On getting old(er). Meet yourself, honestly.
Some pre-birthday navel gazing about aging.
I used to think 50 was old when I was young. And then I turned 50 without much fanfare right at the beginning of the pandemic and it was no big deal. I carried on like that for a few years because I completely mistook perimenopause madness for pandemic grief when it should have stood alone in its own circle of hell.
I didn’t mind turning 50 just as the world was shutting down. Gave me an excuse to ignore a milestone birthday because there’s usually so much pressure to “celebrate the years” or whatever other hallmark-isms our inner voices try to sell us. I get anxiety thinking about who I would invite if I had a party which leads me down a path of wondering if I even have enough friends to fill a room.
So, I can take or leave my birthday. Just give me a slice or two of cake and I’m good. But now that I’m at the cusp of passing the midpoint of my fifties with a birthday coming up, I feel like I’m hurtling towards the next milestone at full throttle because time is accelerating faster than I can comprehend. I think I might be terrified of turning 60. I’m even starting to resent birthdays for all the reflective navel gazing about aging that it seems to trigger.
I’m reposting this meme of the Asian aging process from an older newsletter because it’s still so relatable. The way menopause is depicted as an explosive kapow!! which overtakes your entire personality. Not to mention we’re also invisible to the world because nobody thinks of or cares about middle-aged women. That’s why we can come out the other side looking like PSY of “Gangnam Style” cosplaying a Korean ajumma with a tight curled perm. No one is looking at us.
Except that my generation has rejected the ubiquitous middle aged “pama” (Korean for perm) and can still generally pass for younger because of blessed Asian genetics, even though we’re battling brain fog and hobbling around as our bodies break down (have I told you about the hip issues I’ve been having for the past eight months?). Such dissonance between our outward age ambiguity and the very age-appropriate aches and pains within our bodies.
What did they say about menopause being like reverse puberty?
I’m squarely in that awkward phase where I don’t yet look like the wise crone, so I still feel the need to keep up my appearance. Not quite at the age where I can leave all self-consciousness behind and walk out the door wearing whatever outlandish eccentricities I fancy. Still too youngish to completely give up.
I guess I do still care about how I look. I wonder if I care too much. I collect precious jars of Korean skincare and am religious about my multistep regimen of slathering serums and cremes twice a day, and for what? To delay the inevitable? To feed my delusions that I can cheat time forever?
Girls come out of the womb already burdened with the roles they are expected to play. From childhood, we’re shaped more by societal expectations than our own curiosity. Expectations of what it means to be a daughter, mother, wife, caretaker, worker, and partner. Identities begin as performance. We step into roles, are rewarded for them, and internalize them under the weight of social pressure.
We learn early on that youth and beauty can get you almost anywhere, even to places that brains and smarts can’t touch. But even beauty can’t carry you to the top of the pyramid. We climb and we climb, only to hit our heads on the glass ceiling. We’re rewarded for self-sacrificing behavior, compliance, and compromise, but will still get thrown under the bus the moment patriarchal systems feel threatened.
How many years have we been watched, judged, fetishized, and dismissed because of our gender? How do we learn to be ourselves when society’s idea of what womanhood is, is shoved down our throats at such a young age? When our gender turns political and our choices are taken away?
Just the other day, I had an interaction with a man who was trying to undermine what my time was worth. He did not value the price of my work. I despised that I was too nice in my response when what I really wanted to do was rage. But then I would have been called too emotional.
It occurred to me recently that aside from my spouse, there are no more men in my life. No bosses, coworkers, fathers, or a brother who is no longer here. Not even extended male family members or friends who have any regular presence in my life.
How strange. In my twenties, most of my closest friends were men.
I think about both our mothers who no longer have anyone to answer to. Surviving an abusive marriage, my mother always said that all she wanted out of life was ten years to live peacefully by herself.
But is this all we get? The leftover years after we take care of others?
We deserve more than that. But it doesn’t feel like we can drop the performative femininity until we hit menopause. Menopause, the seismic disruptor before we can just be.
Despite being caught in the in-between of young and old, I feel like I’m finally starting to understand what I want out of life, even as the world crumbles around me because of power-hungry men. After 55 years and all the roles I’ve inhabited, I’ve earned the privilege to be released from them. No one is standing in my way because who is looking at me now? As a middle-aged woman, I am no longer seen as a threat. Free from unwanted attention and catcalls, I move undetected in the shadows; I am my only obstacle.
Quantifying your life in thirds is sobering when I think about how I’m in the last third of mine. I just want to make the most of it.
Perhaps one day I can stop looking in the mirror and stop scrutinizing myself like a critic. Stop with the jars of magic elixirs and marketed promises and greet my flaws and lines as they are.
It makes me believe that women live the first half of their lives in roles and the second half living our truths.
**
It’s cherry blossom season
Got a preview of the cherry blossoms at the University of Washington campus when I was in Seattle two weeks ago, and now they are blooming here in NYC. Looking forward to the deeper pink Kwanzen blossoms that are sure to open any day now since it is currently 80 degrees in NY!
Thank you for reading.
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Related reading
Some interesting links
What I read this week:
The Profession That Does Not Exist. Writing won’t make you a living (The Baffler)
A collection of personal essays from seven writers on how they survive a profession that is anything but stable or even economically secure.Lucy Sante on collage and the elimination of possibilities (Art Forum)
I kind of love how Sante frames collaging: “Something important about making a collage, which I usually try doing with as few elements as possible, is that the process involves killing one thing to make another.”AI autocomplete doesn’t just change how you write. It changes how you think (Scientific American)
AI autocompletes are biased? You don’t say. A short read with a link to the research if you want to dig deeper by one of my former colleagues who was co-founder of an early stage startup I joined 12 years ago.Living without my self. Our culture valorises the big, coherent self: reading Robert Musil helps me embrace the beauty of my no-self existence (Aeon)
Dense and I had to read it twice (I still can’t seem to easily absorb what I’m reading—what is this? Part of menopausal brain fog?). But this notion that a continuous, coherent self is necessary for a fulfilling life might just be a Western construct, and one that can be challenged. Is having no sense of self an existential identity crisis? Or can one move through life without a singular coherent life story?If we avoid sadness in life, why do we seek it in art? (Psyche)
I feel a pull to listen to sad songs or watch tear jerker movies because it releases emotions and helps me to cry. As the article explains: “It can give voice to your own feelings – perhaps feelings that you’ve had trouble expressing yourself.”The Cycle of Mothering. How one woman’s friendship helped guide me to myself. (The Conversationalist)
I think I needed to read this. I’m always questioning what kind of mother I am, now that I’m parenting adult kids. It isn’t easy, and as we all get older, we might start sharing the role of mother figure with someone else in their lives.
What we’ve been eating:
Braised mackerel with radish 고등어무조림 (Maangchi)
When we eat fish, it’s usually salmon or mackerel, though mackerel usually makes it on our plates most weeks. We love it for all the B vitamins it packs as well as omega-3 fatty acids. This preparation, a braised Korean stew with radish, is probably my favorite way to eat mackerel. Mark usually consults two books from our shelf before cooking any Korean food: Sarah Ahn’s Umma: A Korean Mom’s Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes and The Korean Cookbook by Junghyun Park from Atomix and Jungyoon Choi, but Maangchi is always solid for any Korean recipes.
Till next week – JP
If this post resonated, please share or restack so more readers can find it. 🫶
“I completely mistook perimenopause madness for pandemic grief when it should have stood alone in its own circle of hell.” 👀👀👀 It goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway: ME TOO.
Jenna!! there are no words to accurately describe how similarly we are moving through this world. You eternally get me emotional and inspired by every post. The part that got me most and seems to explain why I feel like this time is so difficult: “It makes me believe that women live the first half of their lives in roles and the second half living our truths.”
I’m trying to figure out my truths since I no longer have the ability to hide in my roles. It’s not easy stuff but you express it so beautifully. Grateful beyond.
Wowsa.