This is 48-and-10-Months: Author and Podcaster Jennifer Romolini Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire
This is 48-and-10-Months: Author and Podcaster Jennifer Romolini Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire
"Age has humbled and softened me. I’m a more reliable, consistent person than I ever was, which makes me a better friend, better partner, better parent."
From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”
Here, Jennifer Romolini—author, and co-host with Kim France of the excellent Everything is Fine podcast—responds. - Sari Botton
How old are you?
I’ll be 49 in March.
Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?
It’s funny because in the past I would’ve said 25, the year I mustered the courage to leave a terrible and ill-thought-out marriage, went back to school, and started the life I live now. Or 37, the year I stopped self-medicating with alcohol, gave birth to my child, and had my first true taste of professional success. Or maybe 44, the year I published my first book. But these days I identify most with my 9-year-old self, the earnest, gentle weirdo I was before I started performing femininity, before I started performing an identity, period, and before I started competing with other women for prizes that were never worthy of us in the first place.
Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?
Our ideas about aging in this country are mostly so small and fixed and utterly banal so I’d rather turn this question on its head and ask: what is “old” or “young” for an age?
I’ll tell you that some things that feel vital to personhood when you’re young—differentiating yourself by your tastes and your associations, and the exclusionary snobbery often attendant to both—start to feel boring and limiting as you get older.
These days I identify most with my 9-year-old self, the earnest, gentle weirdo I was before I started performing femininity, before I started performing an identity, period, and before I started competing with other women for prizes that were never worthy of us in the first place.
I feel the youngest and most alive when I’m open and curious, when I don’t have an agenda, when I’m not trying to control the narrative but instead am present enough to tune into the discovery of the moment. I feel the oldest when I’m cynical and ego-driven, when I’m seeking relevance or recognition, when I feel the world owes me something just because I’ve been living (and working) here for as long as I have.
In terms of peers, I don’t know that I always understood that we get to choose our peers, get to the choose the people with whom we want to compare ourselves and measure up to. I feel most in step with people who are honest with and about themselves, who are kind and compassionate about their own and others’ foibles, who have a healthy relationship with work. In some ways I’m so much more impatient as I’ve gotten older, I lack tolerance for the bullshit inherent in transactional relationships, no longer wish to interact with humans who seem little more than pre-programmed holograms.
What do you like about being your age?
There’s this idea that the joy of middle age is giving fewer fucks, but that always rings false to me, a kind of “badass”/superwoman posturing that’s handy on Instagram and hollow at its core. Truth is, I give all the fucks now, my fucks are urgent, I care more deeply about how I show up than I ever did before. The real joy of middle age —if you can get there— is trusting yourself enough to be tender and porous when you can and developing the shrewd sense to know when you can’t.
What is difficult about being your age?
It's so embarrassing but right now it’s grappling with vanity. In your 40s your young face begins the slow metamorphosis into an old face, it changes in ways you somehow hadn’t imagined would happen to you, which can send you into a real panic, especially if you relied on the power of youthful beauty in the past.
I can’t wait to turn 50. A few years ago, I was invited on a desert retreat with a group of cool women who were all over 50. It felt like being part of a secret coven. I thought, “That. I want that.”
I’m pretty sure that this panic is temporary, that if you can find acceptance and a bit of grace you’ll be happier than if you’re constantly trying to fight it, than if you’re throwing thousands away on pokes and erasures and fills. Because, let’s be honest, eventually the choice is “fake face” or “old face” and, ultimately, I’d rather look like myself.
What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?
Perimenopause is indescribably cruel, a physiological cataclysm. I cannot believe no one told me about this. Still, this stage of life doesn’t feel “old” like I’d imagined. I’m basically the same age Rue McClanahan was on the Golden Girls. For better or worse, I don’t yet feel like a Golden Girl.
What has aging given you? Taken away from you?
Age has humbled and softened me. I’m a more reliable, consistent person than I ever was, which makes me a better friend, better partner, better parent. Age and experience have given me the perspective to stop chasing achievement for achievement’s sake. All of which makes being alive more peaceful and rewarding.
Age took drinking away from me and smoking too—both for the best, though I miss them all the time.
How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?
About four years ago, when I was 45, I had what was, for me, a full emotional breakdown. I felt dark and depressed and hopeless. For the 20 years previous, I’d built my identity around my career, thought I could outrun my pain through constant engagement in work, through checking all the life boxes; thought I could hide my self-loathing behind conventional success and accomplishment. But that shit catches up with you and, honestly, you’re lucky if it does.
I feel the youngest and most alive when I’m open and curious, when I don’t have an agenda, when I’m not trying to control the narrative but instead am present enough to tune into the discovery of the moment.
What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?
I can’t wait to turn 50. A few years ago, I was invited on a desert retreat with a group of cool women who were all over 50. It felt like being part of a secret coven. I thought, “That. I want that.”
What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?
So many! Here’s one: When I was 20 I lived with a bunch of female artists in a ramshackle house on the main street of a small town in Amish-country-adjacent Pennsylvania. We made (mostly bad) art and dyed each other’s hair platinum blonde and listened to every Lilith Fair band before there was a Lilith Fair. You couldn’t pay me to go back to that age, but I sometimes try to conjure the feeling of freedom and possibility I had then, waking up in a house with my friends, listening to the Breeders “Last Splash” on a spontaneous summer road trip, the way the air felt on my face and my skin.
Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?
I’ve been around enough famous and powerful people to know we shouldn’t idolize any of them (no offense! fame is hell!). That said, for different reasons, both John Waters and Deborah Levy seem to be doing everything right. I also interview older women each week for the podcast I co-host with my former boss, now friend Kim France. I learn something from all of them, which is the goal and the point. We have to talk more (and more honestly) about aging instead of treating it like some secret shame.
There’s this idea that the joy of middle age is giving fewer fucks, but that always rings false to me, a kind of “badass”/superwoman posturing that’s handy on Instagram and hollow at its core. Truth is, I give all the fucks now, my fucks are urgent, I care more deeply about how I show up than I ever did before.
What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?
I go to bed embarrassingly early. I finally, consistently, use sunblock and use more useless creams on my face. I still love buying and wearing vintage clothes though I’ve stopped, and this is forever, wearing anything that hurts — though that’s probably more pandemic related than about my advanced age.
What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?
Essentially I try to reject any rules or conventionally-held beliefs about getting older—whether it’s what we’re “allowed” to wear on our bodies or pursue with our (still very good) brains.
What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?
My philosophy is: do something. Make sure to blow out a candle. Go out of your way to see a person or people you love and like. Have a moment in the day when you reflect on your life and sit in some gratitude for the fact of still being alive. I used to throw enormous boozy parties but these days I get the same thrill from hanging out with a few friends, getting a little stoned, and playing “Clue.”
Loved loved loved this!!!!
Awesome article Jen!!