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Turning 60, Sari Botton is “the most me” she’s ever been
A revealing Q&A with the creator of Oldster Magazine
I am very ambitious, and I don’t like that the culture is now shaming women for that… It feels good to achieve, and I feel good about all that I’m putting out into the world. -
The first thing you need to know about
is that she is indefatigable, prodigiously hard working, and her own taskmaster. She runs three publications on Substack: Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism. She’s also an essayist, a published author1, and the editor of two bestselling anthologies2. As she puts it: “I have been working my butt off for basically four decades to earn and maintain a tenuous seat at the publishing/media table. (Mine’s a rickety folding chair wedged in at the back of the room.)”3That last bit is revealing; even after proving herself for decades, she is still questioning her worth, wondering (like so many women) if she’s good enough. At the same time, she knows she IS good enough, and she’s fiercely ambitious. I relate so strongly to this. In fact, that’s my definition of a feminist (which Sari is, and I am too). It’s a woman who is very competent, but still questions herself; and also feels driven to speak up for women everywhere, who are made to feel “less than.”
Sari tells everyone that the idea for Oldster came to her in a dream; then she woke up and started the interview series. She has been obsessed with what it means to grow older since she turned ten, but her focus is not “old age,” per se. Her twist is that everyone who’s alive is an “oldster,” because they are always getting older. Oldster’s tagline is “exploring what it means to travel through time in a human body, at every phase of life.” Two of her best-known interviews are with Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert. Her signature question:4 “how old do you feel?”
My answer, if I may, is multi-part: the most essential “me” feels about 10; another Debbie feels 53 years young; and current Debbie is learning to embrace a 73-year-old body. Sari’s answer to her own Oldster questionnaire: “In my mind’s eye I’m 10 or 11, except for when I’m 16, or 35.”5
I hope you enjoy this [B]old Woman Q&A with one of the most accomplished creators on Substack!
Debbie Weil: What is your morning ritual? Tell us everything! What time do you get up? Coffee first thing? Do you write everyday (in addition to editing your contributors), and, if so, do you have a ritual to get started?
Sari Botton: I arise at 7am, and after I’ve fixed my coffee, I open my laptop and get to work. I’m running three publications—Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and my personal blog, Adventures in *Journalism*—which is a lot of work. I’m always either editing someone else, or writing something of my own. I’d like to shift the balance eventually so that I have more time for my own writing.
DW: How is all that’s happening right now in the U.S. affecting you as a writer/editor, publisher, and creative person?
SB: It’s taking a terrible toll on me. I recently posted on Adventures in *Journalism* about how we’ve all been living on high-alert for about 10 years since the current president first threw his hat in the ring. It’s like we’ve all got cortisol poisoning. I’m so anxious all the time, and many nights I have terrible insomnia. Work has been a refuge. It takes a minute to get my head out of the news and into what I’m trying to do, but once I’m there, it feels good to focus.
DW: You’ve written recently (or maybe you said it on one of your livestreams) that you’re freaking out about turning 60. What exactly is making you anxious about this particular birthday?
SB: The last number to freak me out like this was 30. I threw myself three birthday parties that year to distract myself. There was so much expectation associated with 30. Was I going to get married, have children, find the right career path? Would I miss my chances for those things if I didn’t do them RIGHT THEN? I’m a little more than six months away from 60 now, and it comes with other societal expectations I don’t think I can meet. I mean, because I’m not a parent (happily!), I won’t be a grandparent. And it seems like people in their 60s are supposed to be grandparents. Will I ever be able to retire? I’m not well set up for that. In a nutshell, this is me, once again, measuring myself against norms, when I’m not normal and never have been. I’ve been happily abnormal, so I don’t know why I’m letting in all that noise again.
DW: Is the current political climate easing or exacerbating your fear of aging, or of what’s ahead for you?
SB: Exacerbating! I’ve been counting on Social Security and Medicare, because I don’t come from money and I’ve been living on fumes for most of my career, and I don’t have big savings. Now Elon Musk wants to line his pockets with the money the government took out of my paychecks. I’m livid, and I’m scared for my future.
DW: We first talked about “growing old” when you were a guest on my [B]old Age podcast almost two years ago. We talked about ageism and your new skin care routine, and you told me you no longer wear wooden clogs. What has changed for you since then?
SB: I wear lots of orthopedic-ish shoes these days, flats or low wedges. I can’t wear anything with a heel, or that doesn’t have a good, supportive sole and footbed. I can still wear Dansko clogs, as long as they have a back. Skincare-wise, I’m still applying Rebecca Wolff’s Glow Juice twice a day. I use Egyptian Magic all over my body, including…downtown.
DW: You’ve had a long career in writing and editing and you are so prolific. Tell us your secret for being so productive! I’m imagining a whole wall of different colored stickies in your office, or maybe a giant whiteboard, to keep track of everything. Be specific!
SB: I think working in newsrooms when I was a young adult trained me for formulating and composing stories quickly, and also multi-tasking. That and the hustling I had to do in college. I put myself through school, at one point juggling three part-time gigs while attending college full-time. I keep a paper editorial calendar, which helps me stay organized as the editor of two magazines. When I was writing my memoir, I used a storyboard—a cork board with index cards for each piece affixed to it. I (somewhat famously) love lists, and checking things off of them.
DW: You just passed the 100,000 mark for total subscribers to your publications. Huge congrats! Do you consider yourself ambitious? Can you tell us how many paid subscribers you have now? What is your strategy going forward as a successful publisher–and as someone tiptoeing into the foreign land of old age?
SB: I am very ambitious, and I don’t like that the culture is now shaming women for that. I mean, I’m against the whole Girl Boss mentality, and I also don’t want to be defined by my output in this capitalistic culture. But I’ve always strived to achieve a lot, and I will probably always be that way. It feels good to achieve, and I feel good about all that I’m putting out into the world.
As for paid subscribers, I’ll just say it’s a tiny fraction of the over 100,000 subscribers overall. Right now it’s supporting me, and allowing me to pay contributors to Oldster Magazine and Memoir Land. But I could use many more paid subscribers, so that I can keep doing this, and add new features, and publish an anthology…
DW: If you had to pick the two or three biggest lessons you’ve learned about old age (let’s define “old” as over 60!) from your dozens of Oldster interviews, what would they be?
SB: The best one is that so many people’s lives improved after 60. The culture tries to tell us that life will only get worse as we age. Yes, there are inevitable challenges—arthritis, losing friends and family, etc. But so many of my respondents have found greater contentment later in life, along with new careers, creative pursuits, relationships, friendships.
Another favorite is how many people stop caring what other people think of them. They’ve come to know themselves better, and shed false selves, and they no longer have the time or energy to go on pretending. They say to the world, “Take me as I am…”
DW: What is your favorite thing, right now, about the age you are?
SB: I’m 59-and-a-half, turning 60 in October. I think I’m the most “me” I’ve ever been, and that’s been hard won. I wrote a whole book about it. I’m no longer trying to be who I think people and the world would prefer me to be.
DW: What do you do for fun and to relax?
SB: I'm actually a good singer6, and was professional, to a degree, as a kid. But I struggle to feel permitted to do it, even though it's my favorite thing in the world, which makes me feel better than any other activity. I want to make a documentary about why it's embarrassing to sing in public, even for people who are good at it. Most days, I do at least one YouTube karaoke number at my desk, just for myself. Sometimes I sing in public, but it is always a fraught experience.
DW: What does [b]old age mean to you?
SB: Daring to be your truest self, despite societal pressure to conform. But also asking for help where you need it—admitting where you’re struggling and could use some assistance.
DW: What is your biggest regret when it comes to life or writing?
SB: I regret making my entire life about a man after graduating from college. I gave up opportunities to work in places far from where I grew up, and organized my life around waiting for a fickle man to propose and marry me. Then I made more choices that limited me professionally and creatively to make that work. It set me on a difficult path. I divorced at around 27, but it was difficult to correct my course from there.
DW: Looking back, what is one thing you are especially proud of?
SB: That every time someone in a big position told me “no,” I went and did what mattered to me anyway, and succeeded. The biggest example of this is Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving & Leaving NY, my first NYC anthology, which was such a hit, the publisher had me reissue it eight years later with seven new essays. Everybody who’s anybody in publishing had told me, “Great idea, but you can’t do it.” I found a way to do it, and I was right.
Sari Botton's memoir in essays, And You May Find Yourself...Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo, was chosen by Poets & Writers magazine for the 2022 edition of its annual "5 Over 50" feature. An essay from it received notable mention in The Best American Essays 2023, edited by Vivian Gornick. She edited the bestselling anthologies Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NewYork and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York. For five years, she was Essays Editor at Longreads. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times—including two Modern Love columns here and here—Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Women’s Wear Daily, W, The Billfold, The Rumpus, The Millions, Catapult, plus other publications. She has taught creative nonfiction at SUNY Albany, SUNY Ulster, Omega Institute, and teaches at the Kingston Writing Studio. In 2024, she presented Five Things I’ve Learned on the topic of What Aging Means to Oldsters.
Sari, thank you so much for taking the time to share your ambitions, hard-won lessons, and thoughts on aging with us here at [B]old Age. - Debbie
Questions for readers
How does ambition show up in your life? What are you feeling ambitious about lately?
Sari sings, but not always in public. What do you do for fun, to let off steam or because it’s your guilty pleasure?
Sari is the author of the memoir And You May Find Yourself...Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo.
Sari is the editor of the bestselling anthologies Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NewYork and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York.
From “Adventures in Journalism” by Sari Botton (Jan. 31, 2025)
Reporter Jennifer Senior quotes Sari and her signature question for the Oldster Questionnaire in her article, The Puzzling Gap Between How Old You Are and How Old You Think You Are (The Atlantic, Feb. 23, 2023).
When she turned 59, Sari answered five additional questions.
Loved this. Sari is both inspiring in her work ethic and as relatable as a good girlfriend. My secret pleasure is dance. I have absolutely no training or professional experience in it but I find a way to sneak it in to my more-acceptable habit of exercise. Sometimes if a really good song comes on in the morning while I'm emptying the dishwasher (Jesse Cook's Havana will do it), I will dance all over the kitchen. It is so spirit lifting! In another life, I would be a dancer. My uncle had a very successful dance studio in DC, teaching many presidents (though I couldn't see it happening today) so maybe it's in my blood a little.
How does ambition show up in my life?
Earlier in my life I worked in many organisations that required a competitive spirit and high performance. At retirement I was lost without anything to compete with or for. So I thought about what I could do well and how I could continue to improve on that and inspire others to do likewise. I ride horses and own 2 of my own. I decided to ride my horses into serious old age and to write about that experience. I am still doing that to the best of my ambitious ability. It is my 87th birthday today. 2 days ago I rode my horse with a friend for more than 3 hours in a local forest in glorious sunshine. I posted this achievement on my facebook page where I announced my birthday to my friends with a happy photo of me on my horse. I posted the same photo in groups of hundreds of older horsey people. I had an enormous response. This is the kind of expression my ambition takes these days... inspiring other older people with similar interests to follow my path for themselves!