No One Prepares You for Aging

How "cat mom" socks got me thinking about my biological clock

By Karen Gross

My mom got me a gift: Socks that said “Cat Mom.”

I smiled – how cute, how thoughtful – but something inside me winced.

Lately I have been feeling less like Cat Mom and more like the long-suffering wife of a mercurial old man.

My cat Pablo, now probably around 15 years old, has developed somewhat of a Jekyll/Hyde personality in his later years.

Sometimes he’s adorably loving, cuddly, sweet – his default setting for most of our many years together (he’s my longest monogamous relationship to date).

Other times, he’s restless, pacing, cranky, and even aggressive towards me – pawing my face, nipping at my ankles, and even attempting to bite my chin when he isn’t feeling well, or maybe when he just feels like it (usually between 3-5 a.m., or when I have a client call on Zoom).

Yes, I’ve talked to the vet. They know.

I think I have done most everything possible to try to alleviate the symptoms of his aging.

When he is not doing well, I take him to the vet ($), my face certainly showing my sense of worry, exasperation, and exhaustion.

When I need to leave town, I hire a wonderful and doting cat sitter who sends me cute photos of him to let me know he is doing okay ($).

He now has hyperthyroidism, meaning I crush a little white pill into his food (human-grade tuna fish) twice a day to keep him from acting aggressive and cranky ($) – and then pray that he eats all of said food to actually consume the thyroid medicine with it.

I also buy him super-premium cat food ($) that seems to have drastically increased in price since the pandemic when everyone was buying pets and pet food.

He also has an underlying heart condition that may continue to get worse. The vet told me he might need to see a cat cardiologist ($).

Also, it has recently dawned on me – more like, really hit me – that I might not actually be a mom (to an actual human child) in this lifetime.

Now, at 46 – and my partner, at 65 – might really not have that in the cards, at least biologically.

Is it time to officially bid farewell to the idea of motherhood?

I know that miracles of humanity and science are possible. As is adoption.

But lately, when I look at young children, or mothers, something seems more removed. Like I’m admiring from afar, or peering through an impenetrable glass window.

I love kids, with their unfettered creativity and imagination. But I never really wanted to go through the whole birthing process, or hand over my time and attention to another life outside my own.

Hearing parents speak of school pick-ups and travel team soccer? No, thanks.

But when you ultimately realize that the ship may have sailed on motherhood, there is a certain gravity that sets in. Like, okay, maybe I’m not just deferring this decision. Maybe this IS the decision.

I’m aging, too.

No one prepared me for the second chin that has emerged under my chin.

(I think Kim Kardashian came up with some kind of face-binding, torture-looking device that sold very well, so I imagine I’m not the only one.)

I see a different face in photos of myself now – a grown woman’s face, a face that has wisdom and wrinkles in it. I’m trying, despite all the swirling messages about fighting aging, about botoxing and nipping and tucking, to embrace the changes. To admire not only my own grown woman’s face, but to recognize the beauty in the faces of other older women.

(I do admittedly invest in face creams that cost nearly as much as my rent.)

All around me there is aging. My family and loved ones. My high school and college friends with streaks of white in their hair. I finally understand the joke about conversations revolving around doctors’ appointments in our later years.

As a woman, one without children, but one with a sense of duty and care, I carry more weight than my own as I support others through their aging.

I try to keep myself propped up amidst this.

The tears I cry tell me that the foundation needs tending.

That I’m scared.

“It’s hard being a cat mom,” my vet said to me at a recent visit.

I never expected to care for an aging cat. No one tells you about senior cats when you take home a scrappy, peppy kitten from the shelter.

No one tells you about having to walk that cat down the other end of the road, what that will feel like, what that will cost you financially and emotionally, and in sleep.

No one prepared me for aging. How bittersweet, beautiful, and brutal, all at once.

This essay is part of our Tuning In series of musings from unconventional audacious women of a certain age. These posts will be really honest, and will typically be for paid subscribers’ eyes only. If you become a paid subscriber at any level, you will also gain access to the Rockstar Network, a members-only community with game-changing connections and accountability toward pursuing a creative, courageous life and career.

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