Goin' about 80

I’m hitting 80 this week. Not 80 miles per hour, but 80 years of age.

I have rarely hit 80 on the speedometer, even in my younger years. But I’ve been creeping up to 80 years all my life, and now that I am almost there, I’m getting cold feet about it all. Not that my anxiety will do me any good.

Since middle age, I’ve been noticing that many of us get through our 70’s more or less intact, but at 80 things start to loosen and fall off. Of course, a serious illness or an accident can skew aging’s trajectory against any of us, but I’m talking about simply getting old.

Trouble is, at no age can you slam on the brakes and throw yourself into reverse. The age-speedometer just keeps revving higher and higher but you just keep moving slower and slower. 

(If you are wondering why I don’t compare aging to running up miles on an odometer, it’s because an odometer is rarely that interesting or important. And because I don’t want to.)

On the other hand, I have had the privilege of aging, both absolutely and relatively.

Absolutely because the alternative to aging is—as is frequently pointed out—death.

Relatively because I’ve lived a good and privileged life, wherein my work seemed worthwhile at least to me, my family thrives, and the worst of illnesses and accidents have missed me so far. I am comfortable financially, in part because of generational wealth. I was raised by a good and caring family, in a safe environment, and with access to sound education.

I live in a friendly and active retirement community, see a compassionate and insightful therapist, and most of all share life with my loving and patient wife. Our daughters and their families, including our granddaughters, bring us deep satisfaction. I have time and energy to enjoy activities and hobbies, including singing great choral music with large ensembles. I authored and published a small book about my favorite place on earth, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. I’ve lived in states from Maryland to California and in between. I have visited much of our country and some of Europe and Africa as well. What more can a man what or need when he’s hitting 80?

There are some regrets: missed opportunities, investing less than I might have in friendships, fixing things that were really not that much better off for all my effort. I wish I could remember faces and names, good jokes, and humorous personal experiences. I would like to laugh more easily. I am calendar- and clock-driven when I probably don’t need to be, haven’t read all the books I wish I had, and refuse to try to keep up with pop culture. I have not spoken out about my political and societal convictions as often as I could have, and have rarely acted decisively on those convictions.

I am a quiet person in many ways, for whom public speaking and preaching served as foils to my introverted nature. I do not mind being alone as long as I know I will soon have some opportunity for human interaction—for a while. I am thrilled we will hear our Cleveland Orchestra play Mahler’s 5th on my 80th birthday. That’s about the best way I can think of to celebrate it.

I am grateful for it all. If you ask me to whom I am grateful beyond the people I’ve mentioned and the opportunities my U.S. citizenship has offered me, I’d say God. But my gratitude to God is more general than specific because I do not claim any special place in some divine plan for the universe. I have been and am no more worthy of God’s beneficence than any one of the other 8 billion of my earthly cohorts. If good has been my lot because somehow God chose me, it is because I was to share good with others. I hope I have done that.

With the Psalmist I know that the lines have fallen in largely pleasant places for me. Approaching 80, I am unambiguously grateful to God whose ways and purposes are limited only by a love far beyond my power to understand or predict.

“—Night is drawing nigh__”

For all that has been—Thanks!

To all that shall be—Yes!

Dag Hammarskjöld, 1953