Aging is a privilege, but I don't have to like it

My dreams of being an eccentric old lady living alone with her cats is in jeopardy.

I recently came across a phrase a few months ago that I surprisingly had never heard before, even though it’s probably a well-known sentiment:
Aging is a privilege.

After a quick search, I see a reference to a Mark Twain quote:

“Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.”

First of all, I feel this at my core. I really do. Like so many others who have lost friends and family prematurely—by illness, accident, or even by their own hand—I understand how aging is a privilege that not everyone gets to have. I think about this every single day, in fact, when I think about my brother. So I get it.

Chronic ailments and current state of meh aside, I feel extremely fortunate to be in relative good physical and mental health and know not to take it for granted. I’m all for embracing my age, and as you know (or if you’re new here—hi! 👋) I no longer feel the need to hide behind good genetics, solely to avoid the whims of career and gender ageism.

but….BUT!! 🫨

At 53, I’ve been feeling my age so hard lately.

Mark Twain would be reprimanding me right now because I’m in that privileged position of experiencing all the joys of watching myself grow old, but I’m going to complain anyway for a minute (or five—whatever the reading time ends up being. Better make it seven minutes because you know how long these newsletters are getting lately).

From the audible groans that escape every time I get out of bed, to The Thickening of my midsection, to my worsening near and far-sighted vision, I’ve been struggling with the physical transformations that I know are inevitable and just taking its natural course. I mean, sure, nature is just doing its thing, but all of this is still so hard to reconcile when in my mind I’m still 25.

Some days, as I lay in bed next to the humidifier blowing straight in my direction as I scratch incessantly from what is my most maddening symptom of menopause—itchy skin everywhere, I think about how shriveled prunes were once plums too in their youth. These are the random thoughts that float around in my head as I lie awake in the middle of the night pondering what to to count next as I struggle to fall back asleep.

Have I ever told you about my somewhat irrational fear of losing all my teeth? I now cut most of my food like an old lady instead of biting into it because of this fear. This was brought on when my teeth began to feel loose during an Invisalign treatment eight years ago.

I’m aware that this is a normal physiological process so teeth can move into place, but along with gum recession (also exacerbated from Invisalign and aging) I have recurring dreams where my teeth start to tumble out of my mouth one by one, like falling dominoes. My somewhat irrational fear isn’t quelled by the fact that one of my crowns keep popping off, much to my horror.

My latest aggravation is my herniated discs. For the past 17 years, I have had two bulging discs at L5 and L4 (I call them Luke and Laura) which I’ve been able to manage mostly through exercise and avoiding triggers, like lifting anything that weighs more than ten pounds. Ironically, they were most likely ruptured from lifting and carrying my two children who were massive babies with huge heads. Usually there is a trigger when I get a flare-up, like when I tried to heroically pick up a few groceries at Trader Joes recently. But for no reason that I can remember this time, I have been hobbling with awful pain for the past two weeks.

I fear that I may just be delaying surgery and this scares me. It’s not lost on me that my mother has already had two for similar disc issues. It's often said that to catch a glimpse of your future, you need only to look at your mother. I kind of hate how true this is becoming.

I know that herniated discs aren’t solely an aging issue, but I’ve been thinking of how debilitating this condition is. It’s put me in a panic (again) about the feasibility of living alone one day. I mean…how?? Never mind solo traveling or anything fun like that, I struggle to perform even the most basics of household tasks, such as taking out the garbage or hauling groceries home. Even buying and changing cat litter risks further injury, thus putting my dreams of being an eccentric old cat lady in jeopardy.

These very specific details about my possible future life alone keeps me up at night.

This has all prompted me to prod my spouse into healthier habits because I’m deathly afraid that I will outlive him—and statistically I will. I’ve even seen this with my own eyes. Most of my mom’s friends are now fellow widows and there was a noticeable lack of surviving male family members on both sides when we had our family reunions in Korea last year.

“You should really go down to the gym this morning,” I remind Mark who always looks at me with slight disdain every time I bring it up.

“And let’s make sure to eat less meat again now that the kid is back at college. Oh, and no snacking after 8pm.”

I never said that I was a joy to live with.

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This week's drawing

I think I’m finally getting a hang of this medium. Charcoal is so different from graphite pencil, and the key, I’ve learned is to treat it more like paint. Still sticking with black and white. There’s much to learn about shadows and light, and not dealing with color helps me see it more clearly.

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Related reading

Everything is a perimenopause symptom

Aging gracefully in the face of ageism

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Elsewhere on the internet

Oh god, my fear of living alone has turned into a dystopian nightmare of robot dolls. Leave it to the people of my ancestry to come up with this solution for their low birth-rate/aging population crisis.

All I could think of when watching the elderly woman featured in this video (mysteriously time stamped from 6 years ago, even though it won an innovation tech award this year?) was, “this is me, talking to a doll in twenty five years, help.”

**

• Early Retirement Can Accelerate Cognitive Decline (Neuroscience news). Nooooooo!!!! Just ugh.

• How Menopause Changes the Brain (NYTimes, gifted link). MORE great news about how menopause is linked to dementia.

• When Junior Heads to College, Helicopter Parents Turn to Empty-Nest Coaches (Wall Street Journal, may be paywalled). WAIT, WHAT???
  “After years shepherding children from one minute to the next, moms and dads hire $250-an-hour counselors to help them learn to live on their own.”
  Could this be my next career? And to think I’ve been talking about some of this stuff for free on this newsletter?🤦🏻‍♀️

• Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out (The Atlantic, again may be paywalled, I’m sorry. But there are ways to get around paywalls sometimes and you didn’t hear that from me).

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Reader poll results!

Last week I did a few reader polls and around 8.5% of you answered. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’ve learned from user research that a typical turnout rate for poll engagement is in this range. So, thank you. Results are below:

5% of you have no idea why you’re here. I mean, relatable.

Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing here either. But the surprising result (at least from those of you who decided to answer this poll) is that the majority of you are still old blog readers. We are truly getting old together.

On the second poll, I realized that I put a cop out option by providing a catch-all “All of the above” which maybe isn’t as useful to me. But at least I know that not staying in one niche is still on-brand.

I didn’t include the poll about hosting chats because as soon as I sent last week’s newsletter I was all, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??” 27% of you agreed. Which means the majority of you are potentially interested in a chat and I don’t know what to do with this information.

Till next time 🖤
(confession: this newsletter got long again, like way too long, and I had to break it up into two newsletters. Which means, I won’t be panicking about what to write next week!)