Some surprises on the cusp of 70

Some surprises on the cusp of 70

I thought I knew what this would be like.

Not that I thought old age was going to be a cake walk. Realistically and actuarially, while you might not be eyeball-to-eyeball with death, when you’ve lived seven decades, you know for a fact that death has moved you to its shorter list of prospects.

Thus, no surprises for a woman turning 70, right? After all, the Social Security Administration’s handy-dandy Life Expectancy Calculator says I may live another 17.6 years. (The SSA cautions, however, that its calculator can’t “take into account a wide number of factors such as current health, lifestyle and family history that could increase or decrease life expectancy.” So there’s that.)

The things I haven’t been surprised by include changes in skin tone and hair texture, a battle with weight that has spanned many decades, the evolution of “fine lines” into outright wrinkles, and the fact that I’m a couple of inches shorter than I was in my 20s. (That last one has been especially dismaying, but not surprising. Let’s face it: As you get older, things settle. Lots of things.)

Setting aside what I had expected — the physical changes and the gradually decreasing amount of time left in the land of the living — here’s what took me by surprise. I thought I would be smarter by now. That I would understand things more than I do, and that I would have a better handle on such philosophical matters as the meaning of life and, especially, our reason for existence. My reason for existence.

Remember being a child and being told how important it was to learn, to study and to grow in wisdom? The implication was that as you aged you would increase in knowledge — about yourself, about the people and the world around you, and about your origin and your eternal destiny.

In addition to providing an education, most parents imparted some spiritual beliefs and a moral foundation. It was up to us to take things from there.

So I have worked at learning, studying and growing. Only here’s what they don’t necessarily tell kids about pursuing knowledge: That the older you get and the more you know, the more you’ll see how much there is to know. That the more wisdom you acquire, the more acutely you’ll realize how little actual wisdom you have.

And that asking deep questions about life and death may lead you to some answers, but may also lead you to see how complicated and nuanced those matters are. Asking deep questions also may spark more questions and even a considerable amount of uncertainty.

Those aren’t the things you talk about in your 40s and 50s when you’re meeting with your financial advisor and financial planner. You may not even discuss them with your pastor, priest or rabbi, because really, shouldn’t you be secure in your faith by now?

And haven’t Madison Avenue, AARP and your real estate agent assured you that with a combination of Botox, a Roth IRA, moderate exercise and a nice home in an upscale retirement community, your 70s and 80s will be your “golden years”? “The best years of your life”? The time when you can “finally do what YOU want to do,” whether it’s travel the world or drink wine and watch the sunset from the deck of your nice home in that upscale retirement community?

There are some wonderful things about growing older, to be sure. For my husband and me, it has been a joy to watch our children grow up; and it has been a thrill to have grandchildren. I’m also enjoying working in the yard, doing some writing and tackling some household projects that I put off while I was working full time.

Most of all, I am coming to terms with what it means to be a septuagenarian: that continued striving for knowledge and wisdom can keep you sharp, especially when you embrace the fact that there will always be things you don’t understand, as well as wisdom that you haven’t attained — and may never attain. There’s just not enough time.

There is time, however, and will be until death comes calling, to look for serenity in a world full of chaos. You can find it here and there — in family and friends, in nature, in pets, in meditation, in sunsets and in the faces of little children — if you’ll look for it.

When I hit 87.6 years old, per that Social Security calculator, I’ll let you know how my quest went.

Frances Coleman is a former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. Email her at [email protected] and “like” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances.