Getting Older: Everybody’s Doing It! | Healthy Aging Series: Season 13 Introduction

I recently turned seventy.

I’m still getting used to saying that.

Seventy has always sounded old to me. My grandparents were seventy. I would see old people sitting in McDonald’s drinking coffee. They were seventy. People who complain about their knees and have five doctors, they’re seventy.

And now, so am I.

The thing is, I don’t feel seventy most of the time. I still backpack. I still work. I still exercise. I still make plans. I’ve started new projects. I’m learning how to make videos, and I’m learning more about photography. I’m still curious, and I’m still changing my mind about things.

But there are reminders.

The hearing aids. The aches and pains. The extra prescription bottles in my medicine cabinet. A Stent. Cardiac Rehab. More doctor’s appointments.

Forgetting to close the garage door at night.

Getting older can be little dizzying.

It is funny at times, but it can also be a little frustrating. Occasionally, it is scary. There are losses that come with aging, and I don’t intend to pretend otherwise.

But I’m also discovering that there are freedoms that come with getting older.

You care less about what people think about you, and you care less about things, like fame and fortune. You begin to appreciate ordinary things: walking, sleeping well, having coffee with your Bubu, getting up a hill without stopping, visiting your granddaughter at college, or waking up and realizing that everything still works, mostly.

For the past several years, I’ve written this blog in seasons. Season 12 contained thirty episodes.

For Season 13, I’m going to do something a little different.

I’m calling the individual posts chapters.

That’s because I’m beginning this season with a larger project in mind.

I want to write about what it actually feels like getting older—not simply the science of healthy aging, although there will certainly be some of that. I want to write about the experience of aging from the inside.

The physical changes.

The losses.

The relationships.

The humor.

The fear.

The freedom.

The things we learn too late.

And the things we still have plenty of time to learn.

Some of the chapters I’m considering have titles like:

• Senior Day at Kroger
• And Suddenly You Have Five Doctors
• Your Mirror Isn’t Broken
• Hills Are Your Friends
• What Are All Those Old People Doing Sitting Together at McDonald’s?
• Kindness Is the Superpower Everyone Forgets
• The World Wants You to Sit Down and Shut Up
• My Mother’s Last Breath
• The Well Isn’t Dry Yet
• and How to Make Seventy the New Seventy

That last one may say more about this season than anything else.

I’m not interested in making seventy the new fifty.

I’ve already been fifty.

It was okay. Maybe it was more than just okay.

I want seventy to be a really good seventy.

I want to understand what it means to live well at this age without pretending that I’m younger than I am. I want to stay strong, curious, connected, useful, creative, and open to whatever is still ahead.

My plan is to eventually take the best of these chapters, rewrite them, expand them, organize them, and turn them into a book.

Maybe thirty chapters.

Maybe forty.

I’m not sure yet.

That’s part of the fun.

For now, I’m going to write, listen, and pay attention.

Because the truth is, getting older is something almost everybody wants to do.

We just don’t always know what to do once we get there.

So welcome to Season 13.

Getting Older: Everybody’s Doing It!