F***-ing Around, Finding Out

Crone Life enters its third year

Insert the four-letter word of your choice above.

Hi hi hi, hello everybody! Welcome welcome welcome to Year 3 of my Substack, Crone Life, all about coming to terms with getting older. My intention is to express a playful attitude toward this tragic era.¹

Taken in the bathroom at work, where, for some reason, the lighting flatters.

Our story so far:

I turned 40 in 2000. I got laid off the day before my birthday,² a victim of the Tech Bust of the early 21st century. It was OK, I’d find some freelance writing projects. I’d have a flexible schedule and be able to hang out with my adorable three-year-old. A year later, it was 9/11, my husband lost his Wall Street job and my freelance jobs dried up. We started a business, selling new and old books via Amazon Marketplace, eBay and all the other second-hand book sites, some of which probably still exist. My dad died in 2002, just before my kid started kindergarten. I didn’t want to deal with any more things, so I didn’t even try to find full-time work. I’d ended up hating every job I’d held previously, anyway. I wanted to focus on being a wife and a mother and an entrepreneur, not necessarily in that order.³

I was interested to see how I would age. What would 40-something me be like? I suffered through the tumult of perimenopause. I hated suddenly sweating profusely in the midst of a low-stakes conversation. Always with younger women who had no idea what was happening. I had bad insomnia. My skin stayed wrinkle-free, my hair dark as ever. I started doing yoga and finally managed a headstand. I knew it was unlikely I would have another child. Just as well, we didn’t have health insurance. Nonetheless, I was horny as heck. In 2005, we finally bought a house in Brooklyn. I spent a lot of time on LiveJournal, writing about watching anime and reading manga. I tried to teach myself Japanese via Japanese Pod 101. My husband said he thought I was reliving my teens. I thought I was redoing my 20s, but on the internet. I met my friend Tanya and started working out regularly again.

I turned 50 in 2010. All my friends had blow-out birthday parties to celebrate this milestone (I had a small get-together, I think) and posted on Facebook about their colonoscopies. I still didn’t look my age and the annoying parts of perimenopause began to ease up. I started my first library job, after a decade of freelancing. I discovered I loved it and was good at it. I didn’t hit full menopause until my late 50s and immediately started feeling better. I focused on getting strong, a process interrupted twice by injury–in 2015 I broke my right ankle and needed surgery. It took at least 6 months to fully recover, then I went back to the gym and worked hard. I broke both wrists at the end of 2016, a few months after Trump got elected. We sold our house and left Brooklyn. I went back to the gym after a year of casts and therapy and surgeries. I got a full-time job (the same one I have now) early in 2018.

I turned 60 in 2020. That same year, I started a Master’s program in information science, and of course, there was the Pandemic. It became clear that my mother, who was almost 90, couldn’t live alone any longer. I didn’t get to celebrate my milestone birthday. Everyone was isolated and depressed. In 2022, I decided to quit drinking. I had started on a “mood stabilizer” and it had really helped with my breakthrough depression, but interacted poorly with the amount of beer and wine I was consuming. I turned to weed instead, which didn’t have those same side effects. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which explained a lot. The gym was no more, but I walked every day.

I decided to create a Substack in 2023. I’d seen a lot of takes from people who had established themselves as take-makers on Twitter, but I didn’t see many writers who were like me–women starting their seventh decade of life. I liked reading and writing. I’d gotten in the habit of writing weekly essays and posts in grad school. Why not go for it? But I couldn’t give it my full attention until I finished my master’s program.

When I started Crone Life,⁴ I thought I’d focus on what I’d learned about information seeking and information literacy, and the horror of vaginal prolapse, but I didn’t really get into that. I was envious of influencers who seemed above it all, always cheerful, always finding new things⁵ for you to buy. I wanted to be an authentic antidote to writers who made their lives seem simple and easy, if only you clicked on their monetized links. But I also wanted to share my experience. To let people like me know it wasn’t all bad.

I wasn’t sure I had an audience, though. People my age aren’t part of the online generations–we’re Boomers, Late Boomers, even Xoomers. At the moment, the oldest of the always-onliners are worried about perimenopause, not Medicare or early retirement.⁶

Crone Life, however, is doing OK! I have more than twice as many subscribers as I did this time last year. I have the same open rate. I guess my audience is out there after all.

Being in your mid-60s gives different concerns from your mid-40s and mid-50s. Now I’m scared I’ll break a hip and end up in a wheelchair or develop dementia.⁷ I already have one fake joint (it’s doing pretty well, if only workers comp would approve more p/t sessions). I’m trying to enjoy myself. Some days are easier than others

I don’t believe in “too late” until you’re dead or incapacitated. But I also need to be realistic, whatever that means. I'm not getting any younger. I’ll be 65 in September. My mom is almost 95 so I have a good idea what the next 30 years will be like, should I be lucky enough to live that long.

There are certain things I’ll never achieve and I'm mostly OK with that. There are others which would not be impossible to achieve but I need to decide if I want to make the effort. After ignoring my career for probably 20 years, I went to grad school and I’m trying to get a job in my field. I also had major reparative surgery in May and I’m still not back to full energy. Maybe I’m too old to recharge all the way, like an elderly battery that only goes to 90%. I do want to have more responsibility, though, and the opportunity to use my creativity and intelligence to help people, to make processes function more smoothly so people can get what they need without having to wait.

I live with my little family in a beautiful spot in the mid-Hudson Valley. We like our house. We like each other. We enjoy our rituals. I live close enough to my aging mother to visit her fairly often (as long as I can drive, anyway). Outside of my immediate family, I get on with my sisters and their husbands and their kids. I have never not been privilege-adjacent. I work at a small liberal arts college⁸ and my job is not that demanding (it would be nice if it were less boring though). The salaries are not high but the benefits are good. My work commute is under 15 minutes.

The things I’m scared of are probably not as scary as I think they are. I’m still trying to understand and leverage my strengths and weaknesses. I’m feeling optimistic about my personal future.⁹

News from Veronica

She’s a sassy li’l thing

Veronica continues to be cute, playful and squeaky. She loves to nap in her box on my desk (she’s sleeping there right now!). She also loves having her head scratched. The two together send her into a blissful rollover, often ruined because my fingers are then touching her tummy, which is Not Allowed.

Thanks for reading! A reminder: I’m going to take a break now until after Labor Day, and possibly until my mid-September birthday. Please click the little heart if you’re so inclined and COMMENT about anything you’ve seen here!

1. I know, I know, it can’t be considered “tragic” if I’m still alive and have all my marbles.

2. Just before joining a protected class.

3. Could we afford this? Not really, but it wouldn’t be the first time

4. Originally Crone Diaries, but at times I wish I’d gone with Late Boomer.

5. With monetized links.

6. Truthfully, I’m not worried about those last two either–it's clear to me it will be a while before I get to retire (if ever).

7. Though I think modern technology can can do a lot to prevent that.

8. AKA “a cozy temple of privilege.”

9. Except for the obvious things I have no control over …