Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Two Jersey Jays. I'm Jackie Goldschneider. I'm Jen Fessler. Hi guys, Hi, Okay, and Jen. I have a question for you. Yes, this term sounds jump right and horrifying, but have you ever heard of invisible women syndrome?
I have heard of it, But even if I hadn't heard of it, I think I would be just the title alone with clue me in to what it means.
But please, Invisible woman syndrome is a theory that when a woman reaches a certain age, usually when they go through menopause around age fifty, the world stops seeing them. They become invisible. They stop excelling at the things that society says women are made for, which is beauty and raising children, and they therefore become invisible in society, in the workplace, and in the media. And you know, I have to say, I don't feel invisible, but I do feel at times like as I get older, I find
it hard to figure out what my purpose is. When I was younger, I had all these big dreams, and now as I'm approaching fifty, it does feel like things are limited.
Well, first, before I comment, on Invisible Women's Syndrome. In case you guys haven't guessed, our episode today is about aging, and we're talking about specifically because we happen to be women. We're talking about women and aging. Although like to throw in a few thoughts that we have on differences between men and women aging, but I relate to what you're describing, and I the most relatable part of it for me is the idea that women are not being looked at
and in social situations. Not so much in the workplace for me, but that feeling that I used to have where I was very noticeable. I guess to men and to women. We are on reality television right now, so we do get noticed, maybe in a different way. But let's say, for me before Housewives, there is a difference now at age fifty five than there was at age even forty five and thirty five. And I don't know if it's partly in my own mind or I just have become less relevant to society.
Well, do you know, I think? Can I just tell you this story when I was in my twenties, I still I remember this so distinctly. I was what it was like, not a club, but it was like a bar with music and everything, and there was this group of older women and they, when I say older women, they were like in their late forties, maybe early fifties, and they were at the same place as us. And the song who Let the Dogs Out came on and one of the women had a.
Leash with her. Okay, I guess it was our favorite.
Song or something. She had a leash and she was swinging the leash and dancing her ass off to Who Let the Dogs Out? And I turned to my friend and I said, if I'm doing that when I'm fifty years old, please kill me. And I'll always remember that, because I almost felt like this woman was too old to be having this much fun, like at that stage, calm the fuck down, sit down, like enjoy your grandchildren. Like I had all these distorted ideas of what life
was supposed to be like. And I wonder now if when I go to because I still love to have fun and I love to go out, and I wonder if twenty year old or young thirties are looking at me and saying, wow, go home, go home to your family and live appropriately. And it bothers me so much that I thought that.
The uh, well, I want to delve into this later. But the good news about hitting middle age and getting older is that all of that doesn't matter as much as it used to. Like what people are thinking, and what people are, how people are judging you, all of that starts to sort of fall under the category of who gives a shit? But we're ahead of ourselves. A little talk about that later.
I don't know about that. I don't know about that, but I don't know. I feel like when I was younger, I really thought that fifty years old was old.
Well, I mean the Golden Girls, the Golden Girls that we watched, right, they were representing old women in Florida, you know, over fifty community and we watched them and love them because they were older and yet they were still sassy. But I don't remember. I remember reading something about like their actual ages that they were supposed to be, and I'm older than that. Except for the mother what was her name? Not so yeah, not Sophia, Yes, I
don't think. I think she was probably supposed to be a little bit older, but like absolutely right in that range Alice on the Brady Bunch, I think they said she was forty five, right, And the way they say ten years older than Alice, right, but.
They were like so, so what they were in there? They were supposed to be in their seventies, I guess, right.
I don't know. I don't know that.
And all they did was sit around and eat cheesecake and like do old lady things. And I feel like that's why, maybe that's why we think about getting old.
Is not but fifty is not what it was, right, Like I said this, my business is sort of based around, loosely based around the idea of agism. So my heels that I make are for women who have reached a certain agent, can no longer wear heels and still want to feel sexy. But we say, one of the things we talk about when we're promoting f major is that you know, fifty, this is not your mother's fifty. And my mother did not like I do it fifty that
is not I'm whatever to do my own horn. But she didn't have access to so much that we have access to now. So physically it's a different time, right, So we have access to everything from botox to fillers, to care extensions and keratin and all the bs and surgeries and the cur all things that really our mothers didn't have access to personal trainers, different ways to exercise. So I don't think fifty looks like it used to look right, and.
I think that's a problem. So you take these women who people say defy age, right, like Jennifer Lopez or cape Beck and Sale both. You know Katee Beck and Sale's fifty. I think Jennfi Lopez a few years past that, and they're freaking gorgeous. They look very young, And we do have access to all this stuff, so I feel like it's it's almost like you fell apart if you don't do it right, and that's not true.
But I don't think that. I feel like, I think it's great that we have access to these things. Whether or not you decide to use them is of course your own decision. But I love that I don't look like my mother and my grandmother did at fifty, that I have pools that they didn't have, for better or for worse. I'm grateful for that. But unrealistic expectations now that come along with aging, I think they have. They're way bigger those expectations than they used to be. Like, you don't really see.
A woman when you see a woman with enough money to get botox? Who chooses not to? Don't you think to yourself, well, why would you walk around with all those lines on your face? Like Lisa Barlowe, famously on Real House Sizes of Salt Lake City, doesn't get botox. She says she wants she likes her face natural, and I always I think she's stunning, but I always think, like, why wouldn't you get botox?
Well, you're asking the wrong girl. I'd been getting botox since botox was a thing, so I can't really answer that question. I think, though, how glorious it must be to be a woman who is really is embracing age and doesn't give a shit. I'm not one of those women, but I do like Justine Bateman so right, So she's come out recently. She doesn't looks like, she doesn't wear makeup, and she doesn't color her hair, and she has completely
embraced that lot. Pamela Anderson like, these are women that are saying, you know, fuck all of you, this is what fifty something or hopever they old there looks like I think I'm beautiful. That's all that matters. And God bless them, fat not bless.
Them, But they get torn apart in the media. Well, not so much Pamela Anderson, but Justine Bateman. She got destroyed in the media.
It made her more likable for me, even though I have yeah, I'm not that person. I have no interest in letting my hair grow go gray and letting my wrinkle get wrinklear. But I definitely felt, uh this affinity towards her, like cool man, like, look at you doing you and not making excuses for it? Right you? How much time I would save if I just didn't give a shit about my looks? How much time?
This is?
What?
This is what Pam Anderson said on Today dot Com. She said, I'm much more comfortable in my own skin. But I'm also in an industry that really focuses on beauty, and I thought, I'm going to challenge beauty. I think challenging ourselves is what keeps us young and beautiful. And I think, really genuinely, beauty does come from within and you don't have to play the game.
So I love that.
But then again, she is Pam Anderson, and she looks like Pam Anderson, so i' mean, like, hey, do when you're Pam Anderson, you could do that? But when I wake up, and I have no makeup on. I am
not showing my face to the world. But I do think that it is kind of like yesterday I heard this guy in his uh I think he's in his early thirties, and somebody asked him if he had a celebrity crush and he said, it'll always be Jennifer Aniston, and I love that, And then he followed it by saying, she's simply ageless, and I thought, like, why can't she just be Jennifer Aniston? Like why does what would happen if she did look, you know, fifty something.
Well, let's let's turn that around for a minute, Okay, So I could tell you that whoever I was, whatever man I was in love with as a younger woman, when there are one hundred and ten, I'm gonna still love them. I'm gonna still feel attracted to them. And I can tell you that because I can look at men like I don't know the Clint Eastwoods of the world, even like, but I know he just had a baby, and that's a whole other subject and weird or whatever. But Rober Junior, I think he is so sexy. I
could yeah, I do. Oh boy, no, not I I just think it's different. I think that it's different. Man, I don't have that like you know, Okay, let's stay, let's do someone simpler. How about a George Clooney. Yeah he's gorgeous, He's gorgeous, gorgeous.
But I don't think men compare themselves to like George Clooney and Brad Pitt. They're in their fifties.
Oh no, no. But but the point being that, like this guy said Jennifer Anderston is ageless, I don't care if George Clooney is ageless, aging over the hill, the hill follow of shit.
What I'm saying is you wouldn't say I love George Clooney even at his age.
Now, I know it's different from say that it.
Is very different. For a Minute's different like the fact that Robert de Niro and al Pacino could have a baby in their eighties. I I don't think. I'm just gonna be honest, like, just because you can doesn't mean you should. I think it's horrible, I really, I mean there's something about like life is not guaranteed for anybody, right, but having a child when you know you're not going to live more than like I mean yes, there are outliers who live. I think it's I think it's an
ego thing. I think it's horrible. I don't think you should be having a child in your eighties. I just don't. But you know, it is different for men. I think, you know, the midlife crisis for a woman and a man are very different. So for a man, they say, you know, reach a research shows that a man's midlife crisis is triggered by a feeling of being trapped in their life. And that's why I think it's the mentality.
It's about right quality for men, right, But that's why you get these men who are trying to move backwards by like getting a bestorcycles or.
Dying their hair.
Women doing crazy right.
So I actually hold my friends. And when I say I pulled my friends, I pulled a lot of my friends going into this episode. And I want to say, I talked to maybe twenty women and I ask them all the same question, and Jack, I'll ask it to you, but without overthinking it. Okay, just give me a sentence. What is what do you feel like is the best part of aging?
Aside from the fact that I do appreciate that I'm healthy and have a healthy family and everything, and that aging is not you know.
It's a gift.
What do I appreciate about it? I have to be honest, I don't love too much about it. But what I do love is the feeling of I feel less pressure to be a people pleaser. I say no to more things that I authentically don't want to do. Yep, And I put people out of my life that I don't feel good being around. And that's been especially in the past two years. I've chosen to surround myself only with the people that I enjoy being around, and that includes, sadly,
that included my sister too. I stopped, I really stopped. I used to try hard with her, but not hard, but like check in every once in a while and see if maybe she wants to talk.
I've stopped. Well, so I will tell you that unanimously. I'm not making this up. I have my little journal here and I called about twenty women. I wrote down exactly what they said. I said, just give me a sentence, and I could read you. When I said the best part of aging, they almost said it in the exact
same way. The best I'm just gonna read. The one is don't fucking care anymore, the best not giving a shit, the best not having my period and not giving a shit, not caring about what others think, not giving a shit, and being more confident. I mean, it was just over and over again. And it was the ability also to say no and not caring about what was going to
come b at you. And it's funny because I was thinking, I have a funny story about that myself, because for me, that's the best part of getting older, is I am still I still struggle with people pleasing Having said that, it's way better than what than it was when I was younger. And for instance, so I have a friend and we had plans to go out on a Thursday night.
This is going back I know a couple of years and another one of our friends got wind of it and she at the time was going out with someone that night coincidentally, so there were four of us going out that night. So my other friend, my third friend. So if you know, I'm going out one person and there are two others. So said, well, you know, guys, let's just put ourselves in the same reservation. We'll all
go out together, the four of us. And I said no, uh, huh, And we were on sort of like a thread without the fourth person. But the fourth person, lovely woman, was not a good friend of mine, and it was going to change the whole dynamic of that Thursday night going out and being amongst like someone that I felt really comfortable with and sharing what's going on with me, and I didn't want for that dynamic to switch. It was
a Thursday night. Knowing me, I probably didn't want to go out anyway, So I said, no, that's not going to work. And my friend said back, what do you mean, What do you mean no? And I said no, and she's so it just kept like, what are you talking about? Why not we're all going out? I said, because I don't want to, And he said, what do you mean? Why are you being like this? I said, well, if you want, I'll make up a lie. Okay, I don't feel good. Would you like me to lie to you?
I don't want to. I'd rather just go out with me and this one person. With me and this one person and you, this other person who's a lovely woman changes the dynamic of the night, and I don't want to do it. And I know it may sound like a silly story, but it was so everything for me because like I'm not making excuses why I don't wanna, That's why. And at fifty five years old, I can say no, I don't want to and not have to make excuses for it. That's enough, my mom. It was
just no is not a four letter word. That's part of like the not giving a shit thing. I mean, there are so many pieces of not giving a shit that are so satisfy, you know, satisfactory, satisfactory, that gives so much satisfaction. But like when I was younger, I just would have never been able to do that no because I said no, That's why, And that is I definitely has come with age, right.
That that is the best part because you when you say no to things, like when I used to, I used to be like, well, what if am I going to not get invited to this thing next time?
Right, this one's going to be mad at me.
Now you know that, like, first of all, no one's thinking about you as much as you're thinking about you, but also like it just life is short, and you know that, like you've become aware of the fact that people around you are unhappy or they get sick, or they lose people, and like, you know that life is short and you have this like clarity.
But I don't know that. I buy all of these.
Women who say that they don't care what people think of them any more.
I mean there are degrees of it. You know, it's not like you now you never ever care, But it's so much better than it used to be. I mean, that's right, that's the beauty of agent all these middle aged women on ozenbic. Not to go back to that, but I mean it is omnipresent. So like all these people don't care, then why are they all like drastically changing their bodies right now? But I don't think I'm
not saying that. Well, okay, so great. So, remembering what you just said and what you just asked me, I'm going to ask you what's the worst thing for you about aging? The worst thing a quick sentence, don't get like even to love it, but like my face looks older? Okay, so unanimously all the friends I could go back and tell you the best thing was not.
Giving a shit claiming I'm not claiming that I don't care what people think of my looks.
No, wait, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is not giving a shit about what people think is not the same as not caring, as not liking the physical changes that come along with aging. So what that means is that I want to look great. It's not about everybody else like it used to be. It's not because I want to catch a husband or I want to be the pretty girl said. I want to look in the mirror and like what I see and still
feel sexy. So I don't think they're mutually exclusive, right, Like, you can not give a shit anymore and still feel badly about your body and your face aging. And I'm telling you that that was the unan of his answer. That's what I got from over twenty women. It was really almost bizarre. So I think that it's great Adjustine Bateman of Pamela Anderson, like God bless them, good for them.
But I think for the most part, the part of aging that is so hard for us is the physicality of it, right, that part of us that the first time I saw gray hair on my vagina, that was a tragic day. Okay, Now that's not necessarily about like, you know what I look like. Not many people were seeing that. Not many people would want to. But my point is like just knowing that my body is getting older.
I know there are times when I stare in the mirror and I'll like use my fingers, my like middle fingers to like pick up certain parts of my face, like yeah, I look, and I wonder, like what fell on my face that makes me look thirty years older than I was at twenty, right, And I'll like pick things up and that little lift will make me look so much younger, and then I have to drop it again.
And it's about acceptance, right, because my friends will say, no one understands why their knees look the way they do, so I have That's that's sort of like the topic recently is that everybody's legs having a lot to do with the people that are on ozembic. But your skin starts to sag. But even let's put ozembic aside for a minute. As you get older, your skin starts to
sag on your knees. Jack, I don't know if you've this has happened to you, but they just sort of fold skin folds over itself on your knees, and so there's a lot of like why, so, like what is happening? Why are man of these do it? Here's the answer, Because you're old. We're getting old.
It's funny that you say that. There was this woman once and I had a conversation. This is like ten years ago. I was a camp drop off and I was with someone to pick up my campers. My kids were little, and there was a counselor and I said to my friend, how old do you think she is? And she said fifties And I said, no, she looks so young. She looks so pretty, and maybe in her thirties. And she said no, look at her knees. And he looked at her knees she and I was like, oh,
you're right. And I never thought about like people's knees before, but you could tell by the other parts of your body. Why does that happen to other women? On ozempiic, your skin folds faster.
You lose muscle. Unless you don't, unless you're very diligent about it, you can lose muscle. So the skin, yeah, it starts to wrinkle and hang. So you know, for some women, that in and of itself is a reason not he's ozemptic. But it never me.
No, I mean, I can't say that I mean, I'm so lucky, you know, to be aging with a healthy family and with a lot of support. But I don't I mean it's for me.
I don't think it's I don't love it.
I don't love getting older.
I really don't know. And I used to say, and my mother used to make fun of me because I would say all the time, like, I don't mind getting older. I'm excited to hit forty I'm excited to hit forty five. And she was like, well, Jen, you're just gonna be ecstatic than when you hit eighty, Just like, hold your breath,
it'll be here soon, Jen. But I really did used to say that, and I think part of that was because my twenties were so riddled with insecurity and maybe that was the best I ever looked physically, maybe my thirties, but it was mentally didn't matter. It was a misery. And I am so much more, not only self confident, aware of who I am, happy in my skin. And those are the gifts that come with aging. Right. Unfortunately, you wish that you knew then what you know now.
The ideal, right would be to be like, look like I was twenty, but still be me at fifty five. Then I would I take the world.
God. I remember, I used to always dread what other people that were older than me were going, like only a few years older, but what they were doing. And I used to say, like, for example, when my kids were in elementary school and people would graduate out of the elementary school and their last kid would graduate fifth grade, I used to say, thank god, I have kids that are still at elementary school. I'm still young. My kids are still babies. And then it was suddenly I had
no kids at elementary school. Then it was the Barmit's for years. Thank god, it's not my kids yet. You know they all have teenagers. I still have little kids. Then I was there, and now all my friends are doing college admissions and like now I'm in this phase of like, oh, thank god, I'm not at the college admission phase yet. And then I know soon enough, like I'm going to be there also, And it's just, you know,
I gets scared. I get scared of getting older because my kids give me so much purpose and I know that no matter what happens in my career, listen, this show that we're on that can go away at any moment, and that has to end some time for everybody, right, I mean, you're not going to be on the Housewives forever, so that kind of like explosion of relevancy that's going to go away. And no matter what happens in your life, you know that, like raising your kids is you know
that gives you purpose. You know they'll only have one mother, so I just I get nervous about them getting older and independent with it and not needing me.
So this is a great, a great sort of segue into the whole empty nesting thing in terms of aging and women. And I don't feel like you do. And I didn't feel like you do in the sense that well, first of all, I love being an empty nester, so I love it, oh my god. Now, And I don't know sometimes I feel like sometimes that what you just said is part of it. Like you feel like the kids make you relevant, and.
Yeah, I elevant, and like they give me so much to do and watching them and like molding them and guiding.
But all of us, listen, this doesn't mean it's funny. Because when I would send my kids to Sleepway camp in my town, that was always the Jewish women that did that, and the non Jewish women didn't. And it would feel like the non Jewish women. Maybe it was in my head or the heads of my friends, but they were judgmental about it, like, how could you send
your kids away? I don't. I'm not to buy into this, Like you love your kids more because you keep them home, or if you're walking by their bedroom after they've left for college and crying, that means that you must really love your kids. When kids come out of you or when they become yours and you become a mother, we all love them, maybe not the same way, but that
level of love is like nothing else. And being a mother, no matter if I like my time or loved my time in the summer when my kids were away, knowing that they were having the time of their life, you know that didn't make me any more or less of a loving, doting mother. And I will tell you that in terms of like I love empty nesting, the truth is I love being alone. So there's that. I way prefer Jeff to go into the office, but whatever, that's my I'll talk to my shrink about that on Thursday.
But anyway, but the point is that like I have no qualms as long as they're happy and I know they're away and they are living their best life. When my kids are unhappy, either one of them, then everything sort of stops right dead in its tracks, and I become mama bear and I can't, you know, enjoy myself. And that's, you know, it's a very difficult thing, because if they're suffering as mothers, I think that we suffer. But in terms of being in my house, I never
was crying walking by their bedrooms. They come home a lot, and when they do, and the house gets to be a mess, and you know, there is there are other people's needs. And I'm fifty five and I sort of really enjoy just attending to my own needs and Jeff's needs, and I don't know, it's it is so fabulous and freeing. I think, though part of that is because I have so much going on, and I reinvented myself a bit
right when I turned fifty. I started a business, when I turned fifty three, became a friend of a housewife. Maybe without that, I wouldn't feel so fulfilled and so at ease with having my nest be empty. But you know, as much as I there's no one I love more
than I love those two people and my husband. But having said that, I'm good, like I'm very very happy to walk around my house to have it be everything is neat and I have stuff to do and there's nobody asking me what's for dinner as long as they're good. I'm loving that. Aspect of getting older.
I really hope that I am like that, because I really do. I'm afraid of it. My house right now is very full. It's very busy. Listen, I had my children so close together because of my fertility issues, ended up having four children in three years, so I brought home. I brought home my infants when my older ones were two and a half, so I had four kids in diapers for a while. For a good six months, I would change thirty two diapers a day.
It was wild.
But you know, I have a very full, busy house, and I feel like, because they are so close in age, I'm going to lose everything within a matter of years, you know, not lose everything, but like it's just going to go from like bustling to quiet. And I'm really scared. I am scared of that. I don't know how a lot of because but unlike.
Camo members who feel like that, yeah, well we're gonna.
Say I'm scared of it, but no, I was gonna say, unlike you, like my my big you know, explosion in career, And of course I don't know what's going to happen in the future, and I have big dreams and everything, but my big explosion of career came when my kids were still small, you know, so so I don't know it's.
Going to career aside though, even without even without career, because without everything that's gone down, the business, the housewives, the podcast. I mean, I feel very blessed by, you know, all the things that I have going on right now and that I would not have been able to manage when the kids were little. But even without all of that, I never found myself. Even when the kids were at
Sleepway Cat, I was never bored. Really. I know a lot of women do get bored without that purpose of like having the kids around, getting them to sports practice, getting dinner on the table. I never felt really bored. I can occupy myself very easily. I'm lucky in that way. I'm unlucky in a lot of ways, but that's I don't never really worried about being alone. I am loving empty nesting, and I think that as like things are changing in this world, and in twenty twenty four there
are more opportunities. There's a little bit less agism when I think that it's going to be easier and easier, But I don't know. For me, it's another phase of my life that I I'm actually really loving.
It reminds me when Don Lemon, who I really like, actually, but Don Lemon said that Nikki Hiley was pissed her prime and that was kind of horrifying. I understand why you did not go over. Well, yeah, yeah, because how old is she? She's in her fifties, right, younger than me. Yeah, she looks younger than me. So, but menopause, menopause the big really unfamiliar for me. I have not yet gone through it. Now that being said, here's a little TMI. Because of my anorexia, I had not gotten my period
in a good twenty years. I've gotten so for me, that's not going to change. But I am scared of many things about menopause, one of them being because of all the homeowne changes. I know that people in menopause do tend to gain some weight, and for me that's a very loaded issue because I gained a fair amount of weight in my recovery from anorexia, and I don't I don't want to gain even more. But you know
that's for another time, another discussion. But you know, it just feels to me like I don't know how I'll handle all of those, like hormonal changes.
I mean, there's so much to talk about when it comes to menopause. And I actually, you know, I've spoken about doing menopause like our own exceparate, like our just one menopause, right, and we both have a common friend that is an expert in this area, so that'll be fun. Well, I don't know if menopause is ever fun, but I can tell you that, yeah, fun, I do miss. I certainly don't miss cramps. I certainly don't miss bloating you
mean for your period. Yeah, But in terms of it's it's a weird feeling to know that I, even if I wanted to, I don't have ovaries. I had them. They had to come out. I had have surgery. But anyway, really I had a tumor, not cancerous one, but I had a really large tumor on my ovary, and so they had to take them out along with my fallopian tubes anyway, but that I can't even if I wanted to have a baby, I can't have a baby is weird. You know, it's weird to know that feeling of being
all dried up quote unquote. You know it's I associate, you know, having the fact that I'll never buy tampons for myself again. There is something kind of sad for me about it. And menopause is not an easy ride. There's so much more that goes along with it than people used to actually even think or give women credit for. It's the hormonal changes, obviously, the physical changes, the emotional changes. The sweats alone are enough to make you want to
put a bullet through your brain. I mean, it's just not for everybody. Everybody's different. Maybe you will sail through that, but they suck, They really suck. And I used to have I'm on hormone replacement now, but I have used to have the most horrible pains in my joints. This feeling of constant fatigue is how long it varies. I mean, everybody's different. You know some people I have friends who
have gone through it. It never had sweats. But you know, I think it's just I'm not a doctor, but for me, the symptoms of menopause years years for sure. I mean there's perimenopause and then there's then you're in menopause.
You've probably how old you jacks A forty seven? You may even be in period, probably am, But I don't know because I still I don't.
Do period periods. I stop when I was fifty is the last time I got my period, so, which is pretty early. I think for menopause, maybe it's average. But yeah, it's a hard thing to kind of get your head around. But I think in a way, it's like kind of symbolic, right, Like it's kind of free, Like you don't have to worry about your period anymore, and you don't have to you don't get cramps that you used to, so we can like kind of spin it like that.
Yeah, I'll need you to help me spin it.
I'll help you spin it.
You have to stick around in my life life. So you know, I was talking to Evan this morning and I asked him because he's turning fifty in August, and I asked him how he feels about reaching midlife. You know, I think we're been in midlife for a while. You know, I don't know. I'm not living to one hundred. I mean, I hope we do. But and he said to me that he's really really looking forward. He thinks the best years are yet to come. And I said, hold on, explain.
He said, well, when you're you know, life goes in three phases. When you're in your you know, when you're around like you know, a late teen, early twenties, you're selfish. You're doing whatever makes you feel good. You're building your own life, your own career, you're doing your own thing. But you're not like secure yet. You don't have financial security, you don't know what you're going to do with your life. So there's that fear. Right next phase of your life,
you're totally selfless. You're having kids, you're trying to make everyone happy, you're raising your children, dealing with aging parents, right, and then you get to you're, you know, fifty five to seventy, and he said, those are the years when you get to go back to being selfish. But you have the financial security, You've worked your job, you're in retirement. You know what matters. You know what you want to do,
you want to see the world. You have that inner peace and I just thought, Amen, And you're so lucky that you see life like that and that you have that clarity because I'm just living with all this fear of what's to come, and he's living with all of this like excitement of what's yet to come. And I think there's a real difference. Yeah, it's a real different.
Same exact question. And he said, well, I asked him the best and the worst, right I wanted to get I asked a couple of men though, the best and the worst, and what they thought. I wanted to kind of compare it to the women. But anyway, I said, what's the best part of aging for you? And he said, knowing that I'm not full of shit? I think not as much as worrying about what people thought, what people think,
but doubting himself when he was younger. I think a lot of that is attached to his career, right, Like he knows when he knows something, he knows it. There's no real arguing with him. And if he's imparting wisdom to a client or to his son, like he doesn't have to die. He doesn't doubt himself. He is very sure of who he is, what he knows, and sort of there's no insecurity. I don't know. Maybe that's more
a more attached for him to his career. And I said, you know, what's the what's the worst thing like about getting older? And he said, because I'm getting closer to death. I mean it's literally that mortality piece, right, and it's it's which I feel too. Not I don't feel it all the time, but some of the like all of us, I get I get scared. But you know, it was
a little different. He didn't say anything about the physical changes, right, he doesn't care if he's he's gone completely bald, which I like one of mine.
I asked him and said, do you compare yourself to younger men? And he said no, because I know I'm not a younger guy anymore, so there's no point. He goes, but I think I look great for fifty eight.
He does, like I can't lie to you. I mean he does. I mean, I don't know, but he's doing good, you know, And that's.
Hard for me too. Evan's always like in shape, and that makes me worry also, like if there are changes that I can control, right, you know, I had this horrendous eating disorder for so long because I felt that it was something that gave me absolute control over my body. Yeah, but you know, now I'm in recovery, but I'm facing these hormonal changes that are going to take it that control away from me again and do things to my body that I can't control. And he is not going
to go through that. And Evan always keeps himself in shape, and he loves the gym, and he loves going outside and being physical. And I also worry about you know, you see these I don't worry about him ever leaving me. I know he loves me.
But you see all these older or training in for a younger version and a younger thirty version.
I feel like aging doesn't affect men the way that it does women. Yeah, you know, but then again, I'm not in a man's body. I don't know.
I don't know what they think. But here's okay. So here's if we spin that a little bit. Here's the thing. So I become decrepit, and let's say I stop doing all of these things that prop my face up and my body up and whatever. Let's say I become decrepit. And Jeff Fessler does an age the same way that I do, and he for whatever reason, becomes more attractive and more But here's the thing that I know now that I didn't know. Then, Good luck, dude. Like, I'm
good honey, you do you? Because I know who I am. Obviously, if Jeff Fessler ever left me, it would completely devastate me. But I am not that person who is scared. I'm not scared, honey, because I know who I am, different than when I was, even in my forties, and you're forty seven. I don't remember exactly where I was in terms of my my you know, my headset. But like now I'm okay, Like I don't want you to leave. I love you, You're You're my person. But guess what you
think there is better? Honey? Do you? I'll be back here. How would you feel? What? I mean?
You saw them?
Really?
I'm either kind of botox or anything or you don't have to say, Jeff Festna, does Jeff Besto get botox? Are you?
He's not warn cologne ever since the day I met him. Botox. He shocks her jeans at cold. He just wants me to leave him alone. No, there's no botox. The world comfortable he is. It's all about it. If I didn't do anything. Oh man, Yeah, well guess what. I don't give shit either.
I don't mean it's just that fair, though, And then you look at all of these men with these younger women, and nobody bats andy like Steven Tyler looking at pictures. He was at some kind of Grammy's party. His girlfriend is thirty nine, and he's I think.
I know double he was, Oh, I know. I mean, how about this.
When I was in my twenties, I went on vacation with my parents. I was with my dad. We were on some kind of like trolley in the Caribbean going to play tennis. I was going with my dad and we were sitting next to each other and this couple asked us if we were on our honeymoon, and my dad.
Was like, oh, he loved it.
It was like the greatest moment of his life.
And I remember thinking, God, that's so unfair.
I'm like twenty two years old and he's like in his fifties. You know, like it's just and nobody would think twice. But then you have Luanne was just on Watch what Happens Lie like this young guy and he was flirting with her, and I saw so many comments like why would he be flirting with her, you know, like and she just said, I mean, and she's a gorgeous woman, you know, like even when you know cher
or Madonna people. I assume that these younger men want their money and their fame, and there couldn't be another reason. There couldn't be a reason why a young man, a young beautiful man, would fall in love with an older woman, like a signify older woman.
My father married a woman the divorced now, who was three years older than me. I actually I have a sister who is younger than my daughter. And that's for another episode. Why We'll get into family dysfunction another time, but anyway, we can have a long one on that. Yeah, we could have a long one on that. But anyway, but you know, imagine being cool with that, right, Like he made a choice and it would have been so I can't imagine my mom marrying someone that was three
years older than me, Like that's just unheard of. That would never happen in the world. My father was always with younger women. It seemed, it was no big shock when it happened, do you know what I mean. My mother, on the other hand, like it would have been the twilight zone. Never think about it.
Think about it for a second, though, if something happened with your marriage.
Would you I don't think I would ever.
Feel comfortable, as great as it might seem to date a real young man. I think I'd always wonder if he saw me as old, and if he was looking at younger women. You know, I don't think i'd ever feel secure.
I don't know, I don't know. I always wanted older anyway. I mean, Jeff is not Jeff sixty one and fifty five. But like I always wanted when I was dating, to be with an older man, and I just never had the patience for anybody that was certainly younger than me or I don't see myself ever really wanting that, who knows why, But like I would go up. So if I was single right now and I had to put in the age range on the dating app that I would date up to, I would probably date to seventy.
Really, yeah, I could never be with a seventy year old man. Yeah, just you're younger than I am just a few years. I don't know, Yeah, but yeah, I do think that men have a different sense of midlife. They don't feel you know, the looks pressure. They don't feel you know, they don't. They don't feel empty, nesting
loss as much as I'm sure some men do. But you know, I think they look forward to the freedom and to the selfishness again, you know, yeah, but you know there are there are good things about midlife.
Like you said, I don't even know my midlife. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm old life. I don't even know. You're not. What is mid life even considered anymore? What is midlife considered? I mean, if we're going to break it up into three different segments, I'm way past I'm in the third quarter, baby, No, I don't think so. I'm in the third card, and you're a map with right, I think. No, I don't think you're there yet. I think forty of sixty is midlife. I don't know now.
I refuse to be in the last quarter. No way, let's see here. So you know, what's also difficult about these years is that a lot of women are in crossover roles. So we're still taking care of our kids, but we're also taking care of aging parents, and all of those pressures leave very little time for our own self care.
Yeah, that part is definitely hard. The aging parents piece is definitely hard. And I both my parents are alive and healthy, but we lost my mother in law and my father in law years back, and it was just a bitch. It was horrible, and they were the most amazing people, and Jeff was so close to them both. And my father in law died of Alzheimer's. My mother in law died shortly after her heart gave way. But they weren't old. I mean, eighty hold was backs eighty
two whatever. Anyway, that is a very difficult and heartbreaking scenario. And also I think, you know, it means that we're next, right, Like it used to be death so far away, right, My grandparents were alive and maybe my great grandparents, and now it's like once your parents go, you're next in line. It is scary.
It is scary, and I think that's why you stop being such a people pleaser, you know.
Yeah, well yeah, And.
I think about my mother when I was younger, and I never realized, never appreciated this then, but my mother, when she was in her forties, my grandparents lived with us. They were Holocaust survivors. My grandfather, my mother's father. I only knew him when his dementia really started in so I just remember him as a frail old man counting. He used to count pennies all day on the couch, and he thought we lived in Denmark. He didn't really know what was going on. He knew who his grandchildren were.
But my mother was taking care of her parents, taking care of her children, and working full time. And I have a handcap brother. I mean, she was just doing everything for everyone, and I didn't appreciate it them. But I look back now and I'm like, oh.
Did you do all of that right? Right? You know?
But my mother also never gave a shit about her looks. I mean, past a certain age, she started looking old. I used to have vicious fights with her about coloring her hair. The last time I think she colored her hair was for my wedding. I begged her to color her hair.
Yeah, she's been graceful. My mother is so I mean, to this day, she's running five miles, she's every she is so put together. It's a you know, I think that I like that part of being a woman. I think my mother does too. So it's not even like I'm still trying to hold onto my youth. Maybe as much as like I enjoy makeup. I love the feeling of like a new haircut, getting my hair colored. I like when my nails look pretty. I don't know if
that's about even youth. So much is just for me, just part of what I love about being a woman. And my mother has more maintenance, has more maintenance I think than I do. I mean, she is on her maintenance game.
Yeah, I like feeling put together. I don't know if it's a woman thing. I just I like having all that done. But I do think I sometimes chasing youth is all the tattoos that I get. I love getting tattoos, and I think it's honest keeps me a little bit young.
But this was I got nothing.
Let's send us off with what kind of things can a woman do for herself in middle age to make herself feel good?
You can join on the Housewives of New Jersey. Yes, join the house. I don't know if that'll make you feel internally, but all of a sudden, you'll glow your ass right up.
No oh yeah, Jed's glow up was well, your grow up was like nobody else's. I didn't have that kind of glow up. I just learned to contour better. Actually, people accuse me all the time of changing my face. Like whenever I do a picture, like take a picture or post a picture of people were like, what did you do it to your face?
You destroyed your face.
Honestly, I did nothing to my face. I start, I didn't destroy your beautify face. So no, but like this is my nose and these are my eyebrows, Like I didn't get No, I'm just saying like I did get filler in my lips, but I like, I didn't change my face. So I didn't really have the blow up that you had.
I mean it was I was a separate it was a different face. I have a cult completely different face and I lost all this we face, different body, just so super glam. Like I was looking at a picture of you. I actually somebody asked me what plastic surgeon you went to, and I said, look at her before and after. So I went to your Instagram page.
And I scrolled down to the bottom and I took a picture from like, oh I didn't deleave these years ago, thanks for reminding me of Sorry, I'm a little bit of a dogger. And then I went back up to the top and I was like, that's the same person. They were like, yeah, it's not because, yeah, the same person and they took your doctor's number.
Yeah it was. So that's my advice, So get yourself on reality TV. Yeah no, I don't mean it, but really, like take the time.
And I have to remind myself of this sometimes, Like right now, I have a son who's knee who he broke his tibia and he has he's a non non weight bearing so he can't walk by himself. So I've been doing just absolutely every single thing for him, and so I haven't breathed because I still have the other three kids and like four different like gig jobs, and
I haven't stopped. And I thought to myself, what if this was my life forever, how would I ever take time for myself because I had to, you know, everything I've wanted to do for myself for the past few weeks I've put aside or if canceled. And I think, you really, really it's important to carve out that time for yourself, even if it's just a little bit. Go for a drive by yourself, go for a walk by yourself, see your friends, you know.
Investing me with friends right now, That's what I'm saying that's why I love maybe the whole empty nesting like lots and lots of time for me. Yeah, lots of gend time.
True. I guess that's the good part about it.
I like it too much, properly.
Well, I think that you are aging perfectly right.
Back at you, my sister.
But I only met you a few years ago, so we but but no, you are not in your fourth quarter. You are supple and beautiful, healthfully in your in your second third.
Yes, all right, my friend, my young friend, this was fun. I wish you could get I want feedback, like I don't know you, guys, if anyone's listening and wants to what does the young person's expression slide into the DMS or whatever the hell it is? Like, I want to know. I wish we maybe when we'll have eventually like a question and answer like I don't know how.
Yeah, let's do a live let's do a live one.
Yeah, we'd love that. All right, guys, thank you for listening. We love you. Thank you so much.
Bye,