It takes a lot of courage to grow old.
I’ve come to appreciate this after talking to hundreds of older adults over the past eight years for nearly 200 “Navigating Aging” columns.
Time and time again, people have described what it is like to let go of the certainties they once lived with and adapt to new circumstances.
The lives of these older adults are filled with changes. They don’t know what the future holds, except that the end is closer than ever before.
And yet they find ways to adapt. To move forward. To find meaning in their lives. And I find myself deciding to follow this path as I prepare myself for retirement.
Patricia Estess, 85, of New York City’s Brooklyn borough spoke eloquently about the unpredictability of later life when I contacted her while reporting a series of columns about older adults who live alone, also known as “solo-agers.” .
Estess had taken a solo aging course. “It makes you realize that other people are in the same boat as you,” she said when I asked what she had learned. “We all face uncertainty.”
Consider the questions that older adults—whether they live with others or alone—face year in and out: Will my bones break? Will my thinking and memory last? Will I be able to climb the stairs of my house where I am trying to age in place?
Will beloved friends and family members remain an ongoing source of support? If not, who will be there to provide help when needed?
Will I have enough money for a long and healthy life, if that is possible? Will community and government resources be available, if needed?
It takes courage to face these uncertainties and face the unknown with a certain equanimity.
“It’s a matter of attitude,” Estess told me. “I’ve honed an attitude of, ‘I’m getting older. Things will happen. I’ll do what I can to plan in advance. I’ll be more careful. But I’ll deal with things as they happen.'”
For many people, growing old changes their sense of identity. They feel like strangers to themselves. Their body and mind no longer work as they used to. They no longer feel the sense of control they once felt.
That requires a different kind of courage: the courage to embrace and accept their older selves.
Marna Clarke, a photographer, spent over twelve years documenting her changing body and her life with her partner as they grew older. Gradually she learned to see aging with new eyes.
“I think something beautiful comes out of people when they accept who they are,” she told me in 2022, when she was 70, just before her 93-year-old husband died.
Arthur Kleinman, a Harvard professor who is now 83, felt a deeper sense of inspiration after caring for his beloved wife, who suffered from dementia and eventually died, leaving him grief-stricken.
“We persevere, we learn how to persevere, how to carry on. We are scarred, we are wounded, we are wounded. We have changed, in my case for the better,” he told me when I interviewed him. in 2019. He referred to a newfound sense of vulnerability and empathy he acquired as a caregiver.
Herbert Brown, 68, who lives in one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, was philosophical when I met him at the annual barbecue at his apartment building in June.
“I was a very wild person in my youth. I’m surprised I lived this long,” he said. “I never planned on being a senior. I thought I was going to die before that happened.”
Honestly, no one is ever prepared to grow old, including me. (I’ll be 70 in February.)
Chalk it up to denial or the limits of the imagination. As May Sarton, a writer who thought deeply about aging, so beautifully put it: Old age is “a strange land with an unknown language.” I, along with all my friends of the same age, am surprised that we have arrived at this destination.
For me, 2025 is a turning point. I’m retiring after four decades as a journalist. I’ve spent most of that time writing about our country’s enormously complex health care system. For the past eight years, I have focused on the unprecedented growth of the older population—the most important demographic trend of our time—and its many implications.
In some ways I am ready for the challenges ahead. In many ways I’m not.
The biggest unknown is what will happen to my vision. I have moderate macular degeneration in both eyes. Last year I lost central vision in my right eye. How long will my left eye pick up the slack? What will happen if that eye deteriorates?
Like many people, I hope that scientific progress will outpace the progress of my condition. But I don’t count on it. Realistically, I have to plan for a future where I could become partially blind.
It will take courage to deal with that.
Then there’s the matter of my four-story house in Denver, where I lived for 33 years. Climbing the stairs has helped me stay in shape. But that won’t be possible if my vision gets worse.
So my husband and I are taking a leap into the unknown. We are renovating the house, installing an elevator and inviting our son, daughter-in-law and grandson to come live with us. Going intergenerational. Give up privacy. In return, we hope that our home will be full of mutual help and love.
There are no guarantees that this will work. But we’ll take a chance.
Without all the conversations I’ve had all these years, I might not have gotten around to it. But I’ve come to realize that “no guarantees” is no reason to dig in our heels and resist change.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to share your experiences and insights about aging. Thank you for your openness, honesty and courage. These conversations will become even more important in the coming years, as baby boomers like me make their way through the 1970s, 1980s and beyond. May the conversations continue.
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