I Feel Like I Need to Apologize for My Age (And That's Crazy)

Aging can feel so embarrassing. You get to the point sometimes where you feel like, by agreeing to the process, you’re participating in something terribly inappropriate. Surely this is exacerbated when you live in LA. And I’m certainly not the first to point this out but it truly is mind-blowing that there are protests and coalitions and marches for every marginalized community in the world—except for the one we will all one day join (if we’re lucky).

I’ve always looked young for my age and these days, if I announce my age and am not met with a shocked face or an immediate demand for my skincare regimen, I am violently offended and swear immediate vengeance. I actually resent my Oura ring for daring to tell me that my biological age corresponds with my cardiovascular age. Recount! I want to shriek at the app. A few months ago, I told my trainer I wanted to be in better shape and he responded with something like, “Well, you’re probably in the top 95th perecentile for your age.”

Did I focus on “top 95th percentile”? Hell, no. All I heard was “for your age,” which sounds especially galling when uttered by a fresh-faced young man.

OMG I write things like fresh-faced young man. Do you see what I mean?

For a while, I kept wishing that there were planets for various age groups: the 20-30-somethings go to one, 30-40-somethings to another. You get the idea. That way, you can forget in your 50s what 20-year-old skin looks like, or what it was like to subsist on pizza and beer and still have a flat stomach. On my 50-something planet, I would never hear a 20-something young man say the words “for your age” because everyone would be my age.

Of course with youth comes a lot of idiocy—or at least it did in my case. I truly believed, in my 20s and 30s and let’s be honest probably 40s too, that getting the writing career I wanted would bring me happiness. Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous? Oh yeah…you probably have because you probably once believed something like that, too?

I remember when my first book, Party Girl, was out for submission and my top choice publisher—Regan Books—was considering it. My agent told me on a Friday that offers, if there were any offers, would be in on Monday. I spent that weekend telling myself that if in fact my book sold to Regan Books, I would be happy for the rest of my life.

And guess what? It did sell to Regan Books and I kept my promise—for at least a week. And then I had the horrifying, stupefying, ridiculous realization that nothing—that is, no thing—would ever make me happy forever and that the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want and realizing it doesn’t fill you.

Much has been written about the depression that sets in once you release your book but mine was especially sharp because between acquistion and release, Judith Regan was fired and Regan Books dissolved. Nobody explained to me that my dream had officially died because there was nobody there to explain it. My book was released to, as they say in the business, disappointing sales.

Many books and disappointments later, I can relish in a truly wonderful part of aging: understanding, and not just giving lip service to, the fact that no amount of literary success (or sample sale clothes) (or love) (or sugar-free mini Hershey’s bars) can bring happiness.

The good part of that (because let’s be honest, that first part is not wonderful) is this: those experiences can bring me happiness…if I’ve already have found it somewhere else first (that is, inside or through a spiritual connection, which I kind of consider the same thing). I had so many years of feeling disappointed by alleged successes that I had started to assume that having dreams come true meant misery.

Turns out that’s not the case. But kind of like how the people who can afford whatever they want are the only ones given free clothes, having a great thing happen in your career can only make you happy if you’ve done the internal work necessary to not need to have “great” things happen in order for you to feel good.

This year, getting featured in the Wall Street Journal and then, separately, having a bunch of new people find this Substack because of the post I wrote about AI did make me happy. And that’s because I’m old enough to know I can’t rely on those things for happiness—that if I’m already full, I don’t need anything to fill me up. You don’t need to grasp at good news like it’s the life raft that will save you if you’re already already walking on land. I spent so many years looking for those rafts rather than getting out of the water.

My point with all of this is: why not write the damn thing, whatever the thing is? Why not publish the damn thing? Why not do that again and again and again? It’s not too late. Mike White is writing and directing every episode of the TV show everyone is obsessed with at 54. This woman’s 80-something mom just released a book on Jane Austen. Doing it isn’t going to make you happy anyway, unless you’re already happy, so what’s the risk?

Of course, when you have that kind of attitude, the result can’t help but be successful. The universe does its best work when we let it.