversation, and you can check it out right above. ⬆️

What about you? Have you had some unlearning to do as you’ve gotten older? What assumptions about aging (or other things) have you let go of? And do you use a cane, walker, or any other assistive devices? Did you have to overcome any internalized ageism in order to accept that need?

Leave a comment

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

Greetings from Oldster HQ (aka our dining room), where Brian and I are busy getting started on The Oldster Radio Hour podcast stuff.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’d love to find a good platform to host it. If you’re someone who can help with that, drop me a line …

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…

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This is 250: On America’s big birthday, nostalgia for the bicentennial and “Open Sail ‘76”...

You probably already knew this, but the United States has a big birthday coming up on Saturday. Given the state of, well, the state, and the ongoing reversal of so much crucial progress, I’m not much in the mood to celebrate.

Somehow, though, this American birthday is making me nostalgic for an earlier one—the Bicentennial in 1976, which occurred three months before my 11th birthday. As a ’tween I was so taken with all the pomp and circumstance of it all, and the majesty of the tall ships on display in New York Harbor on that day. It was one of the first big cultural events in life that I got to feel a part of, in my favorite city.

A few years ago, inspired by a related social media post by , I invited readers to recall what they were doing on our nation’s 200th birthday, and share it in the comments. It got some nice responses, so I thought I might try that again.

How old are you? Where were you on July 4th, 1976? What do you remember about that occasion? And where will you be on July 4th, 2026? Will you celebrate, and if so, how? (*Let’s steer clear, though, of political debate and argument in the comments. That’s not what this post is for.*)

Leave a comment

Me? I’m 60. And here’s what I shared about my experience of the Bicentennial in that earlier post:

“I felt grown up accompanying my dad to his friends’ Manhattan apartment overlooking the Hudson River, where we watched the Grand Parade of Sailing Ships. I really got into the spirit of the occasion, dressing in the blue jumpsuit with red and white patches from Chwatzky’s Department Store that my best friend also had.”

P.S. Everything you need to know about the Sail4th 250 tall ships event in NYC: how to watch, key dates. - Gerrish Lopez at Time Out NY.

On pre-written obituaries...

Here’s how I learned that earlier this week Mel Brooks turned 100 —from this Notes post by :

Did you know that the obituaries of famous people—particularly those of a certain age—are pre-written by journalists well ahead of their passing? I’ve known this for some time because I used to have to pre-write them when I worked at newspapers.

Having “in the can” what are essentially fully-researched biographies of well known figures makes it so that the minute one of them dies, the story of their life is ready to go, no matter how busy a news day it is. All that’s left to do before publishing is to report certain vital details, like when, where, and how they passed; who survived them; and where and when the memorial will be held.

It was funny timing for me seeing Mary Elizabeth’s post, because a week or so earlier I’d read the obituary of my former Women’s Wear Daily/W boss, beloved and esteemed editor Etta Froio, that bore the byline of a former co-worker, Lorna Koski—who, it so happens, pre-deceased Etta by four years.

Let me spell this out more clearly: Lorna, who died in 2022, was credited with writing the obituary for Etta, who died in 2026. A person who died four years ago had a byline this year.

Journalistically it makes perfect sense, especially considering what I explained above about obituaries being pre-written. Given that Etta endured a “long battle with Alzheimer’s,” Lorna was surely very much alive when she was tasked with pre-eulogizing Etta, likely a long time ago. Still, it felt strange to encounter Lorna’s byline four years after mourning her passing.

It reminded me of an obituary that had been assigned to me in the spring of 1988, when I’d just started at WWD/W. It was for an older socialite named Frank Ricciardi who’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and whose name and image often graced our society pages. After I reported and wrote the piece, I was told that from then on, whenever I took time off from work, I needed to alert certain editors as to which “basket” in our clunky computer system the obituary was stored in.

Every time I took a vacation day or sick day, I did my due diligence and let the editors know exactly where to find it. This went on for six months, until I was about to take time off to have all four wisdom teeth pulled.

“The Frank Ricciardi obituary is in the ‘city desk’ basket if it’s needed,” I told the managing editor.

“Frank Ricciardi died last month,” he informed me, flatly, “and Mr. Fairchild wrote his obituary.”

Mr. Fairchild being John Fairchild, our publisher and top editor. How had I missed that, I wondered? I looked back at the article in the archive, and saw that Mr. Fairchild had used my piece as the basis for his—I guess my editors knew where to find it—but added his personal reflections on the man, someone he apparently knew well.

Despite being alive and well, I was not given the courtesy of a (shared) byline.

Anyway, RIP Etta Froio. And happy 100th, Mel Brooks.

P.S. Vaguely related—here’s an Oldster Questionnaire from last year featuring obituary writer James Robert Hagerty, author of Yours Truly: An Obituary Writer's Guide to Telling Your Story.

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝 Hope you have a nice holiday weekend, however you’ll spend it.

-Sari

Readers,

Last weekend Brian and conducted our first interview for The Oldster Radio Hour, a new podcast to be sponsored by Ruth Ann Harnisch, which we’ll launch in the fall.

I don’t want to say more about the interview yet, other than that it was utterly thrilling to get started working together on this. Collaborating in this way, both of us bringing our unique talents to a project we’re passionate about, has been a longstanding dream of ours. It’s very exciting.

We have big hopes for this podcast, and are still interested in finding the right platform for it. If you’re someone who can help with that, drop me a line …

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…

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Seeing the ‘Ask E. Jean’ documentary...

Speaking of storytelling projects supported by Ruth Ann Harnisch, last night we went to see ’s Ask E. Jean documentary at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, followed by a discussion between Meeropol and documentarian Rachel Grady.

I can’t say enough good things about this film. It is by turns devastating and enraging, and uplifting and inspiring. You can’t help but come away from it with deep respect and admiration for , now 82, and feisty as ever in her commitment to holding accountable the man convicted of sexually assaulting her thirty years ago, and then defaming her in the wake of her triumph in court.

That’s if you get to see it. Despite awards, rave reviews, and standing ovations at film festivals—because of who that man is, and his reign of terror—major film distributors and streaming platforms seem to be afraid to touch it. It has landed with Abramorama, which is bringing the film to 50 theaters across the country. But that’s a small roll-out, and this movie needs and deserves a much bigger audience.

If you’d like to see the movie, or help others to see it, you can request a screening near you. You can also get in touch with the team to learn other ways to get involved, and donate funds. Learn more at the film’s website.

PS Check out ’s Oldster essay, “Go Get Your’s, E. Jean”:

Soap operas as “pop cultural heirlooms” passed down in families, cross-generationally…

This week I got to talk with Charlotte Druckman and Mayukh Sen, two authors whose work I’ve long admired, about Love in the Afternoon and Evening: Essays and Conversations on Soap Operas, a fun new book the co-authored.

I enjoyed the book, which blends memoir with cultural analysis, and includes an interview with veteran soap star Susan Lucci. It naturally made me think about my own relationship to soaps, which turned out to be more significant than I might have previously thought.

As I read, I reflected on how I started watching them starting as a kid; my penchant as an adult for getting deeply involved with emotionally gripping nighttime dramas that aren’t technically soap operas but share many qualities with them, like Nashville, Queen Sugar, This is Us, and A Place to Call Home; my affinity for shows that spoof them, like Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (I dressed up as Mary for Halloween when I was 12, in 1977), Soap, and Jane the Virgin; and why there’s a stigma associated with loving the genre when there really shouldn’t be.

I mean, even if some of the plot twists seem over-the-top, and are repeated to the point of annoying cliché—amnesia! returns from the dead! evil twins!—there’s something deeply relatable and cathartic about the emotional push-pull of those shows, and there’s no shame in becoming absorbed in them.

In our conversation, Druckman refers to soaps as “pop cultural heirlooms,” because so often the tradition of watching is passed down from one generation to the next.

Like Druckman, who was turned onto afternoon dramas by her childhood caretaker, and Sen, who was introduced to them by his immigrant grandfather, I got hooked on Guiding Light as a tween when a much older woman known to me only as “Mrs. Collins” babysat while I was home sick from school. In the afternoons she insisted on tuning into “my program,” and so it began.

Druckman refers to soaps as “pop cultural heirlooms,” because so often the tradition of watching is passed down from one generation to the next. Druckman was turned onto afternoon dramas by her childhood caretaker, and Sen was introduced to them by his grandfather.

I started watching with her when I was 11, and kept going with that show on my own until I went away to college at 17. (In 1980, when I was 15, it was the first place I encountered Kevin Bacon onscreen, and I was instantly smitten.)

I entered my freshman dorm in the fall of 1983 at the height of General Hospital’s Luke and Laura saga (the first place I encountered Demi Moore onscreen), and discovered that gathering around the TV with others in the lounge at 3pm each afternoon was an easy way for an awkward kid like me to make friends. (That and joining my suite mates for Jane Fonda’s Workout.)

Anyway, Druckman, Sen, and I had a fun conversation about the book, and all things soap operas, which you can watch here. ⬇️

What’s your relationship to soap operas? How old are you? Were you introduced to them by an older family member, or caretaker? Do you watch daytime or nightime soaps now? Did you ever? What are/were your favorites? Was there ever any shame associated with this? If so, why do you suspect? (Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like.)

Leave a comment

Free wills and other legal services for seniors...

If you’ve read my book or followed my work for some time, you probably know I’ve long been obsessed with planning for death, while also actively avoiding taking any constructive steps toward it.

It’s reached the point where certain friends will occasionally trepidatiously ask, “So…have you done anything about making a will yet?” When I make excuses, they roll their eyes and say, “Just do it already, okay?”

That tired scenario played out again last weekend. This time the friend who brought it up told me about something that I think is going to get me over the hurdle (maybe some of you have also mentioned it in comments): free wills offered by our local Office For the Aging (OFA). Well, not entirely free—they ask for a donation of any amount. But it sounds simple and painless enough that it might move me past my ridiculous state of avoidance. I mean, I even called and left a message. Baby steps.

Wills and other free legal services aren’t solely offered by the OFA in Ulster County, where I live. They are apparently available nationwide. You can find your local OFA through The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.

Meanwhile, here are some earlier Oldster essays about various aspects of end-of-life planning:

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Earlier today I spoke with my smart political scientist cousin —who writes here on Substack—about his new book, The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders.

The book is a follow-up to his 2020 title, Learning from Loss: The Democrats, 2016–2020. This time around he examines how the Republican party has changed, specifically in the Trump era.

In his quest to understand what happened after an uncommonly charismatic figure entered the political picture—and what might happen going forward—Seth interviewed and surveyed hundreds of party leaders around the country. The result is a thought-provoking read on a subject I’ve thought a lot about.

We had an interesting conversation about it. Check it out above. ⬆️

- Sari Botton

Readers,

The weather has (finally) turned summery here in the northeast after an interminable winter, and I am so here for it. We’ve been going for pool swims, taking long walks, and eating sweet corn with dinner, often out on our back porch.

We don’t have summer vacation plans—we’re not great about planning in advance. But we’re thinking of taking a few days away somewhere near a lake or other body of water. Where should we go? Where are you going?

Where will you be vacationing this summer? Got any recommendations for places that are within a two- or three-hour drive from Kingston, NY?

Leave a comment

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Click here to get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email…

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An interview with Aging as a Spiritual Practice author and teacher Lewis Richmond about his course at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review …

Recently I got to take a course called “Aging as a Spiritual Practice” led by Buddhist priest and meditation teacher Lewis Richmond, through Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, a magazine and online learning center. It’s modeled after Richmond’s book by the same name.

I enjoyed this course, and how it reframes aging as an inescapable reality—not only one to accept and make peace with, but to also savor and enjoy—and elderhood as an achievement and honor. The course’s tag line gives a nice little taste: “Getting older is the greatest teacher.”

I figured Oldster readers might might enjoy the course, too. So I spoke with Richmond earlier this week over Zoom, and asked him to share some of his insights. Our conversation is here. ⬇️

Right now Tricycle is offering Oldster subscribers 25% off tuition, when you use the code OLDSTER25.

The Gen X Piano Karaoke report...

Oh, what a night! Oldster’s Gen X Piano Karaoke event last week at Sid Gold’s Request Room with pianist Paul Leschen was epic. It was so moving, inspiring, and uplifting that I’m going to make this into a series, probably quarterly, highlighting varying themes and musical periods.

I was joined by six performers who all chose songs released before 1997 that had particular meaning for them. Before singing, they each told the stories behind their choices.

I opened with Lisa Loeb’s Stay (I Missed You), a song on the Reality Bites soundtrack—although I was dressed more like an extra from Singles, in frayed cut-offs over fish nets, topped with a plaid flannel.

Side-note: After rewatching both movies in preparation for the evening, I’ve come to the conclusion that Reality Bites is a true Gen X movie, and Singles is more Generation Jones, or as recently put it in these pages, “Geriatric Gen X.” (Both are good movies! And “Melrose Place is a really good show.” IYKYK.)

Next told the story of hearing ’s Gloria: In Exelcis Deo for the first time—and finding identification in Smith’s singing about love for another woman—then performed that song.

Then told the story of listening to R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People as a lonely, brooding 16-year-old, and performed Nightswimming.

After that told a poignant story about a bashing incident he endured soon after coming out (which he shared in this post) and then performed Erasure’s Oh, L’Amour, which he and his friends had been singing the night of the incident.

Then I got to duet with on ’ Closer to Fine, a song she’d asked me to learn the harmony on several years ago. At last we had our chance. (Emily is technically an elder millennial by one year, but I love doing karaoke with her so much, I made an exception.)

Next up was , who told the story of watching Jesus Christ Superstar asa child with her mother, “Viva Superstar,” in bed at the Chelsea hotel, then did a wonderfully whimsical and tender performance of I Don’t Know How to Love Him.

After that told a story about seeing INXS’s live in 1986 as a tween, with her best friend, then sang Never Tear Us Apart while wearing the very concert tee shirt she got that night.

Then Emily Gould channeled 90s’ Jewel for a bang-up version of Who Will Save Your Soul.

Finally, my husband sang Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose that Number, and I sang backup. (It’s one of our many karaoke standbys.)

After that, attendees took turns at the mic, including , Meredith Clare, , , , , , Vivian Manning-Schaffel aka , and many others. Everyone was amazing, but Chemeche’s near-operatic performance of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights blew everyone’s minds.

***

Adding to everyone’s upbeat mood was Knicks fans’ exuberance, coming from the front bar. It was game four of the championship, and when New York won, the cheering spilled into the back room—our room, the one with the piano bar.

At around midnight Brian and I walked for 20 minutes with Blaise toward Union Square, and our buzz from a great night of piano karaoke and storytelling was magnified tenfold by the infectious, communal joy bursting from the streets. People were out and celebrating, strangers high-fiving each other.

From start to finish it was one of those magical New York City nights you never forget.

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

Today we have an essay by who writes the newsletter . It’s about an unconventional, super casual relationship she’s been involved in for two-and-a-half years, and you can find it below this section. ⬇️

Save for the couple of times they’ve traveled together, Noble and her partner primarily only meet for sex in the afternoons on weekends. That’s it. For a variety of reasons she’s not inclined to turn it into more. She’s quite content getting her sexual needs met weekly, then doing the rest of her life solo.

Seeing as attitudes toward sex, relationships, and non-monogamy have broadened in recent years, I thought this would be a good subject to prompt you all about. In the comments please tell us…

How old are you? Are you someone who is open to casual, non-conventional relationships? Non-monogamy? Or do you prefer things the old-fashioned way? Have you experimented with uncommitted relationships? What was your experience like? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

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Me, I’m 60 and I am very much commitment-oriented. I was something of a serial monogamist until my late 30s, when I met my husband, Brian, and we’ve been together 23 years now, married 21. I gave casual dating a try before meeting Brian, and it was really not for me. But I respect other people’s choices, and I’m always interested in hearing about how less typical arrangements work out for people.

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Suzanne Noble’s essay starts here. ⬇️

My Situationship

Suzanne Noble on the low-commitment relationship she’s been enjoying for two-and-a-half years.

By Suzanne Noble

Have you ever considered redesigning your current intimate relationship, or a future relationship, around the partnership that would actually work best for you, rather than what society suggests is appropriate at a later stage of life? In other words, instead of going down the monogamous partner-is-for-life-route, you opted for a different type of dynamic?

For some, that might mean a long-term partner with whom you share life’s experiences. For others, it could be a friend with benefits, or a living-apart-together arrangement, which seems to be growing increasingly popular among my friendship circle. You could even consider being part of a triad, being polyamorous, or simply having more than one lover akin to swinging. Or perhaps you want to ditch the whole idea of being sexual altogether and only have platonic relationships. What if you could rip up everything you were told about what a relationship was supposed to look like and start all over? What if being older came with a whole host of (friends with) benefits?

I was married for a decade. I’m 65 now, have two adult children and have had several partners whose relationships with me lasted between two and five years. I’ve done monogamy, marriage and what I thought was appropriate and acceptable when it comes to my intimate relationships. But when I think about when I’ve been happiest, when my brain wasn’t buzzing with discontent and when I felt fully free to be me, it was when I was a) non-monogamous and b) kept my liaisons to the weekends, when I could devote myself fully to pleasure without the distraction of work.

I call my current, long-term relationship a “situationship” because there’s no other way to describe it. We’re not friends in the traditional sense; we didn’t build a friendship before becoming sexual. We met via a site designed for no-strings-attached hook-ups, started with sex (usually on a Sunday afternoon) and have, essentially, continued that way, punctuated by the occasional meal, a midweek phone call, or a handyman-style call-out. He’s very good at fixing things, which usually comes with mutually satisfying benefits when I call him up, typically in an emergency situation, to deal with a household problem.

We’ve been away together a couple of times, which was fun and hassle free. But once we returned to London, where we both live, we slipped back into our rhythm: meeting once a week and having sex. The last trip, a week in NYC, sparked a flurry of questions from friends. “Is he your boyfriend now?” “Are you taking it to the next level?” “New York? For a week? Isn’t that serious?”

I call my current, long-term relationship a “situationship” because there’s no other way to describe it. We’re not friends in the traditional sense; we didn’t build a friendship before becoming sexual. We met via a site designed for no-strings-attached hook-ups, started with sex (usually on a Sunday afternoon) and have, essentially, continued that way, punctuated by the occasional meal, a midweek phone call, or a handyman-style call-out.

In truth, the only reason he stayed with me in New York for a week was purely practical. He needed to renew an American single-engine pilot’s license that had expired over a decade ago, and the only way to do so was to meet an assessor at a U.S. airfield. There happened to be one a couple of hours from where I was staying. I offered him my bed, the chance to see NYC for the first time, and the opportunity to renew his license. It was too good an offer to refuse, though I did quietly wonder whether he might change his mind right up until boarding the plane because he’s not the most organized. His “diary,” and I use the term loosely, appears to be a whiteboard in his kitchen where he jots jobs to be done.

Like several of the men I’ve attracted over the years, he’s prone to anxiety, which often manifests as an aversion to planning. I suspect this is because I am a relatively anxiety-free person. We joke that when I ask what my situationship has planned for the weekend, he responds with a single word and a laugh: “Planned?” Our weekend liaison is usually arranged a day or two beforehand, sometimes only hours. It generally happens weekly, though occasionally more pressing commitments shift it by a day or even a week.

After two-and-a-half years, you might wonder whether I’ve considered making it something more serious. I won’t pretend I haven’t. I’ve occasionally imagined what moving him from situationship to boyfriend would entail, but it never takes long to identify several reasons why that might be the end of us.

For one, we often sit at opposite ends of the political spectrum. I’m liberal; he isn’t. His upbringing and limited formal education mean he gets much of his information from YouTube, as he learned to read in his late teens. When conversations drift into politics, I counter his claims with statistics. It’s not sexy. And because our relationship is sexual and only sexual, I tend to steer us away from topics that might spark arguments.

Secondly, I adore the arts: theatre, museums, galleries. If he has attended a cultural event, he has never mentioned it. His passions are motorbikes, planes, and, inevitably, women. I don’t consider him a womaniser, but when he once or twice recounted stories of “hot” women who had come on to him, I shut it down. “I’m not interested,” I told him. “Unless you’re actually involved with them, I don’t need proof that other women find you attractive.”

I love to travel. He rarely ventures beyond East London, where he was born and raised. I spend roughly three months a year in warmer climates; he struggles to leave his neighborhood unless it’s work-related. The two trips we’ve taken together were the only real holidays he has had. Even then, I was half surprised to see him waiting in the arrivals hall when we met up in New York, having arrived on different days. He visits Turkey once or twice a year for dental treatment and follow-ups, but that is the extent of his travel. A man who hates planning is hardly my ideal travel companion.

Then there are logistics. One of his adult children lives with him, and my flat has a revolving door of Airbnb guests. Our meetings often involve negotiating whether he can persuade his son to vacate for a few hours, or whether my guests are out. In two-and-a-half years, I have avoided meeting his friends or family and he has avoided introducing me to them. They know of my existence, as I crop up in conversation, but I have come to realise I will never put faces to names except via photos on his phone. He once described them as “a bunch of meatheads,” which I suspect is his way of implying that I am more intellectually inclined than his inner circle.

And yet, sexually, we align perfectly. We both enjoy giving pleasure and taking our time. He has a great body, and we are well matched, if you know what I mean. We immerse ourselves fully, but we can also laugh. He is tremendous fun in bed, and I am never less than satisfied after our Sunday afternoon sessions. He is a wonderful lover, though kissing is kept to a minimum. With other men, that might be a deal breaker. Here, I suspect it is one of the subtle ways we maintain distance.

He is also kind, and devoted to his family, despite a bad-boy past that included prison and brushes with the law. He speaks constantly and proudly of his two sons, both of whom are exceeding his expectations. He is not one for flowers or grand declarations. Instead, he shows up with practical gifts I did not know I needed. When he discovered my Japanese Global knives were blunt, he found a pocket-sized sharpener designed specifically for them and restored them in a few swipes.

When I nearly hyperventilated trying to inflate a special blow-up pillow designed to ease the strain on his knees and make things more comfortable for me when having sex, he arrived the following week with a rechargeable pump. When I complained about shoulder pain, he bought me a massage gun.

But what truly binds us are his stories—colourful, engaging, and endlessly entertaining. And he rarely repeats them twice. Think of a version of East Enders, with a touch of Peaky Blinders thrown in. With two erotic memoirs behind me, and a glamorous past including being a celebrity publicist for a decade, I’m not short on stories myself, yet in our case, I rarely bother bringing them out. Being with him feels like stepping outside my own life for a while, lying back and listen as the tales from his past emerge. I have close friends with whom I share my vulnerabilities and my triumphs. My situationship, by contrast, stays deliberately light. I let him do most of the talking.

This kind of relationship may not suit everyone. But the positive response I receive from women when I describe it suggests that many of those I know are intrigued, if not quietly a little jealous.

Perhaps that is the real point. When we strip away expectation and convention, what remains is choice. And for now, this is the choice that works for me.

Okay, your turn:

How old are you? Are you someone who is open to casual, non-conventional relationships? Non-monogamy? Or do you prefer things the old-fashioned way? Have you experimented with uncommitted relationships? What was your experience like? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Big thanks to for sharing her story. And to all of you for reading, and commenting kindly and thoughtfully. Oldster has the best comments section around!

Thanks, too, to those who support Oldster with paid subscriptions. 🙏💝

Readers,

I’m excited to tell you that plans have just been put into place for an Oldster podcast, to be launched in the fall, sponsored by investor, activist, philanthropist, and veteran broadcast journalist Ruth Ann Harnisch.

I’ll be the host, and my multitalented husband, —a podcast junkie and an audio engineer with impressive creds on his resume like WNYC Radio and Electric Lady Studios—will serve as senior producer. He’ll also take over production duties for Oldster’s live events from me. (I’ve got an Oldster anthology to produce! And two daily publications to put out!)

In a very Oldster turn of events, after years of fixing people’s computers (who in the Kingston area remembers his wonderful Tech Smiths, where in the front room I ran an art gallery called The Anvil?) and serving as assorted companies’ I.T. guy (he switched primary fields a few decades ago when the recording industry tanked), Brian is getting to return to his dream area of work—at 64.

This summer Brian will focus on planning and pre-production. We have a pretty good idea of how we’ll format the podcast, but we’re always checking out good examples, and looking for others, so...

Got any favorite podcasts you’d recommend we listen to?

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Also, if possible we’d love to land on a major platform like Lemonada, Higher Ground, Crooked Media, Slate, Rabbit Grin, or some other one I haven’t yet heard of. If you work at one of those and can help, or if you are a podcasting agent or have one to recommend, please get at me. Thank you!

We hope to take the podcast live in late September or early October. It’ll be a great way for us to celebrate Oldster’s forthcoming fifth birthday.

Speaking of which, I’ve postponed the August 7th Joe’s Pub event for some date as-yet-to-be-determined, likely in the fall or winter. So many of the performers I tapped to take part were going to be on vacation in early August and asked to be included in future events instead. I figure much of the audience might be away then, too, so best to find another time.

Stay tuned for more on a new Joe’s Pub, and the podcast…

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!

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Why is it so hard to get home health care aides covered by Medicare and Medicaid?

First the good news: My mom is doing really well now. She has just about fully recovered from her early May illness. Thanks again to everyone who sent good wishes.

Now the bad news: After my mom was released from the hospital, the Visiting Nurse Association sent someone to take my mom’s vitals and to evaluate her for any additional care she might need. That led to helpful visits by a physical therapist and an occupational therapist.

At the end of the nurse’s first visit, she told us she was recommending that Medicare provide my mother with a home health care aide for three hours a day, five days a week, for two weeks. That sounded helpful, especially given that I’d be going home soon, and would no longer there to help my mom out with cooking, cleaning, shopping, showering, dressing, and other tasks she was unable to fully manage while recovering.

But then the nurse added this devastating line, “You need these services. But I’ll tell you right now that they most likely won’t give them to you.”

She cited a drastic shortage of home health care aides in the system, and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as factors. “I have an older patient right now with a broken back who can’t get a home health care aide, even though I’ve recommended it a number of times,” she said, “so you most likely won’t get it, either.”

At the end of the nurse’s first visit, she told us she was recommending that Medicare provide my mother with a home health care aide for three hours a day, five days a week, for two weeks. But then she added this devastating line, “You need these services. But I’ll tell you right now that they most likely won’t give them to you.”

This cognitive dissonance is something she said she faces every day. We decided to hire someone on our own for two weeks, someone who’d helped my mom after a surgery several years ago. Fortunately we were able to afford this for a short period of time. But many people cannot.

I did a little research and learned that this issue is something elders have been dealing with for years, and that it’s only getting worse.

“Almost three quarters—74 percent—of New Yorkers needing home health aides were unable to retain a worker in 2021, according to a report by the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State (CDPAANYS),” wrote Gail Robinson in a 2022 article for City Limits. “The shortage forces many older and disabled people to go without the care they need, or remain in hospitals and nursing homes.”

Robinson goes on to identify low wages for home health aides as the primary problem. A more current piece, a March, 2026 article by in The New Republic echoes that.

“Despite the importance of home health care for older and disabled Americans, these workers typically earn lower wages, a trend exacerbating difficulties in hiring for these positions,” Segers writes. “In 2024, the median pay for home health and personal care aides was only $16.78 per hour.”

Another factor she points to is changes to immigration policy:

“Immigration policy will also affect the home care labor force, as immigrants comprise one in three workers in the home care setting. Historical data has shown that previous crackdowns on immigration have led to a reduction in home health care workers.”

In my research I learned about New York State Home Care Crisis Campaign, which is collecting data on this subject: “If you are a NYS resident who has had problems finding home care or a family caregiver who has not been able to hire a home health aide or personal care assistant for a loved one, please share your story.” If you want to share your own story with them, you can find the form for that here.

You’re also invited to tell your story—of difficulty getting home health aides covered for yourself or your loved ones—here.

Leave a comment

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

I want to pause for a moment to acknowledge all the wonderful contributors to Oldster. I am so blessed, week in and week out, to get to work with a truly high caliber of writers who produce high-quality work. They contribute personal essays and essay/open-thread-forum combos. Or they respond thoughtfully to the Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, or the Sober Oldster Q&A. I couldn’t be more thankful.

Recently we’ve had gems by , , , , , , , , , , —I could go on and on. Take a look back in the archive if you’ve missed some of these beauties.

While I’m acknowledging folks, let me also thank all of you for being here—for reading and commenting so thoughtfully. I love the Oldster community. Much gratitude to those who also support my work here with paid subscriptions.

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!

Oldster runs on reader support. If you enjoy it and want to help me keep publishing and paying essayists and interviewers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏

Subscribe now

I thought I was “too young” for closed captioning but, alas...

Last weekend Brian and I went to The Rosendale Theatre for a showing of a wonderful dark comedy, The Christophers. It stars Ian McKellen as an older, dying painter, and Michaela Coel as a young art restorer hired by his children to commit forgery, as in: complete their father’s famously unfinished series of paintings known as “The Christophers” behind his back, so that they can sell them at a bigger profit after he dies.

Just before the movie started we watched a bunch of ads, including one for Open Caption Wednesdays at the theatre. I thought to myself, “Some day, when we’re older, we’ll want to come to those.”

Well, some day came sooner than I knew. At several points during the movie, one of us turned to the other to ask, “What did he say?” or “What did she say?” Afterward we both confessed we wished the movie had been offered with closed captioning.

There were two issues: 1) It’s a British film, and the actors all have heavy accents. 2) Both leads frequently speak softly.

Okay, there’s also a third issue that I’m dancing around: 3) We are in our 60s, and juuuuust beginning to experience a bit of hearing loss. Brian recently had his ears checked, and the audiologist said that on one side he was starting to show a touch of loss. No need yet for hearing aids, but I imagine those aren’t too far down the road. (I mean, I have friends 10 or more years younger who wear them.)

This should come as no surprise, given that Brian played in bands at loud venues for many years, and worked in the recording industry. Actually, it’s more of a surprise that at 64 he’s only exhibiting a tiny bit of hearing loss.

We’ve already begun using closed captioning on the cozy British murder mysteries and other British shows we’ve been enjoying on PBS/Masterpiece. It started with Grantchester (get ready for season 11, dropping June 14th, Grantchester-heads!), and continued with Magpie Murders, Moonflower Murders, and now All Creatures Great and Small.

Come to think of it, maybe we first used them for A Place to Call Home, an Australian show we loved so much, we watched all six seasons twice.

We appreciate the way the captions help us interpret unfamiliar dialects, and make it easier for us to understand going on onscreen. We also get a kick out of the captions describing sound effects—for instance “🎶” when there’s music, and “birds chirping,” when, well, birds are chirping in the background. That one comes up a lot. Sometimes, even when we’re not watching television, out of nowhere, one of us will deadpan to the other, in a British accent, “buhds chuhping.”

As of yet we haven’t turned on closed captioning for shows featuring actors with American accents. But I’ll admit that every once in a while that setting is left on from a British show we watched the night before, and you know what? I kind of like it.

So, once again my internalized ageism (we all have it) has misinformed me, leading me to believe that something actually useful to me is just “for old people.” (And also, that I’m not a member, broadly, of that population.)

No, captioning a great accessibility accommodation for those who prefer it, or need it—many of whom will naturally be older, as I am getting, but others of whom will need it because they are deaf or hard of hearing, at any age. There’s no shame in choosing it.

Do you used closed captioning when you watch movies and TV? How old are you? How old were you when you started doing that? Do you use hearing aids or other assistive technology, like cochlear implants? How old were you when you got those?

Leave a comment

Oldster’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room is Sold Out! But there’s now a waiting list you can join…

We’ve sold out this event! (Which is, by the way, open to everyone over 21, but focused specifically on the music that has defined Generation X.) But I’ve just added a waiting list that you can add your name to, in case ticket-holders need to bow out down the line.

It’s going to be so great! At the beginning of the evening, some featured singers will perform songs released on or before 1997, and tell brief stories about why they chose those songs, and what they mean to them. After that, piano karaoke will be open to everyone.

Singers include , , , , , , and yours truly, all accompanied by Paul Leschen.

Join the Wait List

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

In the past several months I’ve been interviewed a lot about Oldster, and also about my own experience of getting older. Sometimes the interviewers have turned my own questions (from The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire) back on me. I already took the questionnaire myself nearly five years ago, but it’s been interesting to consider my thoughts and feelings from a new vantage point, now that I’ve entered my 60s.

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One of the questions that came up in a recent conversation is the eighth one in the questionnaire:

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

I realized that something has recently shifted for me on that front. Maybe it has to do with my work now being recognized in a more serious way, but suddenly I’ve gained a new level of confidence in myself.

It’s not just about my work. It also has to do with who I am in the worlds I travel through—family, friends, community (locally and more broadly), my profession. I like who I show up as, now that I’m older and more seasoned at living life.

I also value myself and my time more, which makes it so I’m less likely to waste it on people and endeavors I’m not really interested in, or don’t serve me well.

This new perspective allows me to self-advocate and stand up for myself in ways I never used to know how to, or have the chutzpah for. And it helps me to find my boundaries and limits in situations where, in the past, I might have allowed myself to be drawn in directions that were not good for me. I’ve learned to count to ten before offering a knee-jerk, people-pleaser’s “yes” when the more truthful and self-supportive answer might be “no.”

This shift also extends to my appearance. I’ve accepted the effects of aging on how I look, in a way I really hadn’t before. Not only that, I think I might actually prefer how I look now—gray hair and wrinkles and all. My physical form feels to me like a favorite pair of well-worn blue jeans.

What’s more, I’ve sort of settled into the identity of A Somewhat Older Person—a more experienced colleague/mentor/big sister to Millennials and Gen Z-ers. Yes, to some extent I still feel like a kid internally—I suppose I always will—but there’s also this new role that I gladly play when its called for, and which I feel comfortable in.

***

I’m always curious about other people’s experiences of getting older, so I figured I’d toss this question out to all of you for a Friday Open Thread. In the comments please tell us…

How old are you? How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity? Was there a particular age at which your self-concept shifted? Maybe more than one? What do you suspect influenced those shifts? Do you like who you’ve become as you’ve gotten older? Are there aspects of your identity as an older person that you don’t like? Ones you don’t? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

I really love these open threads because they help me feel less alone in my experience of aging. I also enjoy getting to know more about all of you.

Thanks for chiming in. And for reading and supporting my work at Oldster. I really appreciate it. 🙏 💝

-Sari Botton

Readers,

Thanks again to those who have asked after my mom. She’s getting a little stronger every day, and I hope that soon she’ll be fully back to herself.

***

In more upbeat news, I’m in the process of putting together the next Oldster Variety Hour at Joe’s Pub, to be held Friday, August 7th at 7pm.

That edition of the show will celebrate Oldster’s 5th birthday. It’s wild to me that we are coming up on the fifth anniversary of when I launched this publication on a bit of a whim, after waking from a dream in which I started a magazine called Oldster.

Well, not a complete whim. I’d already been delving into the topic of aging at a digital publication called Longreads, where I was the personal essays editor. There, from 2018 to 2020, I edited a series called Fine Lines. When I left that publication, I knew I wasn’t done with the subject. Actually, as far as I was concerned, I’d barely scratched the surface. But I needed a new name, and I was stumped trying to come up with one. That is, until my unconscious coughed up “Oldster.”

Anyway, if you live in the New York area, or have plans to travel here in August, mark your calendars! Stay tuned for details coming soon. I had such a great time hosting and performing in the last edition, March 4th, and the one before that in Kingston, October 1st.

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!

Oldster runs on reader support. If you enjoy it and want to help me keep publishing and paying essayists and interviewers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏

Subscribe now

How the arts can lengthen your life...

I’m not saying that attending an Oldster Variety Hour will allow you to live longer…or am I?

Well, sort of. This week on the CNN site I was intrigued by an article by Jack Guy entitled “Engaging with arts and culture can slow biological aging as much as exercise, study suggests.” It’s about a new study by Innovation in Aging indicating that engaging with the arts can increase one’s longevity.

The first study of its kind, it included 3,556 subjects. The big take-away is that thanks to a combination of pleasing aesthetics, sensory stimulation, and social interaction, engaging with the arts appears to slow down biological aspects of aging, even at the molecular level. The benefits seem to be on par with those of physical activity. (Great news for a musical theater geek like me, who failed gym.)

The researchers weren’t surprised by the study’s findings, and neither am I. Personally I find nothing revives my spirit or returns me to myself after I’ve been depleted more than going to a gallery or museum, seeing a play, going to the movies, hearing live music, attending a reading in a bookstore. Again and again, I feel as if art gives me a new lease on life, and it turns out there’s empirical data proving that’s more than a feeling.

I love the idea of art as medicine—better than Geritol.

Do you feel as if you derive physical benefits from engaging with the arts? What are your favorite art forms? What effects do they have on your mind, outlook, and even physical sense of wellbeing?

Leave a comment

A study on chronic pain in those over 55 is seeking subjects...

Last year I interviewed Brandon Gaudiano, Ph.D., a researcher co-conducting a chronic pain study and program called “Reclaim Your Day” out of Butler Hospital and Brown University.

It was an eye-opening conversation in which we talked about alternative ways some older people are addressing the pain they live with. Among those alternatives: meditation, and peer-to-peer storytelling and listening, which helps those suffering to feel less alone, both of which seem to have at least minor analgesic effects.

This week Gaudiano reached out to let me know that the study is moving to the next phase, and that they are looking for subjects 55 and older who live with chronic pain, to take part. Here’s an informational flyer he shared with me:

If you’re interested in taking part in the study, you can scan the QR code on the flyer above; call or text (410) 871-9702; or email reclaimyourday@butler.org

Oldster’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room is Sold Out! But there’s now a waiting list you can join…

We’ve sold out this event! (Which is, by the way, open to everyone over 21, but focused specifically on the music that has defined Generation X.) But I’ve just added a waiting list that you can add your name to, in case ticket-holders need to bow out down the line.

It’s going to be so great! At the beginning of the evening, some featured singers will perform songs released on or before 1997, and tell brief stories about why they chose those songs, and what they mean to them. After that, piano karaoke will be open to everyone.

Singers include , , , , , , and yours truly, all accompanied by Paul Leschen.

Join the Wait List

That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

Thanks for all the good wishes for my mom, who, as I mentioned last week, has been sick. I’m still on Long Island caring for her, and I’m happy to report she is slowly but steadily getting better.

As many Oldster contributors have written before me, caregiving is difficult work. It’s truly a humbling endeavor, especially for someone who never had kids. Each time I’m called to do this, I find myself utterly exhausted. It gives me newfound respect for others who care for elders, as well as parents raising children.

Today’s Letter from the Editor will be short and sweet because of all I’m juggling on that front…

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!

Oldster runs entirely on reader support. If you enjoy it and want to help me keep publishing and paying essayists and interviewers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏

Subscribe now

“Curiosity is the Best Moisturizer” My appearance on Hal Rubenstein’s podcast...

This week the great released an episode of his wonderful, upbeat podcast, The Happy Grownup, featuring yours truly. (He also publishes a newsletter by the same name, in which I’m also featured.)

I had a great time talking with Hal. Although we’re 15 years apart, we’re kindred spirits in that we’re both deeply interested in the the upsides of aging—in addition, of course, to the inevitable losses and limitations. We share a curiosity about what the future might hold, and what other people’s experience of growing older is like.

I love Hal’s positive attitude about that: “Curiosity is the best moisturizer,” he says. I agree. It really does keep you agile. There’s nothing like wonder to keep you young.

Hal’s got many other great lines in this episode, too, including that he considers hearing aids to simply be “glasses for your ears”—something he has no shame in regularly wearing at 75.

***

I strive for Oldster to address all aspects of aging—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and to not be toxically positive. But when people ask me what makes this magazine different from other aging-related media, I say that it calls attention to all the possibility ahead of us as we grow older.

It’s something that was reinforced for me by Oldster readers when I was anxious about turn 60 last year. So many of you told me about all great the new experiences you encountered later in life—in relationships, in your work, in your creative endeavors, and in the many adventures you embarked on. Thank you for that.

Tell me…are you a happy grownup? What keeps you upbeat and optimistic as you get older? What are some possibilities that opened up for you later in life?

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P.S. In case you missed it, this week I also published a piece of Hal’s about the joys and challenges in having younger friends.

And before that, he took The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.

Oldster’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room is Sold Out! But there’s now a waiting list you can join…

We’ve sold out this event! (Which is, by the way, open to everyone over 21, but focused specifically on the music that has defined Generation X.) But I’ve just added a waiting list that you can add your name to, in case ticket-holders need to bow out down the line.

It’s going to be so great! At the beginning of the evening, some featured singers will perform songs released on or before 1997, and tell brief stories about why they chose those songs, and what they mean to them. After that, piano karaoke will be open to everyone.

Singers include , , , , , , and yours truly, all accompanied by Paul Leschen.

Join the Wait List

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll be back with two posts—an Oldster Friday Link Roundup, and a timely, short essay by about The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

Today we have an essay by writer and filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum about forgiving her harsh and difficult mother, and bonding with her—to the point that she is able to now serve as her mother’s nearly fulltime caretaker.

Getting to this place with her was not easy. It took Kirschenbaum by surprise, and led to great healing. The experience was so profound and transformative, she made a documentary and published a memoir about it, and became a forgiveness coach.

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It feels like a topic many will relate to, so I thought I’d prompt you about it. In the comments please tell us…

How old are you? Have you had a difficult relationship with your mother, or another parent? Did you ever work things through, or find a way to heal it? Have you been able to forgive them? If so, how? If not, how else have you coped with it? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Gayle Kirschenbaum’s essay is below here. ⬇️

Forgiving My 102-Year-Old Mom

Gayle Kirschenbaum on the unlikely bond she formed with her mother after years of hurt, and then becoming her caretaker.

I didn’t forgive my mother in a tidy, movie-ending moment. It happened in fits and starts, over time, as I dug into her past and pieced together the story of her childhood.

For decades, we were at war. I left home at 16, convinced distance would muffle the hurt. It didn’t. Her words could still slice through my armor. I built a life and a career where I was seen for my talents—one day I was winning an Emmy and appearing on the Today show; the next, I was dodging my mother’s bullying and relentless criticism.

Here’s what finally shifted everything: I stopped waiting for an apology—or even for her to acknowledge she’d done anything wrong—before I allowed myself to heal. If I wanted to set myself free from emotional bondage, I had to change. I had to learn how to forgive her, even though I had no idea how I would.

My mother had buried much of her early life. Her constant response to my questions was, “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” So I went looking: vital records, newspaper clippings, and interviews with her first cousins, whom I never even knew existed. What I found helped me understand her, though it didn’t excuse the harm. The picture that emerged included her father’s two attempted suicides, her family’s financial hardships, and the untimely death of her baby sister from pneumonia. Those losses rearranged the household’s gravity. Toughness was rewarded; tenderness wasn’t. She never learned to process grief.

Here’s what finally shifted everything: I stopped waiting for an apology—or even for her to acknowledge she’d done anything wrong—before I allowed myself to heal. If I wanted to set myself free from emotional bondage, I had to change. I had to learn how to forgive her, even though I had no idea how I would.

And while my mother wasn’t born mean, her sharpest edges were often reserved for me. With friends, she could be charming. With my brothers, she could be warm. But with me, the criticism was relentless. Understanding that pattern didn’t make the wounds disappear, but it explained the map she was using—not only generational trauma, but also the mother–daughter tangle of same-gender competition and her powerful need to be the center of attention, with unmistakable narcissistic traits.

Learning to forgive looked ordinary from the outside. It sounded like a sentence I practiced before picking up the phone: “Mom, I’m happy to talk, but I won’t stay on if you criticize me.” At first, she tested the boundary—little jabs, a sigh, a dig about my hair, my body, or my clothes. I repeated the line and, once, quietly hung up. The next call was shorter on jabs. That became our new rhythm: if I stayed calm, the call stayed kind.

While my mother wasn’t born mean, her sharpest edges were often reserved for me. With friends, she could be charming. With my brothers, she could be warm. But with me, the criticism was relentless. Understanding that pattern didn’t make the wounds disappear, but it explained the map she was using—not only generational trauma, but also the mother–daughter tangle of same-gender competition and her powerful need to be the center of attention, with unmistakable narcissistic traits.

There were pivotal moments: In a family session at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy, the therapist asked her to apologize to me. She gripped a tissue and stared at the carpet. Her voice went small. “I know I was hard on you,” she said, each word feeling like it had to cross a mountain. It wasn’t an all-encompassing confession, and it didn’t undo the past, but she was trying as best as she could.

Later, when she was 99 and together we had a large following on social media, we needed a video for Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement. She stalled. I told her to talk about our story. She recorded a video admitting how harsh she’d been and asked for my forgiveness—then added that now she had to forgive herself. Our followers went wild, wishing their mothers had done the same. I didn’t need to hear it—I had already forgiven her—but when I asked, “Why say it now,” she said it was time to cleanse her soul.

What did I do on my journey to forgive her? I stopped reacting and started responding—no raised voice, no retreat, just calm, clear boundaries. I reframed how I saw her: Beneath the sharpness was a wounded child shaped by losses she never processed. Resetting my expectations meant that when she criticized me, I heard a scared plea for love, not a verdict. Without my old reactions to push against, her criticism lost force and eventually faded.

Forgiveness came in layers—first relief, then curiosity, and, surprisingly, affection. I lowered my voice. She softened hers. We laughed more. We found our way back to each other, one ordinary day at a time.

In a family session at the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy, the therapist asked her to apologize to me. She gripped a tissue and stared at the carpet. Her voice went small. “I know I was hard on you,” she said, each word feeling like it had to cross a mountain. It wasn’t an all-encompassing confession, and it didn’t undo the past, but she was trying as best as she could.

Then my mother turned 100, with 102 quickly behind it. Somewhere along the way, the daughter who’d fled became the daughter who makes soup, manages her care, and records her wisdom and wisecracks because the world seems to need them. She still lives in her own home in Florida, where she prefers to be, and though I’m based in New York, I now mostly live with her there, caring for her and getting back north only when I absolutely have to. My days filled with small things that somehow felt holy: setting up the seven-day pill sorter; taking her to Shabbat services—something neither of us had done before; bringing her to a museum; doing her laundry; changing her linens; tucking a blanket over her when she fell asleep on the bed while playing bridge on her iPad; and heading to Happy Hour, where she drank vodka in a wine glass with a side of tonic and delivered a one-liner that slayed the bar or restaurant. I published her book of tips on life and longevity; her fans championed it and even helped fund it.

We became a mother-daughter duo that people recognize on the street, in stores, and at Happy Hours (her favorite social activity). If you’d told my younger self that strangers would stop me to say our relationship gives them hope, I’d have sworn you had the wrong family.

Forgiveness came in layers—first relief, then curiosity, and, surprisingly, affection. I lowered my voice. She softened hers. We laughed more. We found our way back to each other, one ordinary day at a time.

Caregiving isn’t for the delicate. It’s logistics and worry and love braided together. Some days I am patient; some days I am not. On the hard days, I step outside, breathe, take a walk, and come back more centered. Even then, I’m grateful for the chance to show up differently—to be the woman I didn’t know how to be at 20 or 30 or even 40. At 71 now, I’m grateful we got a second act.

Forgiveness isn’t forgetting. It’s remembering with context. It’s choosing not to keep re-wounding yourself with an old story when a new one is possible. It doesn’t mean pretending the past was fine; it means deciding the past won’t author your future.

We didn’t fix everything. We did something braver—we changed our pattern. And that changed us.

Author’s note: After my documentary Look at Us Now, Mother! came out, people began asking for a book and for help. That’s how I became an accidental forgiveness coach with a TED Talk. My memoir, Bullied to Besties: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness, tells the fuller story of how I found my way back to my mother and to myself. I made a second documentary, My Nose, a funny film about my mother's relentless campaign to get me to have a nose job. Oldster readers can use the discount code “MOTHER” to save 50% off streaming fees for both movies.

Here’s the trailer for Look at Us Now, Mother!:

Okay, your turn:

How old are you? Have you had a difficult relationship with your mother, or another parent? Did you ever work things through, or find a way to heal it? Have you been able to forgive them? If so, how? If not, how else have you coped with it? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Big thanks to . And to all of you for reading, and commenting kindly and thoughtfully. Oldster has the best comments section around!

Thanks, too, to those who support Oldster with paid subscriptions. 🙏💝

Readers,

First, some exciting news that I’ve been sitting on, waiting for it to be official: I’ve secured a contract from HarperOne for the Oldster anthology that I’ve been talking forever about wanting to publish.

Huge thanks to my agent, , who cheered me on as I worked on the proposal, then polished and sold it; and to the editor I can’t wait to work with, Rakesh Satyal. Thanks also to my friend and colleague , who created some design elements we used in the proposal.

Publication is planned for some time in 2027, although we don’t yet have a date. Stay tuned. I couldn’t be more excited to dig in, and to put some more Oldster out into the world, in a different format. Next: Oldster the musical.1

By the way, The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire will be included as a form toward the back of the book, so once it’s out, you can quiz yourself.

Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!

Oldster runs entirely on reader support. If you enjoy it and want to help me keep publishing and paying essayists and interviewers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏

Subscribe now

My interview with Ellen Burstyn about her new book, “Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up – A Poetry Anthology for Wisdom and Inspiration”...

A few weeks ago I had the great honor of interviewing 93-year-old award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn.

The occasion was her wonderful new book, Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up – A Poetry Anthology for Wisdom and Inspiration, an interesting hybrid—an anthology of her favorite poems combined with memoir about her love for the form, and the poems and poets that have had an impact on her throughout her life. The book was published on Tuesday, also by HarperOne, my new publisher.

I really enjoyed the book, despite, as I confess in our conversation, not really being what I think of as “a poetry person.” As Burstyn explains, I’m exactly the kind of reader she had in mind when she wrote the book.

Watch the 12-minute part of my interview with Ellen Burstyn that’s about her new book:

Burstyn believes poetry is for everyone, and that reading more of it will enrich us in ways we might not imagine. She got the idea for the book while working one day with her trainer.

“We were working out in the gym downstairs, and I had this poem in my head, and I wanted to tell her about it. I said, ‘Do you read poetry?’ And she said, ‘No,’ like that. I thought, why is it so unpleasant to her? I realized that her idea of poetry was Roses are red, violets are blue. So we went upstairs and I said, ‘I want to read a poem to you.’ I read her a Mary Oliver poem, and she said, ‘Oh, well, that’s not sappy.’ I thought, ‘Aha, I see.’ I thought, how many people just don't read poetry, and don’t know what they're missing?”

In addition to sharing a wide range of poems, Burstyn writes about her penchant for memorizing them. As she says in our interview: “It's fun to carry around poetry in your head because you'll see something and one of those lines will just appear to you and it connects you somehow to the world outside and your own feelings.”

She also writes about sharing poems with friends and costars, and her friendships with poets, like Maya Angelou, who she met while appearing in 1995’s How to Make an American Quilt. It was a nice conversation, and you can watch it above. ⬆️

You can also check out the rest of my interview with Ellen Burstyn, in which she verbally responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, here: ⬇️

Do you read poetry? What do does it give you that other writing doesn’t? Do you have any memorized? Got any favorite poems you’d like to recommend?

Leave a comment

Oldster’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room is Sold Out! But there’s now a waiting list you can join…

We’ve sold out this event! (Which is, by the way, open to everyone over 21, but focused specifically on the music that has defined Generation X.) But I’ve just added a waiting list that you can add your name to, in case ticket-holders need to bow out down the line.

It’s going to be so great! At the beginning of the evening, some featured singers will perform songs released on or before 1997, and tell brief stories about why they chose those songs, and what they mean to them. After that, piano karaoke will be open to everyone.

Singers include , , , , , , and yours truly, all accompanied by Paul Leschen.

Join the Wait List

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll be back with a beast of an Oldster Friday Link Roundup, including The Oldster Top 10, a list of great new songs, from former record executive .

Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

Today we have an essay by , an author who’s written many books and led workshops on making peace with our bodies and food. Her essay is, no surprise, about accepting her 74-year-old body—no easy feat for someone who has long struggled with issues around weight and body image. You’ll find her essay down below this section. ⬇️

Roth achieves this peace mostly by examining and releasing her long-held negative assumptions about her aging form—and about size, food, and getting older—but also by approaching her 97-year-old mother in a new, healing way, which leads them both to more positive ways of engaging with each other.

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It’s a moving piece, one I imagine many of you will find resonant. I thought it would also be a good subject to prompt you all about. In the comments please tell us…

How old are you? How are you feeling about changes to your body that have come as the result of aging? Have your feelings about your body been negatively affected in any way by your relationship with one or more parents, either as a result of your observations about their bodies, or attitudes they’ve reflected about bodies, size, weight, and/or aging? If so, have you found a way to heal from this? Please share any insights you can offer. Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

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Me, I’m 60 (and a half!), and as I wrote in my memoir, growing up in the 70s and 80s, all the adults around me were constantly dieting in ways that were harmful to them, speaking ill of their bodies and everyone else’s, and commenting on mine. In my teens and 20s I struggled with an eating disorder, and still have residual body dysmorphia.

But somewhere along the way I found it helpful to realize that everyone in our thinness-obsessed culture has problems along those lines, and that we each have to come to terms with it in our own ways. I also adopted a kind of intuitive eating, and some level of acceptance, and goddamnit, I’m sticking with an attitude of body positivity, despite the recent return to emaciation as the ideal among celebrities and others.

Geneen Roth’s essay begins below here. ⬇️

I used to think getting old was a choice. I would look at a gaggle of older women, their mushy arms, their pillowy breasts and think, How could you let this happen? When I watched my mother get dressed—I was in my 50s, she was in her 70s—I’d repress my horror at her once toned legs that were now a gathering place for cellulite. From the smug perch of youth, I’d promise myself those indignities would never find their ways onto this body. Until, suddenly, they did.

I was 58 and when I blinked, I was over 70. I was running five miles a day, doing Pilates twice a week, feeling (as my contractor used to say), “so good I could be twins.” And then, suddenly, multiple vertebral fractures left me spindling around like a toy top. I was living with ongoing breast cancer pain. And my belly was the size of Jupiter from a faulty-brain-gut mechanism (the result of years of eating disorders). The whole megillah fell down like a pile of Pick-Up sticks.

I wanted to be positive about aging. I wanted to be one of those older women who parade around Manhattan in leopard hats with feathers and art-to-wear jackets. But I was shocked and offended at what I saw happening to my body, particularly the neck jowls that looked like my dying father’s.

My feelings about getting older swung from hour to hour, week to week. One day I would think, What’s the big deal? It’s just a number. I can still revel in trees and sky and stars; I’m walking, I’m breathing, I still love my work, my husband, being alive. Then the pain from the lumpectomy scar would shoot to a 10, another war would break out, another glacier shelf would collapse and I wouldn’t be able to move from sitting to standing without shrieking pain. A minute later, my husband of forty years would walk into the house and I’d think, Oh my God. Who is that white-haired man with the flat butt? But the very next hour, he’d laugh and it would be as if the sun broke through brooding clouds. My heart would practically spring out of my chest and I’d want to kiss the earth (but then I would have to figure out how to stand up again) because I could be with him for another day.

I wanted to be positive about aging. I wanted to be one of those older women who parade around Manhattan in leopard hats with feathers and art-to-wear jackets. But I was shocked and offended at what I saw happening to my body, particularly the neck jowls that looked like my dying father’s.

Most of how I felt about getting old had nothing to do with age. Just as they—whoever they are—say that we die the way we live, I realized that we also get old the way we live. And the way I lived until the past few years, was with the conviction that something was wrong, it should be different, and if you give me a second, I’ll figure out who to blame.

I’d had the same attitude about almost everything—my childhood friend Geri’s natural curly hair and skinny legs (hated them), my body (“thunder thighs,” always too fat), and my mother, always my mother. She should not have put me on a diet when I was 11. She should not have hit me, read my journals, said my ankles were like piano stools. I was so convinced my mother would have topped the list of Awful Mothers in History that I googled “worst mothers” and discovered that Charles Manson’s mother traded him for a can of beer. That, I reckoned, was more awful than asking me to return a necklace she’d gifted me (the way my mother had). I clung to the badge of being the victim of a self-absorbed mother. I still felt my heart bang shut whenever I talked to her.

Seven years ago, a friend introduced me to the idea that I was seeing the world through conclusions I’d made about myself by the time I was 4 years old—conclusions like I’m damaged, I’m too intense, I’m unlovable. And that these conclusions became the unconscious lenses through which I saw everything—myself (including my aging body), other people, being alive. She said that by naming the (often unconscious) conclusions, feeling the feelings buried in them, seeing that they were interpretations of a 4- or 6-year-old, and that therefore they were lies, made it possible for me to dismantle them.

Oy, I thought, when I listened to her. Another fucking process; I’d been through forty years of therapy, forty years of spiritual practice and I was tired from trying to fix myself. I had such a privileged life—enough love, enough work, enough money. But here comes the caveat: I was still angry at my mother and simultaneously convinced, I can’t remember why, that unless I forgave her, I’d have to come back again as her daughter which meant redoing high school and being rejected by the cool kids. Nope, I thought. Anything but that.

Seven years ago, a friend introduced me to the idea that I was seeing the world through conclusions I’d made about myself by the time I was 4 years old—conclusions like I’m damaged, I’m too intense, I’m unlovable. And that these conclusions became the unconscious lenses through which I saw everything—myself (including my aging body), other people, being alive.

Also—I didn’t talk about this much because it felt corny—I still felt the longing that drew me to India and a gazillion meditation retreats: to abide in the spaciousness that all the spiritual teachers insisted was our true nature. To know contentment without conditions. They kept saying that it was only a matter of subtraction, that if I could see through the sludge of collective and familial conditioning, then what was always there, always true, would reveal itself. But so far, the sludge prevailed.

So, yes, another process. As I started questioning my conclusions about myself, my aging body, and having the worst mother, I began understanding that the sludge, the ongoing suffering, wasn’t about what happened—that my mother put me on diets or called me selfish, or that my neck had fallen, or that the back pain had spread to my hip. The degree that I suffered when I looked in the mirror or talked to my mother or winced in pain was the meaning I gave to those things. Or, as I said (and still say) to myself often—It’s not the thing, it’s the meaning you give to the thing that is causing so much anguish. It’s not that your jowls are drooping, it’s that you believe drooping jowls mean that you are ugly, that they make you irrelevant, and should have had a face lift at 50.

My friend said that by naming the (often unconscious) conclusions, feeling the feelings buried in them, seeing that they were interpretations of a 4- or 6-year-old, and that therefore they were lies, made it possible for me to dismantle them.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t use vitamin c and a red light on my face. And it’s not that you can’t stand up without being in pain, it’s the meaning you give to it—that you are a geriatric wreck who will need a wheelchair next month to walk. Those are the thoughts that are making you miserable. But still, I see an osteopath, take Ibuprofen, and do hip stretches. And it’s not that my mother asked me to return the necklaces, picture frames, and paintings she once gave me, it’s that I believed that what I wanted or cherished didn’t matter when she did. That I didn’t matter. Without the meaning I layer on top of any and every situation, there is only the neck, the sensation in my hip, and my mother asking for a gift to be returned.

As a kid, I found it impossible to separate what she said from what I concluded it meant when she said it: that I was fat, ugly, unlovable. But when, as an adult, I directly allowed myself to feel what I hadn’t been able to feel when those things happened—despair, shame, hopelessness—and name what I concluded about myself, I saw the lies. The ongoing experience of the process was like taking off a tight, dirty costume I’d been wearing for seventy-five years, and noticing what was left of me—which was pretty much nothing at all. It was like being the sky. Clear, free, open. And as the costume dropped, the wall around my heart dissolved when I talked to my mother, because I was no longer resenting her for installing conclusions that I, not she, had created.

When I changed, so did she.

When I softened, so did she.

When I dropped the story, so did she.

When I radiated kindness, kindness came back. The sweetness was contagious. She transfigured from the mother from hell to the mother of my dreams: open, available, and sassy.

As I started questioning my conclusions about myself, my aging body, and having the worst mother, I began understanding that the sludge, the ongoing suffering, wasn’t about what happened—that my mother put me on diets or called me selfish, or that my neck had fallen, or that the back pain had spread to my hip. The degree that I suffered when I looked in the mirror or talked to my mother or winced in pain was the meaning I gave to those things.

“What about aging?” I asked her recently “What about how much your body has changed? Those lines around your eyes? That hump on your back?”

“Oh those,” she answered. “It took a lot less time to get older than I thought it would. But that hump, those lines, this walker? Remember when you dropped that cut-glass vase and I told you not to cry over anything that could be replaced? Well, aging is like that. It’s not that I can replace my face, change the hump, or get rid of the walker, but those are just things. They come to pass. I’ve spent so long being unhappy about what I didn’t have that I wanted, and what I wanted that I didn’t have. All I want now is what I already have. And that is peace.”

She tells me that her thin wispy hair, which she complained about for ninety years, is so white that she feels as if she is walking under a cloud. That her tiny room in the assisted living facility is the best room in the place. She says she is so lucky, so blessed, so loved. “Forgive me,” she says, “for all those years I neglected you.” A week ago, after she read the introduction to Love, Finally, my new memoir about her, my body, and food, she said, “You could hate me for the rest of your life and I would still love you unconditionally.” Then she added, “No one knows better than me how low I can go.”

It’s as if she has become what those spiritual teachers told me was possible: light as air.

I’m right behind her.

Okay, your turn…

How old are you? How are you feeling about changes to your body that have come as the result of aging? Have your feelings about your body been negatively affected in any way by your relationship with one or more parents, either as a result of your observations about their bodies, or attitudes they’ve reflected about bodies, size, weight, and/or aging? If so, have you found a way to heal from this? Please share any insights you can offer. Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

With big thanks to . And to all of you for reading, and commenting kindly and thoughtfully. Oldster has the best comments section around!

Extra thanks to those who support Oldster with paid subscriptions. 🙏💝 - Sari

Readers,

I missed writing a Letter from the Editor last week while I was leading a writing workshop at the Southern Vermont Writers’ Conference. But these days I don’t have as much time to teach as I used to, and it was nice to switch gears.

Many of the participants were 60 and over, and a number of their stories were aging-related. (Some might eventually show up here.) It reminded me that for some time I’ve wanted to develop a course specifically on writing about aging.

Perfect timing, as this week I was invited by an institute to teach there in the summer of 2027. They asked me for course ideas, and that’s the one they picked. It’s a ways off, but stay tuned for details…

Oldster runs exclusively on reader support. If you’re enjoying it and want to help me keep publishing and paying essayists and interviewers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏

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Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!

Annie Korzen’s new video series, ‘A Widow’s Journey’...

As I mentioned in a recent Link Roundup, in February, Annie Korzen (Oldster contributor, Seinfeld and TikTok star, and author of The Book of Annie: Humor, Heart, and Chutzpah from an Accidental Influencer) lost Benni, her husband of 61 years.

Annie dropped a line yesterday about a series of short videos she’s been posting—moving, eye-opening clips under the heading of “A Widow's Journey.” There are 14 in all, covering various aspects of life after losing a spouse: learning to live alone and shop for just one; her first holidays without Benni; improvising her own rituals for grieving; what appear to be “signs” from him, even though she doesn’t believe in that. The videos are all brief, and worth watching.

One in particular really caught my attention. It’s titled, “My husband‘s death was a blessing for both of us. The future looked grim.” In it, Korzen frankly and bravely confesses to something, the admission of which seems taboo: She felt relieved after Benni’s passing—for him, given his suffering, but also for herself, his devoted but unlikely and unqualified caretaker until the end. You can watch it here:

@akorzenMy husband‘s death was a blessing for both of us. The future looked at grim. #marriage #widow #deathofaspouse #husbandwife #caregiver

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I found Annie’s confession refreshing. All the other videos in the series are great, too. I worry constantly about what it would be like to lose my husband, and somehow her directness about it all feels comforting.

Have you similarly felt relief after the death of a spouse or loved one who’d been suffering for some time? Tell us about that…

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How long does it take to come around to liking a photo of yourself?

In yesterday’s Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, author offered many responses I could relate to (despite our 19-year age difference), especially this, after identifying 30 as a favorite age:

It made me think about the unfortunate gap between when a photo of me is taken, and when I eventually come around to liking that photo, wondering, How did I not see that I actually looked good then??

I think about this every single time someone shows me a picture of me that they snapped, or I take a selfie. And also every time I look back at old photos, and can no longer spot what I once hated about it.

When your self-concept is attached to a younger, perhaps idealized version of yourself, it can be hard to truly recognize, and make friends with, the real you in pictures…

It’s been on my mind more than usual these past few weeks as I’ve worked on a piece for New York Magazine’s The Strategist on the challenge of finding bathing suits that flatter my rapidly changing 60-year-old body, which has always been softer, fuller, and curvier than I’d like, and is now even more so. Now add wrinklier and achier to my list of complaints. (I’ll share the piece once it’s out, next month.)

When she assigned the article, my editor warned, “This means you’ll have to include photos of yourself in the bathing suits you try on.” She did not similarly caution me when it was clogs I was writing about.

It’s hardly just me—I’ve seen many other writers address this discrepancy. Assorted other women and men have also touched on this in their Oldster Magazine Questionnaires.

I suspect this phenomenon has something to do with another common discrepancy: that between our chronological age and our internal age(s), which question #2 of the Questionnaire gets at. When your self-concept is attached to a younger, perhaps idealized version of yourself, it can be hard to truly recognize, and make friends with, the real you in pictures.

Catherine Hiller addressed this aspect in one of her Oldster essays, “The Weird Surprise of Growing Old.” It’s also one of the angles of ’s recent Oldster essay/open thread, “Is the Image You See in the Mirror the Real You?”

But this disconnect—this time-lapse between seeing an image of myself and getting to a point where I no longer hate it—doesn’t only feel aging-related. It has been with me since long before I even qualified as an adult. I remember feeling this way in my teens, maybe even my ‘tweens. I don’t fully understand it, nor how to make it stop.

I’m happy to report, though, that the interval has been steadily shortening. It used to take about five years before I appreciated how I once looked. Now it’s more like a year, or in some cases just a matter of months.

How about you? Does it take you a while to warm up to photos of yourself? How long does it take? Any theories as to why?

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Oldster’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room...

Okay, this is really happening now: Oldster Magazine’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room in Manhattan on Wednesday, June 10th. This event was actually pianist Paul Leschen’s idea.

This event is open to everyone, regardless of age (well, 21 and over), but will be focused specifically on the music that has defined the generation born between 1965 and 1980 (or starting with 1959 if you take into consideration ’ parameters for a cohort she’s labeled “Geriatric Gen X”).

At the beginning of the evening, some featured singers will perform songs released on or before 1997, and tell brief stories about why they chose those songs, and what they mean to them. After that, piano karaoke will be open to everyone.

Singers include , , , , , , and yours truly, all accompanied by Leschen.

Get tickets!

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll be back with an essay/open-thread combo from that is somewhat related to one of the topics above—liking, or making peace with, how we look as we age.

Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝

-Sari

Readers,

Today we have a personal essay by about dealing with life-long body image issues later on, especially after changes brought on by perimenopause. It’s down below this section. ⬇️

She writes about struggling to find a form of exercise that doesn’t feel punishing, and about striving to maintain the sort of body acceptance so many of us adopted before our culture recently reverted to worshipping emaciation.

I relate strongly to this piece, as someone who has also struggled with body image issues since I was a tween. I imagine many of you, even regardless of age and gender, will find it similarly resonant. It seemed like a good topic to prompt you about. In the comments please tell us:

How old are you? Have you ever struggled with body image issues? How have you dealt with them? Have you found ways to exercise that you enjoy, and which don’t feel punishing? Have you managed to achieve body acceptance, and/or found other ways to be compassionate and kind to yourself with regard to your appearance? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Me, I’m 60 and it’s taken me a long time to make peace with my short, curvy body. After hurting myself with food restriction and over-exercising for many years, I’ve adopted a kind of moderate, intuitive eating approach, but am resistant to many forms of exercise. (Part of that has to do with chronic arthritis pain.) But like Morrison, I enjoy walking, and do a fair amount of it. I’m also relieved that I don’t find appealing the emaciated looks that many celebrities have recently adopted.

Rebecca Morrison’s essay begins below here. ⬇️

That so many people like to exercise has always seemed incredible to me. When I was younger, I somehow managed to force myself onto a treadmill and get my heart rate up to a decent tempo. But by the time I hit my 50s, my perimenopausal body had other ideas. My energy level was low, my joints were cranky, and let’s just say the couch and I had become very close.

Then, by some miracle, I discovered something I actually enjoyed: walking. I walk for about 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon, usually around my suburban neighborhood. When I’m walking, I feel strong, young, and free. With ’80s music blasting on my chunky headphones, I strut down the tree-lined streets like the main character in a movie montage. Whether it’s cold or hot or breezy, the air outdoors inflates my lungs with life. I’m on an adventure: ducking under the branches, watching dogs and their owners frolic along.

But sometimes, without warning, I’m accosted by the reflection of myself in a window.

The image is like a splash of ice-cold water, taking my breath away. There I am. My bigger body. My hair in a messy bun with gray streaks taking over. My face sweaty and flushed. And just like that, an old voice returns, reprimanding me for eating too much, for not coloring my hair, for letting myself be this person in the reflection.

It’s a voice I’ve known since I was 13 when my mother and I started fighting about the size of my post-puberty body. She wanted a thin daughter and I wasn’t complying. The more she pushed, the more I pushed back. We both dug into our positions, creating a dark space between us.

Sometimes, without warning, I’m accosted by the reflection of myself in a window. The image is like a splash of ice-cold water, taking my breath away. There I am. My bigger body. My hair in a messy bun with gray streaks taking over. My face sweaty and flushed. And just like that, an old voice returns, reprimanding me for eating too much, for not coloring my hair, for letting myself be this person in the reflection.

My anger toward her resulted in a sort of self-sabotaging rebellion, in the form decades of overeating. Every bite I took was a rejection of her admonishments.

I never got thin. But when I was in my 30s, I made peace with my average-American body, and with my mom, who’d finally come to accept me as I was. Around the same time, the body-positivity movement was gaining traction. For the first time, I wasn’t alone in saying: I don’t need to fix myself to feel worthy.

Alongside millions of women, I embraced the radical idea that beauty, confidence, and value were possible at any size. And that if I believed it enough, others would start to see me as I saw myself.

Sociologists refer to the idea that we see ourselves as others see us as “the looking glass self,” a term coined in 1902 by Charles Horton Cooley. Cooley theorized that our self-image is formed through our perception of how we think others perceive us. In turn, that self-image influences how we behave, speak, and carry ourselves, and how people respond to us. If we think others have a positive view of us, we behave accordingly, and this behavior itself can make people like us. Or, to put it another way, our opinion of how other people think of us can be self-fulfilling.

This sociological theory is important to understand, especially for those in bigger bodies, because we’re often taught that no matter how we feel, if the world sees us as less-than, then that’s what we are and there’s nothing we can do about it.

But research tells a different story.

A 2025 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that when people focus on self-compassion rather than how they look, they have significantly higher levels of self-esteem, emotional resilience, and even healthier habits.

We’re often taught that no matter how we feel, if the world sees us as less-than, then that’s what we are and there’s nothing we can do about it. But research tells a different story. A 2025 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that when people focus on self-compassion rather than how they look, they have significantly higher levels of self-esteem, emotional resilience, and even healthier habits.

“Since our thoughts, emotions and behaviors are all linked, it’s important to not only feel good, but to also speak kindly to ourselves. If you have a negative body thought, that can directly impact not just your feelings but your behavior,” says Dr. Rachel Goldman, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and author of When Life Happens.

So now when I see my full-body reflection on my daily walk, I’ll remind myself not to flinch. Instead, I’ll push my shoulders back and stand up tall knowing the reflection doesn’t have to be the story I tell myself. The real me is the one I feel inside. The one who brought kids into the world. Who pushes up hills, and carries heavy grocery bags up stairs without thinking twice. Who opens jars no one else can. And laughs with her whole body.

I choose her.

We’re so quick to believe the worst snapshot of ourselves. But what if we trusted the feeling instead of the image? What if we held tight to the version of ourselves that feels powerful, joyful and whole, and believed that’s who the world sees too.

Some might think I’m living in denial. That rejecting the “reality” of how we look is somehow dangerous. I disagree.

We’re so quick to believe the worst snapshot of ourselves. But what if we trusted the feeling instead of the image? What if we held tight to the version of ourselves that feels powerful, joyful and whole, and believed that’s who the world sees too.

Because here’s what I know, and research shows: How we see ourselves shapes not only how others see us but how we choose to live.

Maybe I’ll never silence the critical voice from my younger self completely. But I can turn down its volume, and turn up the positive story I tell myself. And when that story takes root, it changes the way I move through the world. It’s a quiet kind of power that can help me live a better, happier, and more confident life.

Okay, your turn…

How old are you? Have you ever struggled with body image issues? How have you dealt with them? Have you found ways to exercise that you enjoy, and which don’t feel punishing? Have you managed to achieve body acceptance, and/or found other ways to be compassionate and kind to yourself with regard to your appearance? Answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like! (If you’re commenting, please also do me the favor of hitting the heart button ❤️ for algorithmic purposes. Thank you.)

Leave a comment

Big thanks to . And to all of you for reading, and commenting kindly and thoughtfully. Oldster has the best comments section around!

Thanks, too, to those who support Oldster with paid subscriptions. 🙏💝 - Sari