A Convo You've Been Avoiding?

Hi friend,

Revisiting distant history? Enjoyable, educational, thought provoking. Revising recent history? Skin-crawling and agonizing. We’re only halfway through W. David Marx’s new book, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century (Bookshop, Amazon), and we already feel queasy.

Marx is trying to do something extremely ambitious, which is to assert and then back up the claim that the last 25 years have been culturally stagnant. He acknowledges that his own biases shape this argument, which is a good gut check for anyone who finds themselves nodding along to the part of the introduction where he fondly remembers Pearl Jam’s early days.

“Why do men keep saying culture is over?,” asks Emily Watlington in a solid critique of the book for Art in America. But Marx does have good points. He’s not all wrong. The portion of Blank Space where he catalogs the backlash to ‘90s feminism and morality in the form of Girls Gone Wild, Terry Richardson, and Vice Magazine is sickening because its parallels to this moment are impossible to ignore — and it’s not far enough in the rear-view mirror to allow for comfortable contemplation. The cynicism and nihilism; the misogyny disguised as juvenile joking; and the rise of raunch culture are all too familiar. It’s easy to draw a line from that moment to this one where lad mags have been replaced by bro podcasts, and crass, sexist language embraced by the White House.

It isn’t that culture went flat, though. It's that middle-aged folks, having accrued enough experience and knowledge of culture to weigh in upon it with some gravitas, also have aged out of the spaces where the culture we can’t see is happening without us. The new counterculture, per a “cyberethnographer” in this GQ article about the fall of the trad wife, is “happening where no one’s documenting.”

As we criticize the banality of today, we mourn for the monoculture of the past. At least back then, we felt like we had a grip on what was happening.

Today, we have a feature that’s all about what you should discuss with your parents over the holidays, but probably won’t: end-of-life planning. Specifically theirs — but also yours. Wheee, fun for all involved! Read on for that, plus a few recommendations for your weekend.

Bye,
Your friends at Gloria

It took a family crisis for Marni Blank to realize that, for all her type-A tendencies, she had been avoiding planning for — or even thinking about — her or her parents’ end of life. But pushing off the uncomfortable meant she was forced to figure it out on the fly and under extreme duress. 

She’s not the only one. Most of us struggle to have these sorts of conversations with our parents, or each other, she says. A lawyer by trade, Blank saw an opportunity, and decided to pivot her career to focus on end-of-life planning.

Unpartnered and in her 40s, she’s also part of a growing cohort of “solo agers.” As AARP notes, more and more of us will fall into this category due to fewer marriages and/or children, a rise in gray divorce, increased longevity, farther-flung family units, and a growing desire to age in place.

We spoke with Blank earlier in the week to ask her what the best way to start planning is, either for yourself or a loved one — and gleaned a few other top tips (including a very important tech-login reminder).

How do people start to plan to age solo? 

Most people don't know where to begin or what is most important. I always make sure people have their healthcare proxy in place and their power of attorney. If someone needed to make medical decisions for you on your behalf, who would that be?

Make sure it's someone you know and trust, who shows up for you, is able to handle decisions in a moment of stress or overwhelm, and who's able to advocate for you. Oftentimes people are uncomfortable asking for support. A lot of solo agers are used to making decisions for themselves and being independent. Having to think ahead to a time when they won't have that ability is uncomfortable.

What are the must-dos for women who may age solo? 

Make sure you have a letter of instruction with a high-level overview of your life. Think about the everyday things that live in your head that need to be down on paper. 

Who has keys to your apartment? If you have a pet, list instructions to take care of it or who its caregivers are. Create a list of your bank accounts and investment accounts. I always suggest people have a digital vault for all of the information that otherwise we'd have that physical copy of. Make sure it’s accessible so when the time comes, people don’t have to go on a treasure hunt to figure out what's going on. 

The number one question I got from friends in their 40s on this topic is: What do you do if you get sick or you get cancer? How do you make sure there's someone to take care of you physically? 

It's a real concern, especially with so many people our age developing serious illnesses. I start with creating circles of support. Think through the people that you rely on the most in your everyday life. Who are the people that you can be vulnerable with? Who has shown up in the past for you? And is that the type of support that has come in handy? Whether that's family, chosen family, or people in your community, take inventory of those important inner-circle people and start to talk to them about these concerns. 

If you can't think of who those people are, start to build more of those connections. Who are the people who might show up for you when things get tough? Who could take you to an appointment, or be that extra set of eyes and ears if you're getting information from a doctor? Who can water the plants or take care of the animals if you can't get out of bed?

If you're in a city like New York, maybe those are your neighbors, a religious community or affiliation you belong to, or another sort of social circle or network you are connected with. Then create an outer circle of professional support. If you like your primary care doctor, great. If they're not someone you're going to be able to rely on, maybe it's time to be looking. Same with a therapist. I have long-term care insurance, because aging is expensive, whether you're partnered or not. Is there an amount of money you can be putting away now towards making sure that, if you need extra care, you will be able to have that support?

How do you find good professionals?

My first tip is to ask your community. I've asked my friends about trust and estate advisors or doctors or any sort of specialist. It's way better to have real feedback and not just a Google review. That being said, you can always ask a professional in a related field for who they trust and refer out to.

I should probably ask you a bit about yourself. How did you get into the business of helping people plan the end of their lives?

I'm a lawyer by background, and I started a business with my sister. While we were running that business in 2018, we got a call from the hospital. My mother had been in a car accident and had become seriously injured. My first thoughts when I heard that she was injured, other than was she okay, was that I had a lot of her paperwork that I was supposed to have gotten signed and notarized that I hadn't done.

I am the eldest daughter. I am very capable. I know how important these documents are. And I had a mental block around dealing with things that had to do with my parents’ incapacity or eventual death. I hadn't done it. I think that that is common. The ensuing months of figuring out how to care for a critically ill parent from afar while running a business were incredibly overwhelming. It highlighted a lot of conversations that we had not had that we really needed to have about wishes and values, but also practical things like: Where were her passwords? What did I need to know to be able to run her life? I ended up getting very curious about this. I have plenty of friends who have lost a parent or both parents and I wanted to feel more prepared.

I ended up going to death doula training in 2020 to get more of a sense of what death and dying and grief looks like in our society. What I focus on, based on my legal background, is melding the practical and the emotional aspects of planning in advance for ourselves as well as being able to facilitate these conversations within families and help people after a death deal with the administrative tasks that fall on overwhelmed executors and their families. 

I'm in my early forties. I'm aging solo. That might change. Life can be long or short. People get divorced, women outlive their partners. My grandmother lived to 102 and a half and my great aunt lived to 103. They outlived their partners by, in some cases, decades. I wanted to feel more prepared for myself and make sure that I am creating my circles of support now so that as I age, I feel that I can keep my independence. Loneliness is a big concern with people who are solo aging. This is not something that should have any stigma attached to it.

What are some ways that you are thinking about loneliness and what are you doing to try to prevent it?

I have made it a real point to check in on my friends whenever I'm thinking about them. I reach out, I send them a text, I FaceTime. If they pick up, great, if they don't, they don't.

It's showing up for people when they're in hard times and making sure that we’re connected. A lot of my friends moved across the country during Covid, and I went through a grieving process. I still live in Brooklyn, and I felt that aloneness.

We've made it a point to take trips together, even if just for a long weekend, we talk regularly. It's about daily connection, not big gestures. I am in a movie club with a bunch of my friends where we get together almost weekly, have dinner, and watch movies together. Another thing I do is make sure that I have relationships with my friends who have children. It's important to me to be involved generationally with my friends and their families.

Who are your clients?

When I started this business, I thought I would be working more with our elders, making sure that they felt supported at the end of their life so they felt like they could have a good death and everything was buttoned up. But most of my clients are in their 40s and 50s. They want to plan ahead and worry about not having started the process. Many are newly divorced and having to rethink their healthcare proxy, power of attorney, and beneficiaries.

People get very overwhelmed with the idea of estate planning. They don't start, or they go as far as to get an attorney or get a questionnaire and then it sits on their desk for two years because they get stuck on a question.

I work with a lot of people who are worried about their aging parents and don't know how to have the conversation with them. They want me to help facilitate, because part of our planning as the adult children has to do with what our parents have planned. If we have to make sure they are financially supported or have the right resources, we need to take that into account for what we're planning financially.

When you say you help facilitate these conversations, how far does that go? Are there clients who are like, I want you to call my parents for me?

I do have that. Sometimes I'm having conversations between adult siblings to get on the same page. People are spread out across the country. Someone may have more financial resources, maybe someone else is able to show up physically.

People can grow up in the same household and have very different family dynamics or relationships with their parents. Many times I'm having conversations with the whole family. So, if there's two adult children and their parents, being able to ask the parents questions about what planning they have or haven't done can really start the conversation within the family that many people are just uncomfortable to have on both sides.

It can be financial, or it can be practical in terms of decisions around aging in place or thinking about assisted living. It can be about funeral arrangements and wishes around burial decisions. It can really run the gamut.

For people who are in their 40s and 50s who worry about who will take care of them when they're older — they don't feel like they are prepared for it financially, and they don't know if they will ever be — what is there out there?

Black Friday sales can be overwhelming, but we have our eye on Cos. To keep it simple, they are knocking 25 percent off almost everything on their site starting 11/26. Our wish list includes investments like this stunning, timeless belted wool coat, plus a black velvet shirt and wide leg pants set that would be perfect (and comfy) party look for a few events we have coming up. Cos makes the kind of classic pieces with a twist that hold up to a lot of wear, and that get tons of compliments. Take a look at this season's items, and get ready to save to cart, here. #partner

TO LISTEN De La Soul’s first new album in nine years, Cabin in the Sky, is out today. You can listen to it on streaming, but true fans might want to check out the vinyl available for preorder, because wow. We are also loving the mellow sounds of indie Paris-based band Oracle Sister’s new album Divinations.

TO TRY Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic is legitimately great (we swear by it!), and so we were excited to hear that the brand is expanding with a new, high-quality daily multivitamin that prioritizes gut health. Their new DM-02™ Daily Multivitamin doesn’t just support your body — it also delivers nutrients to your microbiome for more complete daily support. It features 20 vitamins + minerals in bioavailable, bioactive forms. Gloria readers get 20 percent off when you use code GLORIA20. #partner

TO WATCH Some of us are, by dint of our lifestyle (parents), obligated to go see the new blockbuster Wicked: For Good. But honestly, we’d rather spend a lot of time catching up on Hollywood production designer Jon Hutman’s YouTube channel where he discusses his sets for Nancy Meyers and breaks down the sets of other ‘90s classics like Notting Hill.

TO COOK We’ve been using this vegan Molly Baz chickpea, broccoli, and rice with peanut sauce recipe for lunch recently and it’s hitting the spot. We like how everything can be cooked on a sheet pan, and you can easily make extra rice and sauce for leftovers.

TO SHOP We’re shopping for essentials this winter at a surprising spot for everyday essentials. Our list includes this perfect-fit tee to peek out from a crewneck sweater, jeans with just the right amount of slouch, an incredibly cute workout bra and leggings set, and a leather belt that’ll pull an outfit together (for a great price). Shop it all here. #partner

Why everyone’s suddenly so focused on the pelvic floor. • Learned a new term in this off-the-wall sex diary. • Longtime beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June moves to Substack. • Proud to say we got all the questions right on this perimenopause quiz. • A familiar topic: Why childcare is so unaffordable.

_{*Gloria may receive an affiliate commission on purchases made through our newsletter.}