Aging: It's A Process of Elimination

All the things I will never do…

I’ll never forget my 30th birthday. I spent the evening sobbing in a hotel room in the Poconos with my soon-to-be husband. I had been responsible for planning the Circulation Department Christmas Conference and while the conference was going great, I hit the wall when it came to my report and my boss let me have it. For those of you who don’t understand what a circulation conference is like, imagine 20 Steve Kornacki’s, and 10 female Steve Kornacki’s who aren’t taken as seriously as the guys and forced to do all the grunt work sitting in a conference room analyzing the results of the multiple mailings of Christmas Gift campaigns for magazines. (All while a guy smoking a pipe offers biting commentary — RIP Gordon Grossman.) It was 1992. I was now 30. I didn’t want to be Steve Kornacki! I was seriously depressed. And I realized I would never become a rock star, marry a rock star, or qualify for the Olympics in any sport whatsoever.

Steve Kornacki doing what he does. No offense, Steve!

That was the first time I realized that aging was a process of elimination, tossing childhood fantasies into the dustbin of history.

A few years later I eliminated alcohol once and for all. I had gone a year without drinking multiple times in my life just to see if I could do it. I could. But what I couldn’t do was ever stop drinking once I started again. I chose my future and my children over the allure of numbing and the romance of a good pinot noir, Guinness Stout beer, and vodka martinis (or vodka tonics in a pinch). It was hard. But I did it. And I have no regrets.

In my early 40’s, I seriously got into horseback riding, western style. I bought a white Honda Ridgeline pickup truck to fulfill a lifelong cowgirl dream. I started listening to country music (which is how I discovered Taylor Swift in her earliest days). The Pennsylvania Farm Show was my annual obsession. I was just getting good and maybe able to fulfill a dream of barrel racing when I got pregnant at 44. My middle daughter Eve was also horse crazy, but English style. So I spent the next 10 years trying to support her dreams while having a baby who turned into a toddler, etc. But my cowgirl dreams were over. The last time I rode a horse was on vacation with Eve in 2019 and I didn’t feel safe. Not worth it. But damn I miss that truck. (And no, I don’t want it back.)

My last horse ride. It was fun while it lasted.

Then I eliminated my marriage. I couldn’t handle it anymore. All of it. And that’s all I’ll say except that we are both much better off because of it, even though it was hard. He took half our stuff but that was a good thing.

The list of things I no longer wanted to do started to grow: Roller skating, sadly. Running. Riding a bike. I know many people keep doing these things into old age, but for me, it was a combination of not loving it in the first place and risk calculation because inside I still have a little Steve Kornacki advising me. (I do love Roller skating the most, though.)

I spent my 30s, 40s, and 50s traveling around the world for both work and pleasure and driving in and out of New York City at least once and sometimes more per week. I remember vividly one moment driving on Route 78 in my Prius as giant trucks whizzed past me, and realizing that I didn’t know how much longer I could keep doing this. Shortly after that, we decided to sell the company and I no longer had to keep doing “this.” Then the pandemic happened and I really didn’t have to keep doing “this.” That whole rigamarole was eliminated, thank the lord.

My favorite work memory: Our Australian partners taking me on a seaplane to a restaurant outside of Sydney. It was scary but I did it!

I still travel a bit, but now that I have Ricky (my CPAP machine) it limits my travels to places that have an outlet by the bed (no more camping) and easily available distilled water, because you can’t really pack it on a plane. Honestly, with all the environmental issues it’s easier to go places I can drive to anyway. I have fulfilled many of my travel dreams, so it’s more peaceful to say farewell to that part of my life. And let’s just say I’m glad I did all the crazy things I did when I did and didn’t put travel off until I was “older.”

But now I am older and hopefully wiser I realize the following things:

I will never stop the war between Israel and Palestine.

I will never ever change the mind of a single person on Facebook.

I will sadly, never get the whole world to stop using poisonous toxic chemicals.

I can’t solve anyone else’s problems. Ever.

I will never be able to stop genocides, famines, or toxic masculinity.

I will probably never have a New York Times bestseller but that’s ok because I no longer respect that newspaper.

And lastly, I will never be young again in this lifetime.

I’ve been thinking about all this because I am cleaning out my home. I have so much junk accumulated over the years that was only weighing me down. I’m also watching The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (highly recommend!). Having had to clean out the homes of multiple relatives who have died, and then clean out the company archives and flotsam and jetsam, I don’t want to burden my own kids with that painful chore, although I’m sure it will still be hard. I mean, I have a lot of books. More importantly, I don’t want to live the rest of my life surrounded by things I don’t want, which remind me of things I don’t want to remember…like that gorgeous Western saddle I bought in Wyoming and only used a few times. Or all the cake decorating stuff I bought which I am no longer interested in since I can’t eat sugar anymore.

That’s the other place I notice the elimination process of aging — every dang week when I go food shopping. There are so many things I can’t eat anymore because they don’t agree with me. I used to scoff and inwardly sneer at people who had a lot of food issues. Maybe it’s my karma that I have them now too. When I first went gluten-free I went a little wild. Gluten-free Oreos! They’re vegan too! But now I can’t eat sugar or even things that turn to sugar in the body (like many carbs). Dairy is getting harder to digest and is often too salty (cheese). This is not a philosophical, spiritual, or even environmental thing (I still eat and need meat and fish). It’s me learning to listen to my body and truly understand what it wants and needs. Although I am sure all the toxic chemicals used to grow and process food hasn’t helped.

Here’s the good thing: I am now free from all pets and employees. Semi-retirement is awesome. I’m finding that many constraints I carried lived only in my head. And I can eliminate those as well.

I can still go to loud rock concerts and hope to for a long time. But I’ve eliminated the idea of all-day all-night outdoor music festivals. I had my fun and it was good.

I still carry a little Steve Kornaki in my pocket. He’s useful sometimes, especially when I need help with math. But more often, these days I have to tell him to shut the fuck up and get out of his head and into his heart. And oh, that’s what I need to do as well. I’m hoping that by lightening my load and eliminating some expectations (and risks) I’ll be able to live longer and enjoy whatever comes my way.

This is a picture of my daughter Lucia and her best friend Zara before prom. What I love about this picture is the contrast between them and the two older women sitting on a bench in the background. The distance between youth and old age is both brief and infinite, fleeting and forever. Savor every moment!