Podcast #151 The Experience of Aging: “I’ve Become an Immigrant In the Country of Old” — Susan Lieberman, Author

As Author Susan Lieberman concludes in this BLBD conversation: “Old is not terrible, it’s just old.” Listen to this episode for some light thoughts and some deep wisdom about aging, death, loss, and especially – how to be where we are. Susan has several books including ⁠In the Country of Old: Nine Reflections from a New Immigrant to the Country of Old⁠ and also ⁠Death, Dying and Dessert: Reflections on Twenty Questions About Dying⁠.

Transcript:

Diane Hullet: Hi, I’m Diane Hullet and you’re listening to the best life, best death podcast today. I’m joined by author Susan Lieberman, who’s in Southern California. Hi, Susan. Hi, how are you? I’m great. I’m just great. And I’m so pleased. This might be my fastest podcast turnaround ever. I basically invited Susan to be on the podcast like an hour ago.

And she was like, yeah, sure. How about now? And I was like, yeah, but this has 

Susan Lieberman: been a melting of mine since we first picked up the phone. 

Diane Hullet: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So this is just It’s so funny. I’m not even sure how I first heard of your book, but the book we’re going to talk about is Susan’s book called In the Country of Old, Nine Reflections from a New Immigrant to the Country of Old.

And I think, don’t you think I should just read the first paragraph because it sets the stage? Please. I think so. Okay. I am an immigrant. I am an immigrant born and bred in Pennsylvania, speaking only English, who grew up steeped in American culture and mores. So, I am not an immigrant to the United States.

I am, I now find with some surprise, an immigrant to the country of old. And she goes on to say, I didn’t intentionally immigrate to this country and this country has a lot of new mores and customs and there’s no return from this country. So I stumbled across your book somehow and thought, What a wonderful way to talk about what it’s like to be aging in our, in our country at this time, because it is like stumbling into a new country where there’s, everything is a little bit 

Susan Lieberman: new.

Many of us who find ourselves in this new country are not happy to be here. We want to go back to the old country. And again, like immigrants, there’s no going back, you know, that that border is closed and you can either figure out how to live here. Well, Or how to spend your time kicking and screaming and yeah, I say in the book and I say to my friends, if you’re not old, you’re dead.

You get to choose. That’s right. Consider it. You’re lucky. 

Diane Hullet: You’re 

Susan Lieberman: old. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah. And being old and by old, we’re sort of defining this as over 80. I’m going to guess. I read something lately. How do you define old? 

Susan Lieberman: You know, my friends push back all the time, you’re not old, age is just a number, you look 60, I’m not young, and I’m not middle aged, therefore, demographically, I am old, it’s not a disease, I am cute, I am sexy, I am energetic, I am old, you can be all of those things and old, so I don’t know when, I think you start becoming old in your 70s.

It’s a process. And somewhere around 80 for me and for my husband, we both woke up and said, Oh, well, hell I’m old. 

Diane Hullet: I don’t know how this happened, but here I am. Well, it happened because you didn’t die. Right. And so therefore you live into being old. Yeah. I read somewhere recently, they defined like young old as being sort of 70 to 75 and then older kind of middle old being like 75 to 85.

And then. Really, above 85, you’re, you’re very old. You’re quite old just by numbers. It doesn’t mean that you have to act old or that your body isn’t necessarily falling apart. But for many people, it is. There are big changes happening as you enter this country of old, right? One of the reasons I 

Susan Lieberman: wrote the book is because I think old gets a bad rap and it’s a gift to be But like so many other gifts, it comes with complications.

It’s not It’s not unbridled joy. It’s not unbridled pain. It’s complicated. And I think it’s interesting. Yeah. What do you find interesting about it? You know, I am more peaceful. I am, my kids laugh and say, Oh, you’re old. You know, you want things your way. I go, no, I’m actually more tolerant and accepting and understanding now than I think I’ve ever been.

Because you screw up enough in life and you go, Oh, it’s not as simple as I thought it was. And really, most people are trying their best. That doesn’t mean they’re doing the very best they can, but they’re trying their best. And so I find I give people more slack. I give myself way more slack than I used to.

And you know, the highs are less high, but the lows are less low. That’s a great 

Diane Hullet: way to put it. You’ve got it. One of the chapters in in the book is about habits. And you say, you know, this is this is a time of life where having a routine we’re doing things that just make the day go smoothly because they’re familiar is is a good thing.

You know, and it does not mean you’re going to get bored. Stuck in a rut and persnickety. It just means exactly, exactly. This works well for me to have my slow morning. 

Susan Lieberman: Like this is 

Diane Hullet: good. 

Susan Lieberman: So when we visit our son used to tease me, but you have to have your tea and your New York times in the morning. And what I didn’t say is yes.

And then I go to the bathroom and the rest of the day is better. This is what I need. This is perfect. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think young folks have their routines too, but they may have a level of speed to it, right? That now. In your life, you’re like, okay, I can take my time with this routine. This is, are you stuck 

Susan Lieberman: in a rut?

Are you stuck in a rut? Are we stuck in a rut? Or have we figured out after 80 years, what actually works for us? Okay. 

Diane Hullet: Good point. Good point. So what are some of the other, you talk in the beginning about some of the, the new mores and the new, um, things that become familiar in the country of old, what would you say some of those are?

Susan Lieberman: Well, I think what characterizes the country of old most clearly is adaptation. Um, If you get to be old, you are very likely to have suffered losses, and those losses are physical or emotional, and you have to develop ways to adapt and compensate. For example, I used to be able to lecture to a room of 70 students without a microphone.

Now my children complain that they can’t hear me at the dining room table, and I wear hearing aids. Aren’t we lucky that we have hearing aids? Um, many, especially women I know, but men as well, complain that they are, as old people, they are invisible. In the country of old, old people are not invisible. We are front and center, you know?

And the judgments are less. If you hike, that’s fine. If you sit, that’s fine too. 

Diane Hullet: Right. There’s sort of space. There’s more space, as you said, for people to kind of do what they need to do to adapt and still participate. Yeah. 

Susan Lieberman: And I, I don’t know. I don’t, you know, my, this book is about my experience and my observations.

It’s not the same for everybody. Look, there was just an article in the New York Times about people who are carrying on in their nineties, Martha Stewart and Nancy Pelosi. So, uh, I say, when I immigrated to the country of old, my ambition didn’t get into the suitcase. That’s not true for everybody. It’s just happens to be true for many of us.

Diane Hullet: Just because you’ve lost some level of drive and ambition that you’re not doing Nancy. Yes. You have, you 

Susan Lieberman: have, I have to adjust to, for example, I get more tired quickly. That doesn’t mean I can’t do things, but it means that I have to recognize that I can’t do as much. As frequently as I used to, and is that terrible?

I used to think that was terrible. Now I just think it is. 

Diane Hullet: I love that. There’s something about just letting it be what it is doesn’t put a judgment on it that it’s so terrible. I see people sometimes spend, I see people do two things. Some people seem like they spend time, uh, looking back kind of bemoaning.

Oh, I can’t do that anymore. Oh, I used to do six things in a day and now I only do one or two. Oh, so there’s a looking back. And then sometimes there’s just a pure Uh, denial, like I’m still going to plow ahead and try to do this thing, even though maybe it would be wise to back off slightly, right? Both of those 

Susan Lieberman: are dead on.

Yeah. And the third observation I would say is you can’t be who you used to be. Have you ever gone to a dinner party where somebody regales you with who they used to be? 

Diane Hullet: Yes. Yes. So how do we, how do we embody this new country? I mean, I’m sort of, I’ve moved into the country of middle age, right? Which is also kind of a new country.

I go, Oh gosh, in my 30s, it kind of looked like X, Y, Z. And now it looks like, Oh, A little more care, a little more stretching, a little more routine, a little more body maintenance, right? It’s different. And then moving into the country of old is yet another journey. Um, I love this idea of what do we put in our suitcase and what do we not?

Yeah. 

Susan Lieberman: What has been interesting for me, I mean, this book has not sold hundreds of thousands of books. There’s no marketing campaign. If you’re listening to this podcast, you were part of the marketing campaign. That’s it. Um, but it is, this is my, I think 12th book. I have never. Gotten the volume of comments from people that I’ve got.

I mean, like you found me out of nowhere and called me. That’s, I find that so extraordinary. And the tenor of the comments has echoed an interesting theme. A woman wrote me early on and she said, I resisted growing old with every fiber of my being. I’ve been kicking and screaming. And after I read this, I’ve relaxed.

And I, I, that was such a nice compliment because you can kick or you can scream or you can relax. It’s going to happen anyway. Right. The years are still 

Diane Hullet: ticking by. Yeah. Yeah. That’s beautiful that that’s having that impact on people. I think it’s very much a word of mouth book. 

Susan Lieberman: Well, and what’s really interesting is that I’ve heard from more women and these are people I don’t know.

My email’s at the back of the book. I’ve heard from a lot of men too. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah. And both are grappling with change in identity, change in role, right? These are the kinds of things we can concretely talk about, but there’s something, I think the reason I found it so moving, there’s something about putting a metaphor on it, like not just a metaphor.

Logically talking about how this is happening, but literally putting a metaphor and saying this is like immigrating to a new country and you’ve got to learn the ways of this country. It’s a little bit different and that doesn’t make it bad. It just makes it a different culture. So how do you get familiar with that and find your way?

Susan Lieberman: We, we, we were in Houston, Texas for 30 years. And we’ve had this vacation house here for a long time, but it was just a vacation house. And my husband really didn’t like the weather in Texas. And after he retired, he kept saying, I want to spend more time in La Jolla. And I had this rich, interesting life in Houston.

And I was, you know, Scared to leave it, actually. But finally, I said, Okay, so we moved here six months before COVID. And before I actually made a place, we were stuck at home. And I felt really irrelevant, out of touch. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have work. I wrote another book. And then I, I just these feelings were just depressing me, actually.

And I writing is my way to find clarity. And I started writing about relevance in old age. And I wrote 27, 000 words, that’s like a whole book. And at the end of it I went, I don’t think it’s good enough, you know, it’s not exactly right. And my husband kept saying, don’t give up on this, there’s something here.

And one day, this metaphor about immigrating to the country of old just arrived. And I went, yes, that’s what I feel like, I haven’t understood that I can’t evaluate myself and my life by my own measures of success, because they don’t work. And I’ve got to figure out how am I going to navigate this new time, new place.

Right. Right. 

Diane Hullet: I, I imagine that you post COVID or even kind of in the middle of COVID, one of the challenges of navigating this place is who are the people, especially, and you’re not the only one who does a move like this, who ends up moving closer to children or to a different climate or to a, to a place they had only gone on vacation prior.

So then there you are. 75 or 80. And are you supposed to make new friends at that time? How do you do it? Who’s your village? Who’s going to show up with the casseroles when you, you know, break a hip? I think that’s an interesting question that people wrestle with. 

Susan Lieberman: So I, I had forgotten, I don’t know, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I wrote this book called Getting Old as a Full Time Job.

And what I said in the book was, just because we’ve retired, it was just after I retired, doesn’t mean we don’t have work. We have lots of work. We have the same kind of work that people at 22 have. Where will I live? How will I live? What do I want to do to occupy myself? Who will my friends be? What’s important to me?

These are all, and it’s true, you think you’ve settled these for all time. And then you go, Oh, this is a three story house with gutters that have to be cleaned. It’s not working. 

Diane Hullet: So I’m making a change and then what does that change look like? I love that. It’s a full time job. You were telling me also about another book you’ve written about death.

Susan Lieberman: Oh, this is a wonderful, this is a really good book, I think it’s called Death, Dying and Dessert. And I’ll tell you how my mother in her early nineties, um, started to fish. And she started to fail. And she was in hospice twice and she failed out of hospice twice. She had failure to fail, but the same time, a friend of mine was going through the same thing with her father.

And every couple of weeks we’d meet at our favorite sushi restaurant and the conversation was always so dumb. And it was the same. It was, if I had known. Last month, what I know now, I wouldn’t have made that decision, I’d make this decision. And I looked at her, I said, Nancy, I don’t want to be this dumb when it’s my turn to die, and our friends don’t want to be this dumb.

So I was part of a women’s group, and I said to the group one night, who would like to come to dinner and talk about death and dying? People looked at me like, really? Not me. But four of us got to dinner, got together over dinner, and if you’re making dinner about death, what do you serve for dessert? I served angel fruitcake.

Very nice. Then we had such a good conversation. We did it again, and there were six of us and I had devil’s fruitcake. And one of my smart ass friends said, yes, we should, we should carry on this conversation and we should call it death, dying and dessert. It ended up being anywhere between, I don’t know, 10 and 20 women for over four years, got together and talked about death and dying.

And the book is the outgrowth of those four years of conversation. It was so helpful for all of us. I mean, one of the things we realized is death is sad and death is funny.

Diane Hullet: Yeah, I think there’s all sides to it, right? And I think we keep it so at arm’s length that we don’t experience the richness of it. Like, right? Like to use the dessert metaphor, there’s, there’s a richness to it. There’s a fullness to it, but we haven’t figured out how to dance with it. And uh, I think I love that.

That’s what you did with your friends. You said, let’s, let’s bring this forward. Let’s talk about it. 

Susan Lieberman: So what I concluded after those four years is. So many people said, I don’t want to talk about that. I still have friends who go, I’m not talking about that. It’s not when I taught, when I gave speeches and I gave a lot of speeches for a while, I always began by saying, every intelligent person understands that we die, but about 85 percent of the people I’ve spoken to just don’t believe it’s going to happen in their lifetimes.

Diane Hullet: That’s right. 

Susan Lieberman: Or to them. Here’s, here’s my awareness. Being afraid makes you more afraid. If you can understand that we all die, and it is the natural end to life, and it isn’t anything to fear, you become less afraid. Um, why, why spend your final years Being scared because you’re going to 

Diane Hullet: die. Do you find, I think people have a combination, like some people are afraid of death, you know, what happens after they don’t know the big unknown.

And other people are afraid of the very old country of very old and suffering and dying. I’ll call it like the death, the dying process. I get that. I’m more afraid of dying than I am of being dead. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s kind of a, a thing that I think you must really grapple with in the country of old, because you’re more aware, like, okay, we got through the cancer alley years with or without some cancer, we’re still here.

And we haven’t been taken out by something sudden. And our doctor says our heart is okay. And our brain is okay. And so here we are, but what if our 

Susan Lieberman: doctor says our heart’s not okay. And our brain is not okay. That too. I would argue, we all have different, you know, I like creme brulee and you like ice cream.

How we live is different and how we die is going to be different as well. But when you go out to dinner, do you want them to surprise you with dessert or would you like to know what’s on the menu and get to choose? So, I think death is, for me, like that. I want to know what’s on the menu, and I would like to decide what my choice is.

If you’re not aware of the choices, then you can’t decide. And, you know, perhaps this reflects the fact that I’m a pretty high control person. And we can’t actually control when and how we die, but I’d like to exercise as much Discretionary power is possible. 

Diane Hullet: Hey, you’re a person who’s not afraid of getting information and sort of, uh, integrating that information so that you’re walking towards the experience with some knowledge and at over 80, you’ve probably had a lot of friends die.

Right. I spoke with someone recently. She said, Diane, I’ve had 15 friends and family members die in the last two years. I mean, tremendous loss, tremendous attendance of funerals. And. She was still alive and doing very 

Susan Lieberman: what you do. You’re a death doula. You work with dying people. You help families and the person who’s dying.

So you have seen probably up close more deaths than I ever have seen. But my sense is. Some of these deaths are fairly painful, and I don’t mean physical pain, that too. They are painful for the person who’s dying, and they are painful for the family. Um, I watched my mother finally die. She couldn’t get there fast enough, and we did all we could to help her.

At the end, she was in hospice, we withheld nutrition and hydration, and she was on morphine, which was a huge gift to her. If I hadn’t known that that was a choice. I would have never been able to do it. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah. Hospice is a huge piece for supporting people and making that end time more comfortable, more relaxed, so that people can relax into their dying process and the family can relax as it’s happening.

But it is a process. You know, Barbara Carnes is a great end of life educator. She, you know, she says, people don’t die like they do in the movies. And every time I see a death in a movie or TV show, I think about that because they’re so quick. The person is fine, and then they’re dead. Can I tell you 

Susan Lieberman: a great story?

So my mother is 94, and she suddenly fractured all of her ribs, and I mean, we weren’t going to do surgery on them, and she was in acute pain, and she went to hospice. The ambulance ride to hospice must have been excruciating, because you, Texas, you can’t get morphine in a pharmacy, according to the physician.

You had to go to, anyway, so she’s in hospice, and we went, okay, this is Texas. It’s time. This is, she’s ready. We’re ready. Um, no food, no hydration, morphine. And I sat there for 12 days watching my mother die. And about day seven, I went out to the nurse’s station and I said, what am I doing? I’m sitting here day after day, killing my mother.

And this wonderful nurse looked at me and she said, well, Susan, what are you going to do? Send her to physical therapy. 

Diane Hullet: I mean, this is it. And this is the kind of time it can take, right? And you probably went into that therapy. Thinking, oh, day or two, mom is going and this will be fast. 12 days is a long time.

12 days is a long time. Yeah. I was thinking too, speaking of time, I was thinking when it came together so fast for us to talk this morning, I was laughing. I was thinking about something my mom says about time. She says, you know, when you’re younger, you think time is like this gentle breeze blowing, and you know, you kind of have a sense of the movement of it.

And she said, time for me is like a, all day. Oh, a hurricane right now. Like it goes so fast and so sudden. And so you seize every moment. And if you can do something, you do it because you don’t know if you can do it a week from now or a month from now or next fall. So I, I have that sense of how time kind of speeds up and becomes a flurry.

So I love that. We were just kind of like, yeah. This morning, let’s do it. Okay. We’ll talk because tomorrow I could be dead. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your time so much and your wisdom in these books that you’ve written. You can check out Susan’s work at Susan Lieberman. com. Is that correct? Do I have that all right?

And she’s written a bunch of books, but the one we’ve mostly hit on today is called in the country of old and 

Susan Lieberman: short. You can read it. It’s 7000 words. You can read it in an hour. It’s 595. I think on Amazon, which is the only place you can get it. Um, marketing campaign. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah, please. This is it. This is the marketing campaign.

Just a great. A great series of ruminations on what it’s like to be stepping into a new phase of life, right? A new time. You 

Susan Lieberman: know, so, I don’t make money from the book. I mean, I think, I don’t know, I think I’d get 84 cents if I sell a book, maybe not even that much. I love the fact that people like you say that your mother, resonated.

It’s so, in the country of old, it’s nice to have compatriots and company. And I’m loving that part of it, that I’m not the only one who’s out here feeling these feelings and sharing these emotions and maybe making people think old is not terrible. It’s just old. 

Diane Hullet: Old is not terrible. It’s just old. I love that.

That’s so true, Susan. Well, thanks so much for your time. And, um, and for this image of the death, dying and dessert. I love that. I think we need to start, start that up again for anyone who’s listening. Have a little death, dying and dessert over at your house. And now you know what to serve for the dessert.

Susan Lieberman: Thank you, Diane. I’ve enjoyed it. 

Diane Hullet: Thank you so much. As always, you can find out more about the work I do at Best Life. Best death.com. Thanks for listening.