What a Difference a Year Makes

Keywords: aging; elders; seniors; age discrimination; ageism So swiftly passes a year at my age. It seems only yesterday I was writing about "when I'm 64," and now, I have reached what is generally considered to be the traditional age of full retirement: 65, halfway through my seventh decade-one of those rites-of-passage birthdays, like 13 (if you are Jewish), 21 (legal adulthood), and 50 (the half-century mark), that rings with portent. No denying it: I really am old now, although I have friends past 80 who will giggle at that statement. I am always irritated when people say, "I don't feel 65" (or 70 or 75 and so forth). Of course they do. Since not one of us knows what it feels like to be older than we are, whatever we feel is what that age feels like. Equally irritating are recent boomer slogans such as "50 is the new 30." Anyone who can't tell the difference is a case of arrested development and a contributor to our youthcrazed, ageist culture. The downsides of becoming 65 have, so far, been minimal. I don't have the stamina and strength I once had and need to spread out chores and errands over longer periods of time. But I don't find that a burden. I like the extra walks necessary to finish shopping, and if it's harder to stay awake into the wee hours, I've known since my 20s that nothing noteworthy happens at the party past midnight. Famous and celebrated contemporaries who have defined the era in which I have lived die more frequently now: just last year, Richard Pryor, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Hunter Thompson, Arthur Miller, Johnny Carson, and Betty Friedan. Youngsters who know these people only historically probably can't grasp the force with which each one, at the peak, etched his or her sensibility on the public consciousness of the second half of the 20th century. But that was then, and this is now. In recent years, the rightness of death makes more sense to me. Those scientists who spend millions researching life extension, predicting 200-year life spans one day, are selfish and wrong. Elders must make way for younger people who are unencumbered by attachments to the past and are a better match to new times, new eras, and new issues. The upsides of getting older far outweigh the negatives. I am more patient with myself and others. Experience has alleviated the fears that plagued my 20s, 30s, and even 40s. Having learned that, aside from putting a gun to one's head, few decisions are irrevocable, they come more easily now and with less anguish. Well, maybe not all decisions. This turned out to be a significant year. Settling in New York City in 1969 was a childhood dream, and in a sense, all 28 years before were prelude. I have been extraordinarily happy living here, so much so that when I bought this cozy, little apartment 23 years ago on one of the prettiest streets in Greenwich Village, it felt so permanent that I told friends I would be taken out feetfirst-it was my last move. …