This is 59!

In which I answer the five new questions I've just added to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.

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, I answer the five new questions I’ve added to the questionnaire -Sari Botton

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It’s definitely time for new headshots, but in the meantime, here’s a selfie I took in a public bathroom the other day, and kind of liked. I’m wearing my favorite shirt, of which I once had three, before I gave one to my pal Carolita Johnson.

Sari Botton's memoir in essays, And You May Find Yourself...Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo, was chosen by Poets & Writers magazine for the 2022 edition of its annual "5 Over 50" feature. An essay from it received notable mention in The Best American Essays 2023, edited by Vivian Gornick. For five years, she was the Essays Editor at Longreads. After that she was a contributing editor, columnist, and teacher at Catapult, before it folded. She edited the bestselling anthologies Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NewYork and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York. She publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism. She was the Writer in Residence in the creative writing department at SUNY New Paltz for Spring, 2023.

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Readers,

Today I turn 59. It’s a staggering number in my mind. I mean, every new number feels staggering, but 59 comes before 60, and as I’ve mentioned more than once here, 60—winking at me up ahead in the distance—is freaking me out. (My Uncle Sam left me a funny message: “I don’t want to mess you up like I did before, but, after this year, you’ll never be in your 50s again.” 😂)

Starting next week, in a new (paid only) series called Pathway to 60, I’ll write regularly about the year leading up to my next decade, and my third act in life.

With my little sister at 10-and-a-half. This version of me is still very much alive inside me.

I thought this would be a good day for me to answer the five new questions I’ve just added to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, which you’ll start seeing in subsequent questionnaires. I already answered the rest of the questions in 2021, when I turned 56 and Oldster was brand new. You can check my questionnaire out here:

A friend keeps suggesting I take the questionnaire anew each year, but my answers haven’t changed, so no. Although, maybe I’ll try again next year, when I hit the big six-oh. We’ll see!

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So… In the interest of keeping things interesting, and also going deeper with my curiosity about other people’s experiences of getting older, I decided to add the following five questions to all the others in The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire:

Baby Sari with my maternal Grandmother, Clarisse.

What turn of events had the biggest impact on your life? What took your life in a different direction, for better or worse?

There are several key events in my past that have seemed to divide my life into “before and after,” including: the death of my maternal grandmother, Clarisse, in 1972, when when I was 6-and-a-half; my parents’ divorce in 1976 when I was 10-and-a-half; and my own divorce, in 1992, when I was 26-and-change. These experiences shaped me. When they occurred, it felt as if the world stopped spinning. I had to pause to make new sense of my life and my place in it before I could move forward in any direction.

It’s stripey-hair-Sari! With the original edition of Goodbye to All That. It was October, 2013 and I was 48.

However, I realize now that there was another significant event that dramatically altered my life in several ways, both good and bad: my departure from New York City in November, 2005, when I was 40. After a difficult year in housing court, we were evicted from our incredible, way-under-market, 1800-square-foot loft in a historic building the East Village, and found ourselves moving about 100 miles north to the Kingston, NY area.

The bad: we don’t get to live in New York City anymore! Waaaaahhhh. It’s my favorite place—the place I became “me.”

The good: I love living in the mid-Hudson Valley—Kingston, specifically. Oh, and hey, I got two New York Times bestselling essay anthologies out of the deal.

Order the books…

What is your number one regret in life? If you could do it all over again, what is the biggest thing you’d do differently?

I harbor a couple of big regrets, balled into one. I regret not taking the advice of several older journalists I got to work with early in my career, who suggested that after college I pursue a job at a small paper in some small city in the U.S. or Europe, rather than start my career in New York City, where the field was (and remains) more competitive—and where I wound up getting stuck working at boring trade magazines for eight or nine years before catching some important breaks. I grew up on Long Island, 45 minutes from Manhattan. I’d always wanted to live in New York City, but it wasn’t some big, new vista for me. I would have gained so much from moving elsewhere first, and expanding my horizons.

May, 1987, Albany, NY. I was 21-and-a-half. Letter to my college graduate self: Spend your 20s living somewhere else, becoming a better writer and journalist, and building meaningful friendships, rather than settling down too young!

The reason I didn’t take that advice is my other big regret: Instead of prioritizing the writing and journalism I was excited about, and had gotten a head start in as a New York Newsday intern and Albany Times-Union contributor, when I graduated from college I prioritized living near my college boyfriend, desperately hoping he’d propose and we’d get married. We did. I was too young—just 23. It lasted three years. I had no idea who I was yet. I wish I hadn’t felt the imperative to settle down so young. (Surprisingly to me, that imperative is something a fair portion of 20-somethings—going through their “quarter-life crisis”—report still feeling.)

If I could go back to May, 1987 I’d take the job I was offered on the arts desk at a paper in the Berkshires. Then, after a while, maybe I’d look for a journalism jobs elsewhere—a smaller city in the U.S, or some suburb of Paris, or Barcelona, or some more obscure city in Europe. And I wouldn’t marry in my 20s—probably not in my 30s, either.

(Then again, if I’d done anything differently, I might not have landed where I am now, in a life I love, with my sweet husband, Brian, whom I married in February, 2005, when I was 39.)

An online dating profile picture from the fall of 2003. I was 38. I feared I was “over the hill” in terms of my eligibility for a second marriage.

What is high up on your “bucket list?” What do you hope to achieve, attain, or plain enjoy before you die?

I had such a good experience publishing my memoir two years ago, that I’d like to write and publish some more books. (I’m going to record the audio version later this month.)

Order the book…

I’d also like to resume occasionally writing articles, interviews, and essays for other, bigger outlets, though few remain. (One editor recently invited me to pitch her. I’d love it if other editors would get at me.)

I’d like to host an Oldster Podcast, make an Oldster anthology, maybe launch a publishing arm called “Oldster Books” (I’m researching this now). I’d like to make a funny/poignant movie or t.v. show based on my experiences. (I have a particular story in mind.)

Some day I’d like to live in Europe. (I’m in the process of applying for citizenship in Portugal, via my Sephardic heritage, but more because I’m terrified of the rise of authoritarianism here than because I think it would be fun.) I’d also like the chance to live in New York City again, even in the tiniest hovel if that’s all I can afford. (I peruse listings all the time!) While I’m putting out a wish list, can I also have some time living in L.A.? And the Bay Area? I mean, why not?

Singing my heart out to the neighborhood on our stoop in Island Park, NY. It was probably 1969, and I was 4.

I feel so shy admitting this but, I want to sing more—like, in front of other people, cringe—to make more music on my own, and with Brian. Maybe make a record together of our own songs, and some covers. Nothing makes me feel better than singing. (And for some reason, few things make me feel more ashamed than admitting that.)

I want to make a documentary about why we (women especially) are shy about singing.

I want to travel to Europe, Asia, South America, Iceland, and parts of the U.S. I’ve never been to (which is most of them).

I want to study drawing and painting, just for the fun of it.

I want to not feel embarrassed about what I have on my bucket list.

I love this May, 2013 video from when Brian and I got our first ukuleles and learned our first song:

Is there a piece of advice you were given, that you live by? If so, what was it, and who offered it to you?

When I was a kid, my dad told me, “What you think of yourself, people think of you.” I’ve come to believe this is true. Nothing is more attractive or persuasive than self-confidence.

I keep this advice in mind every day, especially when I meet new people, or present myself or my work in professional situations. Too often, even with that axiom in mind, I’ve let self-doubt betray me. I strive to do right by people and do good work, and to think well enough of myself that others will think well of me, too.

Basically, to me this means: Believe in yourself. On paper, I do. I think that, by and large, I am a force for good in the world—and good at what I do. The trick is maintaining that confidence in my head, then exuding it. Fake it till you make it, baby.

Oh, to possess 6-year-old Sari's confidence. (And abundance of hair.)

What are your plans for your body when you’re done using it? Burial? Cremation? Body Farm? Other? And what do you expect to happen to your “soul” or “spirit” after you die?

After my hysterectomy in 2009, I donated to research the organs that were removed. I’d like to do this with the rest of me after I die. I’m an organ donor on my driver’s license, but I’d like to donate the whole enchilada, for parts and research. I’m looking into it.

Cremation also makes sense to me, although I’ve heard it’s got a big carbon footprint.

My grandfather’s brothers and sister at the cemetery.

I come from a family that has been known to stage family photos at the graveyard. But in a crowded world, where there’s hardly enough room for homes for people who are still alive, burial in a cemetery make little sense to me. It’s also crazy expensive. Then again, in recent years I learned out of the blue that my ancestors are buried here in Kingston, and visiting their graves, wondering about their lives, makes me sort of wish I’d let myself be buried so that future generations might come and find me and wonder about my life.

My great-great-great grandparents, Isidore and Hannah Corn, who are buried at Wiltwyck Rural Cemetery, a mile from my house in Kingston.

As for the soul, I'm strongly persuaded by Eastern philosophy's concept of reincarnation, and quantum physics' theory that energy can't be destroyed—which I take to mean that the soul persists after the body's demise. I've also experienced uncanny "visitations" from people who've died, which bolsters these concepts for me.

With my friend Julie Novak at a celebration of her 50th birthday in December, 2022. I was 57. Julie died August 31st, at 51. If anyone’s soul is going to live on, Julie’s will. Incidentally, I got one hell of a visitation from this lady in the middle of the night before her memorial.

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I hope you like these five new questions (and my responses). These new questions will appear in all the Oldster Magazine Questionnaires going forward.

Thanks as always for reading, subscribing, commenting thoughtfully, and being a part of this growing community! 🙏 💝

-Sari