I loved this for myself and I loved this for my trans son, who is growing into himself as part of a community that was forged over the last few decades by folks like Griffin. All the trans folks I know who are of an age with me, like Griffin, are just deeply thoughtful about themselves and the world in a way that I'm so grateful to be in proximity to. They don't take any of the stories of our culture as givens. They see them as worthy of question, but also alive. As in, you can change them, pull them apart and retell them in a way that paves the way for freedom for everyone. Thanks for this, Sari. And Griffin!
I think I've commented on one of your newsletters that I find myself sometimes fretting about my gender-fluid kid, who is 33 today! I just remember the years when the world insisted you be one gender or the other.
I worry for my kid, too! But only for the world he's moving through and how it constrains him, not for him on the inside. Like Griffin, he is deeply thoughtful about who he is and his relationships. He has a clear eye for injustice and a fierce desire to serve other trans and queer folks. He has a really healthy relationship to his childhood self. I think if the world would simply believe in him as I do he could do anything.
One of my closest friends (60) transitioned when she was 14, which was highly unusual at that time. She lived in New York for many years. There was no way, once she moved back to a small town, to deny her childhood, but she also knew many older people in NYC and LA who had completely cut ties with their old selves. You had to do it to work in modeling and acting when they came up.
This was a lovely read. Two things really resonated - “there’s tremendous liberation to being out of sync with what is normal” and Griffin’s comments about looking forward to 60, expecting to achieve some state of peace, while acknowledging he’s never had it, so why expect it will come? I find myself often thinking about both of these concepts and I’m grateful that he offered language articulate them.
Age has nothing to do with Chronology Martina, believe me, 50. 60, 70 or 80 they are only numbers. You are the age you are or want to be in your head. I like 50, I was a late starter and got into my prime at 50 therefore that's where I am at the moment 76 is only a number.
Interesting read! “to make some space to teach myself about stillness and the pleasures of doing nothing. Or just doing what I do, not needing to constantly grow or improve. It’s not easy for me to be unproductive. That’s internalized capitalism right there.” 71 here…working on just being me, not always needing to improve or grow. It’s dang hard. I look back at my mom who was striving until she died and then back at both of my grandmothers and I feel that they were more “here I am, it is what it is”. Not so many “opportunities” to be suggested for our improvement.
It's not good being unproductive and it's got nowt to do with capitalism in my mind. You need to keep achieving not in finanvcial terms but in increasing the capital of self worth. Keep on keeping on and don't let the b*****rs wear you down.
Oh I do keep on with being productive … I can find it hard to shut out the suggestions the world has for me to be what the gold standard is. The world as a woman has been constantly been about what I “should” do with my time and energy. Being told there is only one “right” way to live.
I'm a 65-year-old cisgender married woman studying our contemporary culture of aging and I adored this piece. One of the most expansive essays I've read in a long time. Thanks for writing it!
And Sari, thanks for asking Griffin - really pushing our conventional thinking.
Thank you for including this lovely perspective. I appreciate hearing from someone who is embracing their aging and development from a transgender life of experience.
I started highlighting sentences I wanted to remember and ended up covering the page, LOL. What a great piece! Griffin is the psychoanalyst I always dreamed of finding.
This interview is so moving and honest and the Joan Didion quote so apt. Reporting from ten years ahead, I'd like to invite Griffin to address the pain in his hip. One thing I've learned about growing older is that the aches and pains, whether small or large, won't get better on their own. However, some good news (!) is that they can often be resolved. I was recently diagnosed with bursitis in my right hip, an inflammatory condition, and with a combination of thoughtful exercise, some dietary changes, and a new mattress it is so much better. Keep on keeping on, and thank you for your sharing your story.
what a great read. As someone, who like you, for different reasons, but none the less, kept pushing forward to discover more of myself and my world, your writing resonates deeply. Because, in the end, and along the way, you have eloquently described it's not in the why, but in the fact that we simply show up and push. As a 74 year old who has pulled the threads of values, beliefs, superstitions, and more, I am at a great age. The effort of dedicated hard work, now sprinkled with a daily dose of laughter, my favorite find, is, that I no longer need to make things more difficult than need be. I especially love your statement of being in transition,,,not yet in the I don't care stage, but I see it coming. Good for you. This made me laugh so hard, But allow me to offer this. Years ago, a therapist asked me why I felt compelled to help a certain person. I responded by saying, "I could never ignore that person, because they might think I don't care, and I care deeply. It would be selfish of me." Her response? " Try replacing selfish with self full." SO here I am at 74, I do care deeply, simultaneously not caring. I no longer need the ping pong ball in my brain. God knows there are a lot of inner bruises. Thankfully they no longer hurt but since I am a visual person, I can see them lighting up like a pin ball machine and it's all quite funny.
I know nothing about being gay or trans, what I do know is kudos to you for pushing forward, into self discovery. Ain't nothing like it. He made us in His image, not in His image, except for....
Pushing forward allows us to be always and forever at the perfect point in time. Happy Today, And the same tomorrow
I loved this so much and identified with it on so many levels. I'm also 52 and feel like I'm behind in life. I became a mother and got married (in that order) early in life. Prior to that, I had no idea who I was. So, jumping into motherhood at 20 and marriage at 23 didn't really help that process along. I went on to have several more children (almost one a year throughout the 90s). Then finally, in 2014, at the age of 42, I realized I'm queer. My marriage was ending, and I was becoming a true single parent to teenagers. Now, at 52, my youngest children (early twenties) are just getting ready to leave home, and I feel like I'm ready to start exploring and figure who and what I want to be when I grow up.
I'm 76 Griffin and just come alive again and have started. writing as a pastime, or even as a self financing business. I'm too busy to bother about aches and pains and in fact I don't feel them anymore, I feel rejuvinated, so much so that I have just registered my new email address 'the yorkshirefenix@gmx.co.uk' to signify my resurrection. After having a successful career coming from a poor working class background, being made redundant and died (retired) for sixteen years I started to feel restless. You see I'm not ready to die so to hell with convention (no pipe and slippers) and thinking my views don't matter. In fact I am intending shortly to start up a Local history research business.
It might not work, I might fail but at my age what have I got to lose. All my life I have been careful to keep to neutral ground and neutral subjects, mind my Ps and Qs as we Brits say. Well that's boring, I am now of an age where I can say b****r what people think of me I can say what I like and to those that disagree that's their prerogative and Tough s**t. I live alone after 56 years of marriage and bringing up two children. Now living alone I am free of any responsibility except to myself. I don't know how you will Psycoanalyse me or whatever fancy name you might call it. Despite what it might sound like I'm not a grumpy old man. I'm a free spirit and straight and as proud of that as no doubt you are of your status. It is up to all of us to lead the life we desire without being judged by the uneducated nad bigoted. Live your life and forget about the aches and pains. Where the Paracetemols? Farewell from The Yorkshire Fenix risen again from the ashes.
Fly with JOY Phoenix! If I were in UK I’d find you.
I used to keep a joke store fake pile of s**t next to an antique can of Shinola shoe polish. Common phrase here (US) about knowing the difference… I had the can first.
Now, thanks to your post, that pile will be reborn! As “TOUGH SHIT!!” 🥳
It never happens, it's a fantasy. You will give a shit if your head still works. But you can take solace in the fact that you won't have to be around much longer to see if the world burns up or America becomes a communist country. Or the air is too dirty to breathe. Or the Martians invade. Or worse yet, the conservative Christians make America a one religion country. This is probably the worse scenario as intolerance, hate and physical retaliation for religion or lack of it is very possible. (seems to happen with religion)
No wonder fewer people in the US are having kids. According to one source, we have already overpopulated the earth so to save it no one should have kids. Tell that to the abortion foes.
Some of us were preaching this in the early nineties and told to bottle it. We few were the ones who could see clearly whilst the detracters were looking through Bifocals. This quote is not original by the way you probly heard Butch Cassidy say it to the Sundance Kid.
I forget where I hear stuff so no infringement intended, my brain stores weird stuff. But, I remember not wearing a bra in the 70's, I was so flat chested in high school no one noticed. I have been a moderate libber all of my life. We decided to do the "then" thing, which was to only replace yourselves in the world, two kids is plenty. We were aware of air pollution and the danger of petrochemicals, but that was 50 f'ing years ago and look how far we have come. So disappointed.
LOVE THIS: FOR ALL MY AGES: "So I feel like I’m in a difficult age, between old conceptions of myself and new ones that are just beginning to come into being. It’s a struggle. It feels like an existential crisis sometimes." Thanks!
I loved this for myself and I loved this for my trans son, who is growing into himself as part of a community that was forged over the last few decades by folks like Griffin. All the trans folks I know who are of an age with me, like Griffin, are just deeply thoughtful about themselves and the world in a way that I'm so grateful to be in proximity to. They don't take any of the stories of our culture as givens. They see them as worthy of question, but also alive. As in, you can change them, pull them apart and retell them in a way that paves the way for freedom for everyone. Thanks for this, Sari. And Griffin!
I think I've commented on one of your newsletters that I find myself sometimes fretting about my gender-fluid kid, who is 33 today! I just remember the years when the world insisted you be one gender or the other.
I worry for my kid, too! But only for the world he's moving through and how it constrains him, not for him on the inside. Like Griffin, he is deeply thoughtful about who he is and his relationships. He has a clear eye for injustice and a fierce desire to serve other trans and queer folks. He has a really healthy relationship to his childhood self. I think if the world would simply believe in him as I do he could do anything.
Love this, Asha.
Yes, that's a beautiful way to say it!
<3
<3
One of my closest friends (60) transitioned when she was 14, which was highly unusual at that time. She lived in New York for many years. There was no way, once she moved back to a small town, to deny her childhood, but she also knew many older people in NYC and LA who had completely cut ties with their old selves. You had to do it to work in modeling and acting when they came up.
Spot on Asha
This was a lovely read. Two things really resonated - “there’s tremendous liberation to being out of sync with what is normal” and Griffin’s comments about looking forward to 60, expecting to achieve some state of peace, while acknowledging he’s never had it, so why expect it will come? I find myself often thinking about both of these concepts and I’m grateful that he offered language articulate them.
Age has nothing to do with Chronology Martina, believe me, 50. 60, 70 or 80 they are only numbers. You are the age you are or want to be in your head. I like 50, I was a late starter and got into my prime at 50 therefore that's where I am at the moment 76 is only a number.
Wisdom I will carry with me!
Interesting read! “to make some space to teach myself about stillness and the pleasures of doing nothing. Or just doing what I do, not needing to constantly grow or improve. It’s not easy for me to be unproductive. That’s internalized capitalism right there.” 71 here…working on just being me, not always needing to improve or grow. It’s dang hard. I look back at my mom who was striving until she died and then back at both of my grandmothers and I feel that they were more “here I am, it is what it is”. Not so many “opportunities” to be suggested for our improvement.
here! here! exactly! It's so hard.
It's not good being unproductive and it's got nowt to do with capitalism in my mind. You need to keep achieving not in finanvcial terms but in increasing the capital of self worth. Keep on keeping on and don't let the b*****rs wear you down.
Oh I do keep on with being productive … I can find it hard to shut out the suggestions the world has for me to be what the gold standard is. The world as a woman has been constantly been about what I “should” do with my time and energy. Being told there is only one “right” way to live.
First thing I read today & love Griffin's multifaceted approach opening up many perspectives while keeping it real, tending the inner garden.
Yes , the garden part is a beautiful image for me.
It is interviews like this one that keep me coming back for more of Sari Botton and Oldster. Thank you Griffin and Sari.
Awww, thank you, Jean!
I'm a 65-year-old cisgender married woman studying our contemporary culture of aging and I adored this piece. One of the most expansive essays I've read in a long time. Thanks for writing it!
And Sari, thanks for asking Griffin - really pushing our conventional thinking.
Glad you enjoyed this!
Thank you for including this lovely perspective. I appreciate hearing from someone who is embracing their aging and development from a transgender life of experience.
Loved reading this and look forward to the I don't give a shit what anyone thinks stage of life as well!
Me, too!
Live the dream, girl now.
I started highlighting sentences I wanted to remember and ended up covering the page, LOL. What a great piece! Griffin is the psychoanalyst I always dreamed of finding.
Me, too!
This interview is so moving and honest and the Joan Didion quote so apt. Reporting from ten years ahead, I'd like to invite Griffin to address the pain in his hip. One thing I've learned about growing older is that the aches and pains, whether small or large, won't get better on their own. However, some good news (!) is that they can often be resolved. I was recently diagnosed with bursitis in my right hip, an inflammatory condition, and with a combination of thoughtful exercise, some dietary changes, and a new mattress it is so much better. Keep on keeping on, and thank you for your sharing your story.
I'm going for a cortisone injection in my hip today!
Yes, that was what my doctor said would be the next step! Good luck!
what a great read. As someone, who like you, for different reasons, but none the less, kept pushing forward to discover more of myself and my world, your writing resonates deeply. Because, in the end, and along the way, you have eloquently described it's not in the why, but in the fact that we simply show up and push. As a 74 year old who has pulled the threads of values, beliefs, superstitions, and more, I am at a great age. The effort of dedicated hard work, now sprinkled with a daily dose of laughter, my favorite find, is, that I no longer need to make things more difficult than need be. I especially love your statement of being in transition,,,not yet in the I don't care stage, but I see it coming. Good for you. This made me laugh so hard, But allow me to offer this. Years ago, a therapist asked me why I felt compelled to help a certain person. I responded by saying, "I could never ignore that person, because they might think I don't care, and I care deeply. It would be selfish of me." Her response? " Try replacing selfish with self full." SO here I am at 74, I do care deeply, simultaneously not caring. I no longer need the ping pong ball in my brain. God knows there are a lot of inner bruises. Thankfully they no longer hurt but since I am a visual person, I can see them lighting up like a pin ball machine and it's all quite funny.
I know nothing about being gay or trans, what I do know is kudos to you for pushing forward, into self discovery. Ain't nothing like it. He made us in His image, not in His image, except for....
Pushing forward allows us to be always and forever at the perfect point in time. Happy Today, And the same tomorrow
"What is difficult about being your age?" No one flirts anymore
I loved this so much and identified with it on so many levels. I'm also 52 and feel like I'm behind in life. I became a mother and got married (in that order) early in life. Prior to that, I had no idea who I was. So, jumping into motherhood at 20 and marriage at 23 didn't really help that process along. I went on to have several more children (almost one a year throughout the 90s). Then finally, in 2014, at the age of 42, I realized I'm queer. My marriage was ending, and I was becoming a true single parent to teenagers. Now, at 52, my youngest children (early twenties) are just getting ready to leave home, and I feel like I'm ready to start exploring and figure who and what I want to be when I grow up.
You’re ALREADY fabulous. And you have clarity in the Prime of life.
Cheering you on!
Thank you! I appreciate and receive this. 🙏🏾
I'm 76 Griffin and just come alive again and have started. writing as a pastime, or even as a self financing business. I'm too busy to bother about aches and pains and in fact I don't feel them anymore, I feel rejuvinated, so much so that I have just registered my new email address 'the yorkshirefenix@gmx.co.uk' to signify my resurrection. After having a successful career coming from a poor working class background, being made redundant and died (retired) for sixteen years I started to feel restless. You see I'm not ready to die so to hell with convention (no pipe and slippers) and thinking my views don't matter. In fact I am intending shortly to start up a Local history research business.
It might not work, I might fail but at my age what have I got to lose. All my life I have been careful to keep to neutral ground and neutral subjects, mind my Ps and Qs as we Brits say. Well that's boring, I am now of an age where I can say b****r what people think of me I can say what I like and to those that disagree that's their prerogative and Tough s**t. I live alone after 56 years of marriage and bringing up two children. Now living alone I am free of any responsibility except to myself. I don't know how you will Psycoanalyse me or whatever fancy name you might call it. Despite what it might sound like I'm not a grumpy old man. I'm a free spirit and straight and as proud of that as no doubt you are of your status. It is up to all of us to lead the life we desire without being judged by the uneducated nad bigoted. Live your life and forget about the aches and pains. Where the Paracetemols? Farewell from The Yorkshire Fenix risen again from the ashes.
Rock on! I've lost my natural timidity with ageing, which is fantastic.
It's taken six, nearly seven decades for me to nurture and appreciate my authentic self and it is a great feeling.
Fly with JOY Phoenix! If I were in UK I’d find you.
I used to keep a joke store fake pile of s**t next to an antique can of Shinola shoe polish. Common phrase here (US) about knowing the difference… I had the can first.
Now, thanks to your post, that pile will be reborn! As “TOUGH SHIT!!” 🥳
Uh oh. That came out a tad creepy.
By “find you” I meant follow your work and learn the history, etc. But I’m in NW US and studying the Pioneers I come from.
Don’t worry.
It never happens, it's a fantasy. You will give a shit if your head still works. But you can take solace in the fact that you won't have to be around much longer to see if the world burns up or America becomes a communist country. Or the air is too dirty to breathe. Or the Martians invade. Or worse yet, the conservative Christians make America a one religion country. This is probably the worse scenario as intolerance, hate and physical retaliation for religion or lack of it is very possible. (seems to happen with religion)
No wonder fewer people in the US are having kids. According to one source, we have already overpopulated the earth so to save it no one should have kids. Tell that to the abortion foes.
Some of us were preaching this in the early nineties and told to bottle it. We few were the ones who could see clearly whilst the detracters were looking through Bifocals. This quote is not original by the way you probly heard Butch Cassidy say it to the Sundance Kid.
I forget where I hear stuff so no infringement intended, my brain stores weird stuff. But, I remember not wearing a bra in the 70's, I was so flat chested in high school no one noticed. I have been a moderate libber all of my life. We decided to do the "then" thing, which was to only replace yourselves in the world, two kids is plenty. We were aware of air pollution and the danger of petrochemicals, but that was 50 f'ing years ago and look how far we have come. So disappointed.
LOVE THIS: FOR ALL MY AGES: "So I feel like I’m in a difficult age, between old conceptions of myself and new ones that are just beginning to come into being. It’s a struggle. It feels like an existential crisis sometimes." Thanks!