2023: the year I became my age

Atlantic editor Jennifer Senior recently explored the concept of "subjective age" [gift link] -- the sense of our own age we carry about with us which often differs from our chronological age. We commonly experience ourselves as younger than we are.

... we seem to have an awfully rough go of locating ourselves in time. A friend, nearing 60, recently told me that whenever he looks in the mirror, he’s not so much unhappy with his appearance as startled by it—“as if there’s been some sort of error” were his exact words. (High-school reunions can have this same confusing effect. You look around at your lined and thickened classmates, wondering how they could have so violently capitulated to age; then you see photographs of yourself from that same event and realize: Oh.) The gulf between how old we are and how old we believe ourselves to be can often be measured in light-years—or at least a goodly number of old-fashioned Earth ones.

She explores interestingly why this might be -- and especially why we might cling to a self consciousness rooted in mid-life. This time was (or will be for younger persons) when we "get it together" as much we ever might. At least for some of us.

I still like silly hats.

The past year has seen a change in my subjective perception of my age, a change I'm enjoying. Guess what? I'm actually 76 -- and that's just fine.

This wasn't always so. I spent much of my 50s, 60s, and early 70s pushing the envelope physically, from treks to Kilimanjaro, Nepal, and Montenegro to ultra-distance running. This was fun and sustained my unrealistic sense of my age.

In 2022, I worked with a crew of over 100 committed hotel union members canvassing for the election -- and repeatedly realized they had no idea I was 75. My age exceeded the life expectancy of the Black folks working so hard together (they clearly thought 65 was old) and astonished them if they learned it. (We had one old white guy over 80; I don't know how he was perceived.)

But this past year I've caught up with myself.

I can identify a couple of obvious markers that lead to this changed feeling:

1) people my age, including people I knew in childhood, keep dying. That's a reality that's hard to ignore.

2) my body is to some extent wearing out. I can no longer trek and run all those miles. Exertion that once built strength just leaves me tired. Oh, I keep trying for 20 miles a week lumbering along with two trekking poles, but it is not the same.

On the other hand, I seem to, happily, bring a more peaceful mind to the challenges and agonies of the world around us. That mind is no less committed to struggles for justice and compassion, but perhaps more forgiving of the long parade of human folly and joy. We can but trod along, doing our bit and loving as much as we can.

I like being 76. Onward.