"You've Got Malaise!"
Romanticizing my thirties to save my life.
About a year and some change ago, despite my resistance and whole-hearted attempts to halt the passage of time, I turned 35.
35 had been, in the words of Miranda Hobbes, “my scary age”— there was nothing inherently eerie about the numbers themselves or even about my life in any literal sense, but it bothered me regardless. I’d felt the discomfort of aging before; the day I moved out of my childhood home, or turning 22 while still living in my college town. Like any red-blooded American woman, I broke into sobs on my 30th birthday between shots of tequila.
But this was different. The concept of age is always linked with mortality, but 35 was the first year I actually caught a whiff of impending death. Not of my own, exactly. But certainly of my eggs. And in some sense, of my womanhood, of my story, and whatever I was to make of my life.
In times of existential terror such as these, there is, of course, no salve more soothing than the 20th-century romantic comedy. Really, for anything that ails you, physically and otherwise, there is a rom-com for that. Feeling lonely? I might recommend a John Hughes vehicle. Feeling cynical? 10 Things I Hate About You or High Fidelity will at least provide some company, if not warm your icy heart. Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts are the caregivers of the sick, Bill Murray is for when you miss your dad, Diane Keaton is for when you miss your mom, and Drew Barrymore is for when you’re stoned. Once you reach that particular nexus of neurotic, romantic, and deeply afraid that you’re making all the wrong choices with your mid-thirties life, you go Nora. Especially if it so happens to be fall.
The perfect romantic comedy is a lot like the perfect fall, actually. There’s a healthy mixture of chaos and humor, ambition and coziness, feelings of togetherness punctuated by deep melodramatic yearning that is only made acceptable by some refreshingly sarcastic quip. Nora Ephron understood this perfectly, especially as a New Yorker, so to stave off my—dare I even utter the words—mid-life crisis, not only did I watch When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail (both my favorites and I think it’s fair to say, objective masterpieces), I decided to pretend I was in them.
This is what the kids call “romanticizing your life,” and it’s nothing new, of course, but I think it’s only recently become acceptable to say out loud. The general conceit of romanticizing one’s life consists of prioritizing beauty, maintaining a dreamy disposition, and, somewhat shamelessly, a level of consumption and curation in service of a performance that mirrors the charm of something fictional, something aspirational, something deeply comforting to the core.
We all do it. It’s pretty much, like, the whole reason advertising works. So I am unabashed when I tell myself, while on a stroll through Riverside Park, that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be in life. Because I am Kathleen Kelly, I am a lone reed who stands for noble causes and proudly operates my independent bookstore in the face of corporate greed. In reality, okay, I’m a failed sketch comedian who writes marketing emails for a living and probably has more in common with Parker Posey’s character at the cocktail party when she’s shouting about Ultradorm.
But none of that matters! I am buying a pumpkin from the local market without worrying about the price. I’m taking deep breaths of crisp autumn air and reading hardback books I checked out from the library. My screentime is at an all-time low because there are no iPhones in the 20th century, just fat beige computers that make crispy, crunchy dial-up sounds and Greg Kinnear’s stupid word processor. I am in heaven.
Of course, then I turn on the news, or get a push notification about the recent deluge of interest that hit my credit card, and I remember that I may never own a home, and natural fibers don’t exist anymore, and the food at Katz’s Deli isn’t really even that good.
In one of my bleakest recent moments of irony, I stumbled upon an article on something called “The Great Exhaustion.” It’s what trend forecasters have predicted for 2026 - that we’ll all be so tired and so generally bummed out by the world around us that our priorities will shift to small glimmers of happiness, fulfillment on our own terms, and moments of true meaning in our everyday lives. The article then gives advice on how to market your shitty products to the sad little consumers grasping for a reason to live.
Is it any wonder that romanticism itself was born from the smoke cloud of industry?
Anyway, this great fatigue is not news to me. I certainly feel listless, a longing for closer connections, for refuge from AI slop and military technology, and the fact that a bag of chips costs $8.99 now for some reason.
But hey, rom-com life isn’t perfect either. Even in our most favorite stories, capitalism squashes small businesses, women get strung along by married men, unnamed forces cause a weatherman to re-live the same day over and over…in Pennsylvania, no less.
And that’s kind of the point. Our problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we fall in love, and whenever that happens, we agree that it means something.
I’m 36 now, and it’s not so bad. I’m planning a wedding with a man who loves the movie Titanic, who plays bossa nova on the guitar, and sometimes paints portraits of me. In return, I’ve been crocheting him a scarf. It’s not that good, and he doesn’t care. The sentimental reigns supreme.
If you’re looking for a little romance yourself, I have some good news: There’s a beautiful, rare bookstore at 59th & Park, ice skating at Wollman Rink is officially open for the holiday season, and every episode of Martha Stewart Living is streaming for free on the Roku channel.
And wherever you are, you are always free to go outside, listen to the Cranberries, and just start narrating your life. Out loud if you want to. I’m literally doing it right now.
sounds like you are also Working Girl