The best medicine for “getting older anxiety”

What works to treat the birthday blues and “the disease of nostalgia”?

Last month, I celebrated my 31st birthday, and in lieu of the usual Egg Toss, I spent it belting Bonnie Tyler on repeat — a homage to the (literal) Total Eclipse and to my original “Karaoke Party” from two decades earlier. 

Each year, I pick a new kid-like activity. And this year, after texting a friend my (apparently) annual birthday blues symptoms, I finally realized why—when she pointed out I might have a mild case of “getting older anxiety.”

It never occurred to me that somebody wouldn’t have this. The idea that growing older means losing the joys of being younger feels embedded in every corner of our culture. Just think, for instance, about the biggest Boomer music hits: There’s the Bruce Springsteen song about  “glory days” gone by. There’s Bryan Adams’ hit about the “summer of 69” being the best days of his life. And the worst is John Mellencamp’s little ditty about Jack and Diane: Life goes on long after the thrill of living it’s gone. 

Eight year-old me found those lyrics terrifying.You mean to tell me there’s a point at which life will stop being this fun? That my glory days and best days will happen in my youth? That I’ll wake up one day and the thrill will be gone? 

Birthday bring out the angsty eight year-old in me that still grapples with those questions. And they also bring out the part of me in denial about getting older at all— the part that genuinely believes this whole ruse of paying taxes and having a day job is really just a field trip from a rigorous schedule of the everything and nothing that defined my younger years: ambling around backyards and basements, swimming in scum-topped ponds and “treasure hunting” in forests, stomping and screaming the lyrics to Mr. Brightside as if my life depended on it. 

When I open up my eager eyes, I see the more jilting reality: I am older.  And so are all of the people who’ve made so thrilling, so far. My childhood friend Kate —who I picture, still, as the “child” who used to spend Memorial Day Weekend cupid shuffling at the Jersey Shore,  is now nursing a (beautiful!) child of her own. My college friends—who’ve made New York City and its many park-turned-egg toss arenas feel like home— now find themselves covertly scrolling Zillow listings in the suburbs, dreaming about their new homes. And my parents—who’ve joyfully supported the Karaoke Party and every kidlike activity since — recently bought a new car, and reminded the dealer that “it would be their last.” 

The most distinct thrill of being younger, I’ve realized, isn’t unlimited time for kidlike activities; it’s feeling like your time with the human co-stars of those activities is unlimited, too. 

It isn’t, of course. The bleak charts showing who we spend time with as we get older confirm: with every passing decade, we spend less and less time with the friends and family who cemented our early years. 

And so, in the face of this unfathomable fact, we do everything we can to distract ourselves from it. We toss eggs and belt songs to remind us of how ageless we felt when we first did those things. We binge the shows, the snacks,  the music and the movies of our childhood to give us comfort in adulthood. Instead of confronting a potentially lonely future, we seek the comfort in the nostalgia of our past.

There’s an evolutionary-rooted reason why we do this, according to psychologist Krystine Bacho. Derived from the Greek for the pain of (“algos”) returning home (“nostos”), nostalgia helps us cope with loneliness, since it reminds us of our relationships with other people, and  “meets a cognitive need [by encouraging] that things will get better because they’ve been good before.” 

But even though nostalgia can be a helpful coping mechanism, it can also be harmful, if overused. Early records considered nostalgia a disease, a kind of “love sickness,” in which symptoms included “longing” and “melancholy”. 

So, what’s the cure? 

The 19th century French doctor Hippolyte Petit puts it bluntly:  "Create new loves for the person suffering from love sickness; find new joys to erase the domination of the old."

In other words, take the time you’d spend longing for the thrills of your past, and redirect it towards finding new thrills in your present. 

After all, just as we don’t have unlimited time with loved ones, we don’t have unlimited time ourselves. Zero people, to date, have escaped the one truth that unifies all of us: We’re all going to die. 

In 1580, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote an essay on this blunt fact, calling us to embrace“inevitability of death”, and pointing to the ancient Egyptians, who’d display skulls and skeletons to remind them of this.  The ancient Romans allegedly made a big show about death, too, and used a now-famous catchphrase—“Memento Mori”, or “Remember death” to help them practice it. Mexico’s still-thriving tradition of  día de Muertos similarly serves to remind us: death is a part of life. 

Most modern Americans aren’t as good with these rituals. But new books remind us of the underlying theme: how remembering death can help us create a more fulfilling life. Jodi Wellman’s aptly-named  Four Thousand Mondays (You Only Die Once) gives us practical tools to make it to death with no regrets.  Dr. Meg Jay’s Twenty Something Treatment suggests people dealing with the uncertainties of growing older will find “life is the best medicine.” And my own book, The Connection Cure, echoes both books’ core messages: to get out of our own heads and keep from living in the past, we need to connect with the people and activities that make us feel present. We need to “create new loves.”

That’s what I’m trying to remember when I feel pangs of getting older anxiety. The angsty eight-year old in me may have been on to something. But the thirty one year-old in me could offer her some perspective— the kind that only comes with age: 

I’d tell her to enjoy her present, and the people making it so lovely now. I’d tell her, candidly, that day jobs and babies, cross-state moves and the circle of life, will make it harder and rarer to see those people. But I’d tell her, too, that she’ll find new co-stars— new ways to“return home.”

And then, when the old co-stars come back for a reunion special —at weddings, on birthdays, for rare nights on the town— she won’t be wondering if her glory days are behind her. 

Instead, while she’s stomping and screaming to Mr. Brightside—just like she did twenty years earlier—she’ll realize: the thrill will never be gone. It will live on as long as she does. 

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