“Ultimately, I’m my best self in the outdoors—curious, brave, and present. That in turn gives me confidence and optimism. All these seem like character traits I should hold on to as I age.”
—Caroline Paul
I’ve chosen this quote from a million possibilities, as it happens to resonate with me, make the point, and continue a theme, but the thing about Oldster Magazine, a Substack-based publication I’m here to rave about today, is that I find myself wanting to save a handful of quotes from every piece I read there. (This one happens to be from a very funny excerpt of Caroline Paul’s new book, Tough Broad.) By way of both introduction and possible disclosure, Oldster is the creation of writer-editor Sari Botton, who I feel like I probably have friends in common with and might have met before?* (If that’s true and you know me and know her, please introduce us!) Or maybe she’s just one of those people you feel a kinship with even though you’ve never met. Anyone who describes themselves as a “late-blooming Gen X weirdo” is ok by me.
She describes Oldster like this: “Oldster Magazine explores what it means to travel through time in a human body—of any gender, at every phase of life. It focuses on the good, the bad, and the ugly we experience with each milestone, starting early in life. It’s about the experience of getting older, and what that means at different junctures. Regardless of age, we’re all the oldest we’ve ever been, which makes every one of us feel, well, old.”
While I recently turned 55, I’m not even anyone’s mother, much less grandmother – I’m still just me — so it’s taken until now for me to accept the term “middle aged.” It just seems mathematically inarguable at this point, right? But while I am by no definition old, I’m increasingly aware that society thinks I am, and feel ever more pressingly the urge both to understand what that means along with people my age and older, and to disabuse younger women, in particular, of the idea that there’s anything wrong with aging. We all age (those of us who get the opportunity), and so for young women to perpetuate harmful and derogatory stereotypes about older women is to literally lay a trap for oneself.
But ultimately, I love Oldster because it is frank and irreverent and entertaining — just like a life well-lived.
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*Also, I’m 100% certain I have friends in common with Caroline Paul, but I don’t think we’ve ever met.
Collapse and Delight 