When life & art collide
Originally published February 7, 2025
Now that all of my free time isn’t being used doing homework or writing a dissertation, i’ve been watching more tv. And one show I’ve really gotten into recently is Younger, with the insanely talented Sutton Foster. If you’re like me and live in a musical theatre household, you might know Sutton from our favorite version of Shrek—she was the original Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical on Broadway (We have probably watched the filmed version on netflix a hundred times easily), or any number of her other Broadway performances.
In Younger, Sutton plays a divorced suburban wife who has to rebuild her life and finds herself lying about her age to get a job in publishing. Of course many adventures ensue, but what I have found most interesting and impactful is the story of a woman “of a certain age” starting over in many ways and building a new life (while still having to reconcile certain parts of her “old” life).
So many of us (especially women), once our children have achieved a certain amount of independence, find ourselves looking around and at ourselves, feeling like we have awoken from a long maternal sleep in many ways, trying to remember who WE are—who we were before we were mother and/or wife—trying to reconcile the version of ourselves we think might still be within us with the person we see in the mirror or who we have become in the time we’ve spent attending to everyone else around us.
I’ve upended my own life over the last year and a half and have found myself, like Sutton’s character Liza, befriending a handful of lovely people who are in their 20s and 30s. While on the surface it seems “weird” that we would have anything in common, in many ways Liza and I are (re)embarking on a journey to figure out who we are and how to use our talents to make a mark on the world: activities that we have in common with our younger pals.
In doing so, we find ourselves in a place career-wise that feels out of sync with many of our contemporaries, who are often either at the height of their careers or are looking longingly at retirement. Liza and I are really just gearing up and hitting a career stride-finding out about our unique genius and how to wield it for success and personal satisfaction.
“The Future Belongs to Those who Can See It” —mural in Downtown Pittsburgh (photo, TMessmore)
It’s an interesting thing, to be engaged in this kind of personal development at this age, when, thanks to being a parent (which brings a whole host of personal issues to contend with to the surface!), I know both so much more about myself and the world, but also have “forgotten” a lot of who I used to be when I was younger. Some of that, of course, is no longer useful or timely (of physically possible! lol), but I’ve found that rediscovering my early musical influences, for instance, has been a lot of fun! I’m remembering how much live music makes me happy, opening myself to small venues with local bands while getting to know a new city.
Another aspect I identified with that the show tackles in a later season is the personal openness that can be embraced as an older person being influenced by younger generations. By purposefully letting ourselves evolve in new ways and resisting the urge to become reified in our ways and ideals in “middle age,” Liza and I have been able to see relationships in new ways. Especially as societal views on relationship constructs continue to open up and progress (much to some people’s dismay), I love this recognition for us that relationships don’t have to be so narrowly and solidly defined.
Yes, it could be argued that by embracing the opportunities to dive into this level of exploration (taking on new versions of ourselves), we’ve “presorted” ourselves as people open to novelty and expansion. I do recognize that not everyone dumped in the same kinds of circumstances uses them as fodder for reinventing themselves. That said, I’m excited for those of us who are finding out who we are and showing the world (and our children!) that personal development and growth never has to end and that we can continue to live fully and vivaciously into our authentic selves, even after age 40!
“I just got to a place where my life can surprise me again” -Liza (S7, Ep5).
YES! Living for the surprises is what keeps us “younger”!