A few thoughts on turning 69

I turned 69 this month, which means I’ve started my 70th year of life. It was not so much a plunge into a new decade as a swirling of a toe in its waters. I’m in the habit of getting ready for birthdays at least 6 months in advance, so when the day actually arrives, my new age seems just a slight shift on the calendar, a new number on a form. When I was younger, old age really seemed like a foreign country. I sang along with Simon and Garfunkel. You know, that song about two old men sitting like bookends on a park bench; “how terribly strange to be 70.” Simon and Garfunkel wrote the song in their 20s, when that foreign country was still so far away for them. Since then, they've arrived, as have I, and perhaps they'd agree it’s not so strange after all. There are people and buildings and nature, more or less different from the ones you knew, but not as disorienting as you feared. So you walk ashore and the journey continues.

Here I am at 21 in my college graduation picture. Did I even think about my 70s when 30 still seemed like a somewhat strange and distant land? Perhaps not.

Every year a wave flowing into the next. At the same time this process of aging is like an undertow, not always seen but there nonetheless, a danger, a pull to an unknown place with no return. People my age, a little younger or a little older, are dying. Sometimes from long illnesses, sometimes suddenly. Decades ago my parents passed away, both suddenly from heart attacks at ages 74 and 77.  More recently (2009), Paula, a friend and once my partner, died suddenly at 59. Celebrities I remember growing up are now dead: Robin Williams, David Bowie, Leslie Gore, Natalie Cole, many more. Like everyone, I hear or read about fatal accidents. Of course, I’ve always known an accident is possible anytime, but older, I'm somehow more aware of the danger and the arbitrariness of it all.  Witnessing these deaths, I pause, promising myself to be more mindful, to make every day count.

Like other friends my age, I say sometimes that I wouldn’t choose to go back to my 20s even if I could. We agree that so many youthful worries have since been eased or abandoned. We’re stronger, freer, happier now. For those of us who are retired, there’s more autonomy than we had when jobs and/or growing families structured our days. It’s a kind of second adolescence, except we’re old enough to appreciate it. We don’t waste a minute sulking in our rooms. Five years after retiring from teaching English in Japan (a job and country I loved), I still wake up mornings, thrilled to be able to create my days pretty much as I like.

I’m also lucky to be aging along with the largest generation in US history: the post World War II baby boomers. Every month, when my AARP* magazine arrives, it’s full of stories about other people my age who are still in the game through their professions or making a new start in something. The cover of the latest issue includes these stories: Money Issue (get hired, best investments), Disrupt Aging, Choose Your Cruise, proactive health articles.

Surrounded by age-positive opportunities here in Denver, I take free Silver Sneakers exercises at my local YMCA, laugh with my laughter yoga friends (mostly older, as we meet in the middle of the day), and square dance with the Rainbeaus, a club known for having many senior members with playful spirits. Summers, when I return to my cabin in Florissant, I’m surrounded by enterprising seniors there too—hiking mountains, planting gardens, building stuff. The list goes on. A great time to be an old person. And yet this, from Emily Dickinson:

Presentiment is the long shadow on the lawn—

Indicative that suns go down—

Notice to the startled grass

That darkness is about to pass—

With this presentiment that time is getting shorter and the darkness is not all that far away, what still needs to be done? What can I still do? What do I really want to do? What should I do now while I’m able? Perhaps those youthful worries over how to create my future haven’t really gone away, just changed form, become more urgent. Thinking of my younger self, I shake my head with the other elders. What after all, did she have to worry about? She had youth!

“Aging sucks”, says my 84-year-old neighbor when I ask her about it. “I never thought about it until I got cancer.” Once a violinist and composer, she can no longer play because of arthritis in her fingers. She does her best to live on a very limited income. She's clearly not the only one. For two Decembers in a row I’ve helped deliver fruit baskets from Volunteers of America to seniors who are alone or financially poor in Denver, and have seen glimpses of the stresses endured by many seniors: failing health, loneliness, too little money for making ends meet. Many homeless people I see on the street are seniors.

Looking at my AARP magazine cover, I welcome everything that reinforces my sense of strength and agency. I need it to balance out my sense of vulnerability. A fall can lead to a broken bone which can lead to immobility and long recovery time, as happened to a friend in Florissant last year. (But our ability to heal is strength and my friend's neck brace was removed last week. Ah, freedom!) Other friends and family members are surviving cancer. Seeing their strength makes me feel stronger to meet whatever challenge comes my way.

 However, vulnerability is underscored every week when I visit a woman my age who has early-onset Alzheimers. I knew her before her illness and there seems to be flickers of our friendship in her long-term memory. This form of the disease is strongly linked to genetics, a time bomb hidden in a piece of DNA.  In offering caregiving services to her, I wonder about my own undiscovered vulnerabilities. “Just do what you can, make every day count”, I whisper to myself as the visit ends.

Memory is such a gift when and while we have it. When I was young, I thought it was a little sad to be old, to have most of life in the past. Okay, I had a point there. Unlike the past, the future always has hope and promise. I'm increasingly aware of how much of the future I'll never see.  But now I look at the past as a mansion, not quite Downton Abbey, rather much humbler, more complex, and very large. Mine has all sorts of rooms full of interest. A few rooms I’ve learned to keep closed; no need to revisit. As for the rest, wandering through them is a fascinating journey. I can go to any of them as the mood strikes: childhood rooms, classrooms, outdoor rooms, often alone or with others I’ve known and loved. Fun! As George Orwell said, “One’s memories grow sharper after a long lapse of time because one is looking at the past with fresh eyes and can isolate and as it were, notice facts which previously existed among a mass of others.” It’s fun to share these reminiscences with good friends who tell me about their own wanderings and new ways of seeing.

Still memory is always on a balance beam of strength and vulnerability. Just as maintenance of my body seems to take more time and work than before, so does memory. It always irritates me when my peers complain about not being able to remember names or where their keys or glasses are as if nothing can be done. Okay, it’s true--brain synapses slow down, but mindfulness and paying attention go a long way toward minimizing the problem, I argue. We can take notes or use one of many mnemonic techniques.   Just another exercise. Use those strengths. We can't abolish vulnerability but we can thumb our noses at it.

Speaking of strengths, it’s time to wet my toes in the current of today. Errands and more preparation for next week's trip to Japan. Yet there’s so much more to say about this and many other topics. Another day, another blog to come.