Oldster Magazine

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older.

Questionnaires and Interviews “I’ve never felt in step with my generation, because I wasn’t raised in mainstream culture. I’ve missed a lot of the calibration equipment and I’m feral.” From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older.

Bloggy Things Talking to Mary Mulvihill and Judy Loeb of ‘Seniors Taking Action’ about getting the vote out...🎂This is 61! 🎂 And 60 was the best year of my life. What the heck was I so afraid of? Readers, Usually I send out my posts in this Letter from the Editor series on Thursdays.

Text and all illustrations by Peter Moore I’M HAUNTED BY the last time I saw my father. It was the fall of 1995, at Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut, where our family had gathered around my mom’s bedside. She had been diagnosed with uterine cancer, and we feared we were saying goodbye. But the image that persists, for me, isn’t of her. After I’d taken my leave from my mom, with my manful composure intact, my dad escorted me to the elevators. I shook his hand, also manfully.

I tend to read, watch, and listen to a lot of Oldster-adjacent content. Every other Friday (or so) I’ll pass some of it along to you in a Link Roundup like this one. If you like what you’re reading here, please hit the ❤️ button to give Oldster a boost in the algorithm.

Nobody knew. Not my father, her only child. Not my sister, the “good” granddaughter, who visited more regularly than I did, and therefore saw Pretty Woman more often than I did. Not her beleaguered nursing aide, Theresa. Pretty Woman, every day. “The King of Wishful Thinking” every day, as Richard Gere drives with fits and starts through the streets of Los Angeles. Julia Roberts’s laugh, every day. “Big mistake, big. Huge!”—every day.

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older.

Charlotte Grinberg, right, with a patient in the final days of her life. Many of you may be in that double season of life when children or grandchildren are beginning to have babies, while parents, friends, or spouses are dying. You may find yourself near birth and death in the very same year, sometimes in the very same week. What is the best way to be, in either of these situations? They have a surprising amount in common.

Readers, On Monday, Oldster turned 5. How cool is that? This publication—which I launched on August 31st, 2021 after waking from a dream in which I’d started a magazine called Oldster—has really resonated with readers, and I couldn’t be happier. To celebrate the occasion, Brian and I got a gluten-free cake from the supermarket, lit a candle, and dorked out, singing happy birthday to Oldster on social media in our Oldster tee shirts.

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older.