THE AGE I DO NOT FEEL

 

Nature has laws we cannot escape. Life is a struggle for survival among living beings driven to thrive and reproduce. In that struggle, we fall prey to countless enemies, many microscopic. What we call disease consists of tiny organisms that do not intend to harm us, yet must use our bodies to thrive. If we overcome them, they lose; if they prevail, we die. That is neither good nor bad—simply a fact.

I have fought my share of such battles and, so far, prevailed: ear infections, measles, chickenpox, kidney stones, two severe bouts of flu, endless colds, gastritis, headaches, a heart attack, cancer. The usual fare, if one lives long enough. Add to this the wear and tear of time on body and mind.

I am 87 and still pushing on. Time allows no pause. Despite everything, I have lived a largely healthy, active, and mostly pain-free life. I was born before penicillin came into common use, which says something about the stamina of my body. I am, by any measure, a survivor—fortunate, and heir to a lineage of resilient forebears. I outlived a childhood when children died easily and passed through adolescence when polio was widespread. I weathered marriage and raised four children, reaching port with most sails intact.

At 75, things changed: open-heart surgery and a quadruple bypass shook my confidence. Later came polymyalgia rheumatica, controlled with corticoids, and then heart failure, which slowed me down. Even so, I have carried on.

What puzzles me is this: I do not feel old. Among the elderly at the hospital, I feel the youngest. On buses and in supermarkets, I see “old people”—frail, slow—and yet many are younger than I am. When I exercise, I push myself as though I were decades younger. I continue to write, publish, study languages, and embrace new technology. I make plans.

What is wrong with me? Have I lost touch with reality? Or is this simply another way of being old?

I know I am 87. I do not pretend otherwise. But I do not feel it. This is not about appearance or denial; it is a matter of inner sensation. As Hermann Hesse wrote in The Glass Bead Game: the human attitude at its best carries “a defiance, a death-defying intrepidity… and a note of immortal serenity.”

I am not down for the count yet, though I know I am mortal.