It’s Kaleidoscopic

Carpe Diem. Illegitimi non carborundum.

Thank you, loyal readers, for the love, comments, shares, and heart-clicks.

I’ve been writing my whole life; being read is something different entirely— your reactions, your stories, the lines that stayed with, the private messages.

Please keep them coming.
Readers bring readers.
And you all have been helping these essays travel farther than I ever expected.

When my grandmother was my age, she was already a grandmother.

She became a grandma at 42.

In my world, that is crazy.

I had my daughter at 36— and thought I was so old, running out of time.

Now, more and more people in my circles are having their first child at 40.

Geriatric pregnancies.

Such a cold word.
Such an old word.

A friend of mine was 41 when she was pregnant with her first (and only).
She told her doctor how nervous she was about her age.

“Sweetheart,” he replied. “This is Manhattan. You’re my youngest patient.”

What once belonged to entirely different eras of a woman’s life now overlap.
Fertility treatments beside hormone replacement therapy.
New babies alongside perimenopause.

…
My mom had me in 1980, when she was 40.
She had her first daughter— my oldest sister Michelle— at 21, in 1961.

Back then, she had her first child right on schedule— went to college, met my dad, dropped out to become wife and mom.

I was a surprise (though my sisters say mistake).
Then, having a kid at 40 was considered ancient.

Michelle— 19 at the time and in college— was embarrassed that her mom was pregnant at that age (you know what that means her parents were doing?!??).

And throughout grade- and high school, I was embarrassed that my parents were so old.

Meanwhile, my daughter has a classmate whose mom is 27.
Closer to the timeline of my mom than mine.

That classmate’s grandma is 42.

Same timeline as my grandma.

But 42 now doesn’t feel anything like what 42 meant then.

…
A friend recently told me:

“For what it’s worth, I get more and better exercise now, at 83, than I did at 46.
Life is not linear. It’s kaleidoscopic.”

I’ve known Tony since he was 66.
He doesn’t seem any older than when I met him.

Or actually, maybe he seems even younger.
Because then he was old, and now he’s the same.
I’m the one who got older.

My oldest sister just turned 65.
She’s not old. But she seems younger than Tony was when I met him.
They are the same age, but not from the same age.

…
My mom is 86. She would say she’s 85— her birthday is in August.

I round up. Why not.

She has a nightly cocktail and goes in the hot tub at 11pm.

She gets drunk easily— “looped to the gills,” she says—

And gets in her hot tub after I’ve already gone to bed.

She has COPD but has a trainer. She finally started using her oxygen.

“This year you’re going to the beach,” I tell her. I told her the same last year.

This year she’s a year older, but I think this year, she might be able to make it down the cliff to the lake. This year she’s older, but maybe with the oxygen, she’ll be able to be younger.

…
In her 40s, my mother seemed old.
In my 40s, I feel not old, not wise, just… better.

And as I write this, I’m aware of all the readers in their 60s, 70s, 80s who are shaking their heads. “You’re so young…”

I was 30 when I started the nonprofit I ran for 14 years.
And I thought I was so old. That I had no time.
The expectation that by 30, life should make sense. The trajectory should be clear.

Should be like the generation before: get the job, build the life, stay put.
By that point, you should have landed.

It was around that time that my sister told me:

Your problem is, Deb, you think life is like tennis.
That you’ll find the sweet spot and just ride it through.

There’s no sweet spot in life.

I’m 46 now and, for the first time, feel like I have so much time…

…
I watched an interview recently with a very wealthy man talking about longevity.

“Enjoy your 20s and 30s,” he said. “Make your money later.”

He was pushing back against the panic to invest young, optimize early, maximize everything immediately.

He’s 57 now and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on longevity treatments.

“The ultra wealthy,” he explained, “spend so much money trying to stay young.”
Think of the NPV, he explained. I had to look it up. And I still don’t understand.
But essentially: don’t waste time.

I spent my 20s and 30s the way he now wishes to spend his 60s.
I thought I had no time at 30. He thinks he’s running out of time at 57.

Wandering.
Traveling cheaply with friends.
Staying out too late.
Wasting time.

It was my friend Sarah who shared the video.

She’s 57, but in my head she’s roughly my age—just obviously smarter, obviously more experienced.

She looks the same age I do.
So does the billionaire.

But she doesn’t spend the same kind of money.

“In ten years, I’ll be 67,” she says.
I see her as my age. She always reminds me she’s not.

…
My grandmother, at 40, was entering elderhood.
She already had the short gray hair still dyed something like blond, and over the next 20 years of weekly beauty salon appointments, it would become a “blue” poof.

She dressed like an old woman long before she was elderly, though her closet was filled with classic Chanel suits— more Jackie O than the track suits, Naturalizers and mumus that came later.

When she died, I brought home bags of shoes from before I knew her. Shoes from before the chain stores, when the label still carried the name of a single shop.

…
My daughter chastises me for all the clothes I have that I never wear. The clothes I’ll never wear again. Clothes with memories attached to them— the general ones, of who I was and whole eras of myself, and the specific ones tied to a night, a party, a person.

I won’t wear skirts as short as I used to—
not because I can’t, but because I shouldn’t. It feels too desperate.

I tell my daughter that one day, she’ll be happy to have all those clothes.

…
“All old people know what it’s like to be young.
But no young people know what it’s like to be old.”

Lately, I’m so aware of the perspective— the wisdom— of my elders.
To have twice as many years more as I’ve already had…
My sense of self and the world has changed so much over these last 15 years.
I can’t imagine the next 15 and 15 and 15?

…
A friend of mine is recently divorced.
“Who is going to date a woman my age?” she sighed.

She’s 48.
We’re basically the same age.

She looked up from her chardonnay and met my eyes:

“You know what I mean…”

She realized that feeling sorry for herself also meant feeling sorry for me.

But I know she didn’t see me the way she saw herself.

We are inhabiting the same age completely differently.

…
I stopped drinking a few months ago.

Ninety percent of the time, I’m a fantastically fun drunk who loves to tell people I love them.
The other 10% of the time, though…

Over the holidays was one of those times.
I’m too old for it now.

My 17-year-old nephew, though, just had one of those times.
He’s exactly the right age for it.

…
I’m planning my daughter’s 10th birthday party.
By planning I mean acknowledging that we’ll do something.

I remember when I turned 10.
Double digits! I thought I was big.
I convinced my father to let me get my ears pierced.
My grandma, his mom, coached me to negotiate.

Marv was strict. I was supposed to wait until my bat-mitzvah— 12 years old—
but he let me.

I was in 4th grade when a friend taught me the jingle:
Comet, it makes your mouth turn green, Comet, it tastes like Vaseline.
Comet, it makes you vomit, so buy Comet, and vomit, todaaayyyyyyy.

I felt so grown in 4th grade, even though I was so clearly acting so young.
Ezra thinks she’s so grown now.
She’s so much bigger than she was.
And still, she seems so little to me.

Ezra is finishing 4th grade in 2 weeks.
Then she’ll be in 5th.

I had my first boyfriend in 5th grade.
Years later, he would be My First.

…
I was 25, smoking weed in Amsterdam with my college roommate, when this gorgeous woman walked past us. Long brown hair, an outfit like a model, sky-high stilettos.

She grabbed a bicycle, mounted and rode.

I didn’t know you could be beautiful on a bicycle. I thought you had to be athletic, decked out in the right gear. Sneakers.

She was older. A poise that I could feel more than see.
I noticed her for just a moment, and she changed my life.
She was probably younger than I am now.
Though she could have been the same age.

I don’t know.
But I do wear heels as I bike. Even if I haven’t worn stilettos in years.

…
My daughter is turning 10.
My mother, 86, gets looped to the gills and climbs into the hot tub at 11pm.
My friends are getting divorced, having babies, using hormones.
My mentors are somehow younger at 83 than I am at 46.

We’re aging in different directions at once.

Not linear.
Kaleidoscopic.

I’m in a murky middle.
Seeing time in both directions at once.

…

We’re all the youngest we’ll ever be again.
And we’re all getting older.

Subscribe, like, comment. The more you share, the more people read and the more people read, the more that it’s shared.