Episode Summary

Join host Aransas Savas as she kicks off the highly requested Late Bloomers series with memoirist and publisher Sari Botton. In this deeply resonant conversation, Sari shares her journey of publishing her memoir "And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late Blooming Gen X Weirdo" after 15 years of wrestling with fear and self-doubt.

Why Gen X Is the Late Bloomer Generation Sari explains how Gen Xers experienced unique childhood disruption during the sexual revolution of the 1970s, watching their parents transform from formal, structured adults into "disco ducks" - creating confusion about how to be a grown-up.

Key Insights

The Universal Fear of Being "Too Late"

• Every generation worries about being behind schedule
• Our youth-obsessed culture promotes "30 under 30" lists that make us feel done if we haven't achieved certain milestones by arbitrary ages
• The fear started for Sari at age 10 when her uncle said "you'll never be one digit again"

Finding Peace With Your Timeline People who seem most at peace with their age (usually 50+) share common traits:

• They've stopped pretending to be who others want them to be
• They've achieved enough to feel secure but had enough failures to stay humble
• They've learned what's right for them and stopped caring about what isn't

The Permission to Tell Your Story

• The best memoirs illuminate the mundane, not exceptional experiences
• First-person writing should always feel scary - if it doesn't, you're not doing it right
• Memoir's job is to share uncomfortable feelings that everyone has but no one talks about

Practical Writing Wisdom

• Give yourself permission to quit every night, then choose to continue each morning
• Write the version nobody will see first to get it out of your system
• Don't rush to publish - sometimes we need years to become the right version of ourselves to tell our stories
• The right timing often reveals itself through gut instinct

Memorable Quotes

"You don't need to come up with new tricks, you just need to show them to people who haven't seen them before."

"The job of the memoirist is to illuminate the mundane."

"If first-person writing isn't scary, something's wrong - you're not doing it right."

"I've achieved enough to feel okay where I am, and I've had enough failures to be humble."

About Sari Botton

• Author of "And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late Blooming Gen X Weirdo"
• Publisher of Oldster Magazine and Memoir Land
• Editor of two bestselling anthologies about loving and leaving New York
• Has been featured in Marie Claire, The New York Times Modern Love, and more

How to Support Sari's Work

• Buy her memoir in print or audiobook (narrated by Sari herself)
• Subscribe to her newsletters: Oldster Magazine and Memoir Land
• Follow her upcoming live Oldster events

This episode was sponsored by Nutrafol. Use code UPLIFTERS for $10 off your first order.

The Uplifters Podcast explores how inspiring women do big, brave things despite having the same fears and worries we all share. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join the conversation at theuplifterspodcast.com

TUP EP 127

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Brave [00:01:15] things, whatever that means in their life, and try to understand how they do them despite having the same fears and worries that we all have this week. I am so excited to kick off our long dissipated late bloomers series [00:01:30] with. Sarah Boten, who arguably wrote the book on it, well, at least a memoir in essays it's called, and you may find Yourself Confessions of a Late Blooming Gen X weirdo.

Something I also relate to having loved it for 25 years and now left it sort of down the street and she publishes Oldster Magazine, which I [00:02:15] have loved and read for years, and I'm just so grateful is in the world. She also publishes memoir, land and Adventures in Journalism and. I did this survey about what people wanna talk about [00:02:30] on the Uplifters, because there's uplifters all around us and there's so many things we could talk about.

And then I was like, [00:03:00] no. It's all of us at every age that sees ourselves in that way. When I started to ask my friends who I should talk to about late blooming, my dear friend, the author, Carla Zoni, immediately said, well, obviously sorry. [00:03:15] And I was like, do you think she'd really talk to us because I'm such a fan girl here?

Sari Botton: Xers in particular [00:03:45] have a tendency toward late blooming, and I think part of it is because.

Reinventing themselves, and it was a very confusing way to learn about adulthood and what it means and what you're supposed to do. Not that I really believe in supposed toss, [00:04:30] but which is also very Gen X of me, by the way. Amen. But I think that Gen X in particular is very confused about how to be grown up, and so a lot of us have these [00:04:45] sort of protracted adolescences.

You've never been 30 before. You've been 30. And so you're watching the numbers, you're watching older people, and you're passing this threshold that is new to you. And so every age feels. Old [00:05:30] and scary and exciting and daunting. It's such a weird thing getting older. So I don't think anybody of any generation is really clear on what they're supposed to be doing when.

Aransas Savas: for Gen XI am also Gen X. I think at any age group we hear the same questions of am I too late?

How do we get to be an adult who is an adult? How do we find ourselves and stop reshaping ourselves to [00:06:45] everyone else's expectations? Mm. And so where are you with that now? Having interviewed hundreds of people for Oldster, having gotten to two months before 60? I'm in a lot of places

Another factor is that we live in a youth obsessed culture. Mm-hmm. That is, you know, constantly promoting things like 30 [00:07:15] under 30, 30 authors under 30. Who to look at. 30 actors under 30, under 25. So the culture makes us feel like if we don't do certain things by certain times, we're done. [00:07:30] Mm-hmm.

Music: We're cooked.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Or they're starting to, or their kids are getting married. And so that has made me feel like I'm lagging behind [00:08:00] my peers, not unhappily. I ultimately learned when I couldn't have children that I didn't want them. I like the life I have. I'm I'm married. My husband and I are both kind of spiritually young for our age.

I can never get enough of the Oldster questionnaires no matter who's taking it. I'm so [00:08:45] interested in people's perspectives on being exactly their age and where they're headed. Whether they're 48 or 98, you know, I'm really interested in people's experiences of being their age.

Well, that seems to happen. When

It's very refreshing. It's [00:09:45] very refreshing. Or they've achieved enough. There was one person who took it recently who said, I've achieved enough to feel. Like, okay, I'm fine where I am, and I've had enough failures to be humble. Mm. Was Tommy [00:10:00] Swerdlow? Yeah. Something like that. So at a certain age, people have done enough things, they've had enough achievements, they've had enough failures to get a sense that like they don't have to do everything.

Aransas Savas: Do you feel like you're

I have this anxiety that runs throughout my life about whether I'm doing the right thing at the right time, and it started for me when I was 10. [00:10:45] My obsession with age and aging did not start in my forties or fifties. It started when I was 10 and at my 10th birthday party. At a bowling alley. My mother's brother, my uncle arrived and the first thing he said to me [00:11:00] was, wow, you'll never be one digit again.

I was doing [00:11:30] things early and I was doing things late. I was the first reader in my kindergarten class, and I was the last developer in the gym locker room in junior high. High school. High school. I didn't get my period till I was [00:11:45] 18, but I was reading at four and a half, you know, so it was like I, I was always like, what am I supposed to do when these people don't do this yet?

Aransas Savas: Yeah, that's super interesting and it makes me think too of some research I did years ago. We were trying to get people to do a behavior.

And I hear that a little bit in what gives you a sense of [00:12:45] urgency is like, Ooh, if I don't do this now, then I won't be able to. It took you 15 years to put your memoir into the world. Yeah. And so what got you over the hump from. [00:13:00] Should I, could I would I to doing

Sari Botton: the pandemic, first of all, I had quit my job early in the pandemic.

So now you just gotta do it still every night in the middle of the night. I told myself I didn't have to, 'cause I would. I was so anxious about it. But what really got me over the hump finally [00:13:45] was something that's been in the back of my mind my entire life, which is that both of my grandmothers died in their fifties.

Mm. And I was 54, and it was like, okay. Am I going to just let this opportunity pass this opportunity I've wanted my whole life that has [00:14:30] finally been given to me. If I don't do this now, who's to say I get the opportunity again? Mm-hmm. Who's to say if I cancel my book deal and say, no, I can't do this, then I'll ever get this chance again.

Mm-hmm. And [00:15:15] so I think I've finally, in my last pass with the manuscript figured out the way. To handle. I blurred ex-boyfriends to the point that only they would recognize themselves. I dealt with [00:15:30] my parents' behaviors by saying that it was the grownups around me. Mm-hmm. Not just my parents. And when I really thought about it, that was true.

Aransas Savas: And what I hear there for a process point, for anyone listening who's sort of sitting on something, it really is getting clear about what [00:16:15] those fears are. And I did that with a, a client this morning who has been sitting on our substack and hearing messages from other people who are in our li in our life who are like, this is gonna be too vulnerable.

Music: Yeah.

So I, I think that, and, and I imagine, I certainly feel it years into sharing my own story in different ways. I still get scared. And I still find that hard. Yeah. And so it's a [00:17:30] continuous process, I imagine for you as well.

Sari Botton: It's always scary. It's always scary. First person writing is always scary. And if it's not, something's wrong.

I made them relatable and entertaining, and they have meaning, I've interpreted my experiences. Mm-hmm. I haven't just [00:18:15] transcribed them. But it is scary. It's scary to reveal yourself and to take risks and to also tell the truth. Tell hard

So just know I am with you. And one of the things Carla said to me recently that I thought was so wise and valuable, as she [00:18:45] said, like. So much of what we worry about is other people having feelings about our work. But isn't that the point of putting art into the world is to create feelings?

Absolutely. Also, it's admitting to feelings that are uncomfortable that nobody talks about, but that everyone, everybody wants to hear somebody else. Stinks and feels.

Music: Mm-hmm.

She was willing to admit them, and it made me feel less alone. [00:19:30] And that's like, as far as I'm concerned, that's the number one job of the memoirist is to share things that other people are stuck feeling. And stuck alone with mm-hmm. Uh, to let people know they're not the only ones. [00:19:45] And you're going to be the brave person going out there and saying, Hey, guess what?

And [00:20:15] there's a piece in my book called Hurricane Tim.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Version of myself, outdoorsy Sara. [00:20:45] It was ridiculous. And I put myself in situations with him that were really dangerous for me, like I could have died on the tops of some of these mountains we were hiking. And my friend from 20 years ago wrote to me and she said, [00:21:00] your essay helped me understand why I had to end my marriage.

Disregarded her feelings and there's a dishonesty to not speaking up and saying, this doesn't work for me. You know? So we're complicit in [00:21:45] that. We're not just victims. Whatever I was getting out of being with Tim, she was getting out of being with her husband and then it stopped working and she had to reckon with.

Yeah,

Sari Botton: I worked very hard not to see those red [00:22:45] flags. Another person would've been like, okay, here's a person with one plate. Let me go home now. You know, here's a person who deliberately has one plate in his cupboard that's not very inviting. No, no. You know, [00:23:00] this is an antisocial person. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I tried to change myself and I tried to change him.

So that's. You know, that's my part of the wrongdoing.

Aransas Savas: I mean, I've already diagnosed him as a narcissist. Sorry.

Sari Botton: Oh

And I think it lets us in hearing other stories have hope. Yes. And belief that things can change. Yes. And we get to see that in [00:23:45] your story, but I also hear it 'cause you talk about the stories you received, about what a woman's lifespan was, how it influenced you, and it's very different than my. Stories.

That's great. Let's go. And that's just a radically different paradigm than the one. You were growing up on growing. Yeah. You know, it's

She said like [00:24:45] the negative thing is that I'm thinking and she's, she's 52, she's gonna be 53 later this month. She's like, I'm thinking, okay, good. I have till 70 to get started 'cause she's not exercising. She doesn't like exercise and [00:25:00] that assumes that she's gonna live at least that long. Who the hell knows, you know?

Aransas Savas: Yeah. I mean, it is interesting isn't, and especially with somebody like that, who at sort of a, a later age really found her audience.

Sari Botton: Yeah.

We talked about a little, the fact that you [00:26:00] are, you really were considerate about these, blurring these other characters and showing respect to them. But I think that's just one part of sort of the permission question we all ask ourselves [00:26:15] when we say like, and you talk about this in the opening, you're like, well, my, my experiences are not like I didn't have cancer 15 times.

Sari Botton: Well, first I wanna say that the best memoirs for the most part, are not about exceptional experiences. [00:27:00] The job of the memoirist is to illuminate the mundane. There is a whole segment of the memoir category that is people who have had exceptional experiences. Um, and that is a valid portion of it, but it [00:27:15] is not the meat and potatoes.

Like, oh, so what? So what? That person just lived a normal life. Who cares? And I'm always defending it and saying, that's not [00:28:00] what memoir is about. It's not about outrageous stories. It's about making sense of things we all have in common. In ways that help us understand ourselves and our lives. So that's the first thing.

How do you tell about them in [00:28:30] a way that isn't going to get you disowned? This was the biggest challenge for me and my friend, Alyssa Altman, has a great new book out about it called Permission the New Memoirist and the Courage to Create. But I had experiences [00:28:45] already with publishing personal essays at big places.

Thank you, thank you, thank [00:29:15] you. And then that is what I kept in mind when I was struggling to give myself permission. And then at a certain point, I had to stop stalling. I said, I can't keep stalling like this. And as I said earlier. What's the chance I'll get this opportunity [00:29:30] again? I just have to just give myself the permission.

Especially because I published with such a small [00:30:00] publishing house, which was a blessing honestly, because I don't think I could have handled a big splashy rollout. I've watched colleagues of mine struggle with that. One of them just talked at an event I went to about how her [00:30:15] brother's not talking to her.

So that made it a little bit less scary. But a lot of [00:30:45] Gen X women with similar backgrounds, there's like a little bit of a cult around this book, and I am so

So there's the one thing of creating it and, and I wanna make sure we talk about the fact that you said you gave yourself permission to quit at any moment.

Aransas Savas: And I think we need that, right? That like you can just keep going for this moment. And I have to tell myself that every day. I'm like, it's okay. Do the big brave thing. You can stop at any time. Because [00:31:30] my brain does not remember that from day to day. I have to like consciously tell it that it's gonna be okay.

And then I'm gonna be like, why don't you like me? And you were saying that was my strategy was to put it in the world. Let it find its right. People put it at the altitude that suited me [00:32:15] holistically and do that consciously. So that's a really interesting balance to the, I'm gonna put it in the world, but I'm gonna hide it.

Story.

I loved meeting Naomi Rosenblatt, the editor and publisher. We went to Cafe Mogador and she basically sold my book to me. She basically told me why this book was so important and I was so [00:33:00] happy. I got two other offers from tiny presses and this was the right home. I realized it a little bit when we made the deal and then really when the book came out, I was like, this is, this feels right, and so it feels like it was meant [00:33:15] to be in a way.

As opposed to, I want the publisher who makes me feel like I'm important and special

They felt like torture. I felt like I was stalling, but the truth is the versions I would've put out, I mean, based on also there are personal essays I regret putting out in the world that I put out. At those times, I [00:34:15] hadn't evolved enough as a writer, as someone in the memoir space hadn't. Fully evolved to the place I needed to be at to put out the right version

Aransas Savas: of this book.

Keep showing up for [00:34:45] it. Yeah. And also like realize, because it's not gonna happen by accident,

Sari Botton: right? You have to keep showing up for it. You have to keep moving toward it. But you also have to bear in mind that some of what you might need to do is grow up a little bit. Mm-hmm. Evolve a little bit.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Sari Botton: interesting thing that is about to happen is there's an essay in the book that I originally published another version of, uh, on Exo Jane in 2012. Exo Jane no longer exists and I am [00:35:15] really glad you can't see that version of the essay 'cause it's not right. It's sensationalized in ways, it's, it's just not right.

So a few weeks ago I went to her and I said, you know, there's a version. One of my XO Jane pieces in my book. It's a very different version. I have a very different [00:36:00] perspective. I make different meaning of it. Now would you wanna reprint it? And so she's about to with an intro from me and an intro from her about what changed between the versions.

Aransas Savas: I'd be super interested to see them side by side too, as a lesson in perspective.

Sari Botton: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: And how we change. Yeah.

Don't be in a rush. I mean, I know you never know what's gonna happen, but don't publish things that are half baked. Mm. Take [00:36:45] time with them, put them away, revisit them. Mm-hmm. You know, and it's, it's hard to know when exactly is the right time, what is the right version. But if you're just rushing to get.

Aransas Savas: So I think of that filter as putting out work that I genuinely love. Do you have a more specific filter for that?

I knew I wasn't ready to publish it. I needed another year. [00:37:45] I needed more time to refine it and also blur it. And I'm so glad I listened to that instinct. Mm-hmm. I was so afraid to ask for that extra time. God, is she gonna pull my book deal? But something deep in my [00:38:00] gut knew it wasn't the right version.

It wasn't. And I honored that instinct and it was the right instinct. I now know. Yeah.

I'm not gonna let it be the only filter, but I'm gonna listen and [00:38:30] say, yeah, what is this really? Is it fear or is it. Is it truth?

Sari Botton: Is it a valid message that this needs more time? It needs more time to cook?

Sari Botton: Oh yeah. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it sooner, like I was tiptoeing [00:39:00] around. I got the book deal. And then I'm like, oh, why am I not writing it? Why am I not writing it? A friend got, this is funny, a, a friend, a male friend, got a book deal the same week that I did, and we both were like, yeah, we're [00:39:15] getting up at 6:00 AM we're both gonna get up, we're gonna encourage each other.

Can I tell that? Can I tell it? No, you know, I was, I was editing and writing at the same time, and that's, that never works. And that [00:39:45] was the best thing I did. I wrote the whole version that nobody was gonna see. It was very different. And also there were more pieces to it. And I realized as I was working on it, which pieces no longer fit through the lens that I was applying to [00:40:00] this.

Meanwhile, this person has not finished his book. He has gotten so many extensions and you know, God bless him and I hope his [00:40:30] publisher keeps giving him extensions as long as he needs them. But my book is now out. For a few years and this person hasn't finished their book and all the pressure I was putting on myself to do what the man is doing [00:40:45] and what the man is telling you to do well, so much for that.

Yeah,

My

Gonna do this. Yeah, and the other thing is I'm creating an my first live events for [00:41:45] Oldster, and one of the things I am wrestling with myself about is am I going to sing? I struggle with the courage to sing. I'm actually a good singer and a kid. I had a talent agent. That I was working with, like I can sing [00:42:00] and I'm always afraid of doing it.

Of course I'm not gonna do this. No, I don't have to do this. I'm gonna take the [00:42:30] pressure off myself. And then at seven 30 in the morning when, when I'm up having coffee, I'm like, of course I'm gonna do it. Why would I not do it? So that's the next

That's the thing. And then allow yourself to keep going at 7:00 AM Exactly. Yeah. Well, I host an annual Uplifters live event every March, and I really hope you'll come and sing. Oh yeah. Where is it at? [00:43:00] Caveat. Oh, I love caveat love, love caveat too.

Sari Botton: Yeah,

Aransas Savas: sure. Alright, done. It's a date. Book me then. I

Sari Botton: can't get out, don't let me get out it.

Exactly. Because you know, I'll try. I I'm really good at holding

Sari Botton: Who also has a memoir coming out from Heliotrope next year. She is someone who has reinvented herself many times. Her [00:43:30] memoir is really, really great. She was in a cult.

Aransas Savas: her. So as uplifters, we like to uplift other uplifters.

I'm so used to it. It's, I don't even, like, I don't even blink. I get called a Rony all the time. Yeah, yeah. So yeah.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. Wonderful. You're [00:44:45] doing great work in the world and I'm super grateful that it exists. Thank you. And the time that I exist and that I get to benefit from all these beautiful stories, I really think stories hold so much power for us to feel seen and connected and safe, [00:45:00] and to stretch and grow. So thanks for sharing yours today.

Big love painted water, [00:45:45] sunshine with rosemary, and I'm dwelling. No, you find it faxing. Toss a star half for be around best love for relish in a new prime [00:46:00] land, a tree in springtime dance. With that all hindsight, bring the sun to twilight. Lift you up. Whoa.

Lift you up.

Lift you up.

Lift you

Um, beautiful. I cried. It's that little thing you did with your voice, right? In the pre-course, right? Uhhuh. Uhhuh. I was like, mommy, stop [00:47:00] crying. Mommy. Stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.