Over the weekend, while I was out and about running errands in my Upper East Side neighborhood, I overheard two women chatting about the logistics of bringing in an esthetician to do “bulk Botox” at their next association meeting (maybe the PTA? Philanthropy group?).

The first thought I had was, oh god, I hope no one actually signs up for that.

My second thought was, as I saw almost half of my fellow pedestrians were clearly over the age of 60 (and predominantly women), what’s the point?

Living on the Upper East Side for the past three years, I’ve been exposed to and interacted with older adults more than ever in my short 31 years. In fact, that’s one of the factors that drew me to this neighborhood: the common denominator between me, a young woman with a physical disability, and the old folks is that we both need accessible places. And a place full of the aging old money—along with their kids who are parents with strollers for both fur and human babies—will make that happen.

But, having been born out of death (complications of my birth left my mom dead and me with cerebral palsy), and that coupled with losing my beloved younger cousin just this past March, it’d be an understatement to say that death has been on my mind, and the fact that both of them were in their early- to mid-30s isn’t lost on me. Is this some kind of generational curse? Perhaps.

However, thinking of death isn’t a recent development for me. Ever since I came to the age of consciousness and awareness, human mortality has been ever-present. Before I even became aware of the story of my birth, I’ve had this innate fear of losing loved ones. During my early years of life, my grandma was my primary caretaker, and I still remember how strong my separation anxiety was. What if something happens to her and she ceases to exist? Will her old, frail body be able to handle this heat? This cold?... would be the kinds of thoughts that’d flood my young mind whenever she’d go out to run errands. And decades later, I have similar thoughts whenever my husband goes outside by himself. The same rang true whenever my late cousin would leave for a new country, new city.

Maybe it’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe it’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. Maybe it’s severe separation anxiety. Or, maybe it’s the only way I’ve known to be, and it doesn’t call for a diagnosis. After losing my grandma eight years ago and my cousin four months ago, I came to accept that death is, truly, inevitable. It doesn’t care about my fears or anxieties; it will, eventually, come for everyone I love.

But as someone who’s still very much in the business of living, I need to grapple with getting older in a society that’s increasingly obsessed with youth. Despite looking almost exactly the same as I did when I was 12 (a fact that close friends and family take every opportunity to remind me of), having cerebral palsy is definitely speeding up my aging process. When your body needs to work twice—if not more—as hard as the average person to function, it’s a given that the wear and tear of your body will occur at an exponential rate. In fact, my cerebral palsy specialist reminded me of this fact just last week during my annual check-up. My “CP falls” are leading to broken bones for the first time as of two years ago. I can basically hear osteoporosis knocking on my door.

Here’s the kicker, though: most cerebral palsy research and care is heavily focused on pediatrics. Yes, it’s a developmental disability that occurs at birth or early childhood. But the kids grow up. In fact, my CP specialist is one of the very few practitioners who focus on geriatric care for people with the disability, albeit it’s within the pediatric neurology department of Columbia’s medical center.

I’ve published an article in the Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology journal on this very topic: how much of a clusterfuck it is to navigate the healthcare system as an adult with cerebral palsy. And a few weeks ago, I participated in an autoethnographic study with Michigan State University on the effects of aging on the lives of adults like me living with cerebral palsy, my answers to which I will share with you in a later post.

Subscribe now

Death, aging, and disability. The first half of 2026 has insisted on all three.

There’s one intersection I pass often where a senior living facility and a med spa selling anti-aging treatments sit across from each other. I used to read it as irony. Lately, I read it as a choice the culture has made: we will spend anything to not look like the people across the street, and almost nothing to care for them. For days, I’ve kept thinking about those two women and their bulk Botox. Not with judgment, exactly. The fear of aging is just fear of death with better marketing, and I understand fear of death better than most. The difference is that I don’t get to outsource mine to an esthetician. Death made me, shaped me, and keeps taking from me.

The only response I’ve found that works is attention: looking directly at the things most people spend their lives looking away from, for as long as I’m in the business of living. That’s where this Substack begins.