So You Want To Live To Be 81?
Just know that old age is not for cowards
I feel like I’ve aged five years in the past 12 months.
Don’t get me wrong, old age is going well for me, and I want to live a long time. I want to squeeze every last drop of juice from the orange, whether it’s at home or in an ICU. I’m positive about old age. But still . . .
Eighty-one is carrying a backpack of rocks up the stairs. Eighty-one is seeing a stranger in the mirror. Eighty-one is being unable to run for your connecting flight at the Airport. Eighty-one is being all dressed up with nowhere to go, or somewhere to go with nothing to wear.
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
Old age is just one damn thing after another, and it will never get better — but have hope — our perception of old age can get better. We will have pain in old age, but to quote Haruki Murakami: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
The ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. This is a truth that will soften any number of problems if taken to heart.
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Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional, should be our motto in old age, because there will be pain. If one morning, a young person woke up in my body, he would immediately call a doctor. But old age comes on slowly, so we don’t see it coming until one day we “suddenly” realize we are old.
The story of the rest of my life will be how I react to all the changes life throws at me. And that’s good because I’ll always have a motivating force to push me on.
Dealing with the slings and arrows of old age gives me a reason to keep going. To find creative solutions and find love with my friends and family. And to remember that suffering is a choice. If I could figure out how to eliminate suffering in old age and bottle it, I’d be a billionaire.
There will be pain, but I’m hopeful
I have been suffering for the past 12 months, worrying about my daughter, who, because of her unwillingness to accept her divorce, was suffering too, and was on the verge of homelessness. She has finally received her divorce settlement, and the worry about homelessness is gone. But her state of mind is still not good. And I am in the process of letting go of my suffering around her.
But I have no regrets about my anguish and suffering over her. I did whatever I had to do to keep her off the streets. Tomorrow I’ll have my first therapy appointment, and I am hopeful I can let go of my suffering and get on with my own life. I’ll be more useful to my daughter in that state of mind.
But my long year of anguish is not unusual. In your old age, you’ll have such periods, whether it’s your own health or the pain of others you love. Everyone, without exception, will have pain and difficulties in old age.
And we should not be surprised when bad things happen to good people. Whatever your definition of old age, you will have pain once you’re old. Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, tried to warn his students about all the coming pain, but he did it kindly and with humor.
On the fourth day of sesshin, as we sat with our painful legs, aching backs, hopes and doubts about whether it was worth it, Suzuki Roshi began his talk by saying slowly, ‘The problems you are now experiencing . . .”
“Will go away,” we were sure he was going to say
“... will continue for the rest of your life,” he concluded.
The way he said it, we all laughed.
Suzuki Roshi’s wisdom was a hard truth wrapped in humor. We should live our lives wrapped in humor. My tai chi teacher once said, Once your legs are gone, the end is near. Well, once your sense of humor is gone, the end is here. You may be stoically carrying on with a stiff upper lip, but all the joy of life will have been sucked out.
You’ve gotta laugh about old age, which is like boarding a ship that’s setting out to sea to sink. Without humor, it’s a grim scenario.
But if we know that all that suffering is optional, we can live a little lighter and breathe a little easier.
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Gary
April 2026
This is how aging is known.
Not from a distance, but from inside the ordinary.
Inside a body that wakes up one day and feels different.
How did I get so stiff.
I remember my daughter telling me, twenty years ago, “Mom, you should do yoga. You won’t regret it.”
She was right.
The only thing I regret is that I didn’t listen.
Aging has a way of making consequences visible. Not all at once. Quietly. In joints that protest. In movements that require negotiation instead of trust. The body keeps a faithful record, even when the mind insists it has more time.
And then there’s the asthma.
When did that happen.
My doctor told me I’ve had it since sixth grade. Sixth grade. Back when I used to get those strange tickles in my throat and cough until I was nearly purple.
Who knew.
Apparently, my lungs did.
I didn’t. I hid the coughing. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. So really, who could have known. Who could have known something I worked so hard to conceal.
Now I use an inhaler. It makes a sound that suggests I’m inhaling something else entirely. You can imagine. I don’t need to say it. It’s legal now, anyway.
Back to asthma.
It turns out my body has been telling the truth for decades, patiently waiting for me to listen.
And thank goodness I stopped smoking fifty-nine years ago.
Sometimes I look at photographs of myself from earlier years. A little girl. A young adolescent. A young bride.
I see now what I could not then.
I wish I had recognized my beauty before I learned to measure myself against a standard that was never meant to hold a real body. I spent years noticing what I lacked, comparing myself to a gold standard that only a few are ever invited to occupy. And to those who do, enjoy it. Truly. Just remember that gravity has excellent follow-through and no favorites.
I wish I had raised my hand more often. Asked the questions that felt too obvious or too risky. I wish I had not been so easily discouraged by the first no, the first silence, the first look that suggested I might be slowing things down by wanting to understand.
Now I know their impatience was never mine to manage.
But there was more waiting underneath that.
I learned how deeply silence shapes a person. How discouragement teaches watchfulness. How shrinking sharpens perception. I learned what it feels like to disappear in plain sight, which turns out to be a surprisingly effective way to develop observational skills no one ever lists on a résumé.
And because of that, I recognize others who are doing the same. There’s a quiet nod that passes between us.
Courage did not come early for me. It arrived later, carrying the weight of what it took to live without it.
It turns out courage keeps its own schedule and is rarely impressed by urgency.
And when did my hair turn gray.
Actually, it didn’t. It turned a beautiful white, like a snow-capped mountain. Except for the stubborn black fringe at the nape of my neck.
Good for you, black hair.
I have always appreciated a bit of defiance. “No” has often felt like my middle name.
For better, it meant trusting my own pace when the world urged me to hurry, and choosing what felt true even when it wasn’t popular. Occasionally, this saved me a great deal of unnecessary drama.
For worse, it sometimes meant staying stubborn longer than was wise, mistaking resistance for strength and paying the price in strained or frayed relationships. Stubbornness, it turns out, is very committed once it’s made up its mind.
And wrinkles. I mean, when did that happen.
Slowly, I can tell you that.
Years are made up of seconds we never notice going by. And yet, here we are. With wrinkles and jowls and crow’s feet. Laugh lines, as some prefer to call them. Often noticed after squinting to read something their eyes now need better light for.
And what is all this fear about wrinkles.
Good grief.
Billions of dollars are spent each year trying to erase the evidence of time, smoothing, tightening, promising youth as if it were a debt we somehow owe.
I know the obvious answer. Being judged. Dismissed. Ignored. Not seen.
But I think it goes deeper than that.
I think it is time itself, quietly clearing its throat, inviting us to take a broader, more sweeping look at what is important and precious.
A quiet reordering.
It isn’t that what is beautiful is fleeting.
Love lasts forever. We don’t.
The truth is, I spent so many years of my youth feeling uncomfortable being here at all. A kind of homesickness I didn’t yet have language for.
As though I had arrived somewhere before I was ready.
I didn’t know where home was. I only knew I wasn’t settled.
Now I understand how trite but true it is.
Home is where you hang your hat.
And now that I’ve found a hook sturdy enough to hold it, a hook with a bit of sass and style, polished to a shine yet carrying a beautiful antique patina, I feel at ease in my own staying.
I want to remain for as long as possible.
Because there is so much to love.
And so much still waiting and willing to love me back.
And still, life gets sweeter.
That’s the part that breaks my heart open.
There is a tenderness that comes with knowing how fragile everything is.
Color deepens.
It shows up like this.
Love stops pretending we will last forever, and starts meaning something precisely because we won’t.
What remains is elegance.
Elegance is the exception. Even in a life that offers no guarantees, the intricate elegance of life remains untouched.
Which is why violence feels so unbearable.
How can something as intricate as life be handled with such disregard.
It can look like this.
Ripping the wings off a butterfly in the hands of a child, not out of malice, but out of ignorance, before tenderness has learned what it means to hold something alive.
The elegance of life isn’t missing. We’re just not always able to recognize what we’re touching.
And then it stops being theoretical.
Sometimes the sadness comes closer to home.
I know that when I leave, my children, my family, my friends will be sad.
I suppose it’s better to be missed than forgotten. Better sadness than indifference.
And still, I wish I could comfort them.
Then I realize something that stops me short.
I am the reason for their sadness.
What a double bind.
To be loved enough to be mourned, and mourned because you were loved.
There is no clean way out of that circle.
Only gratitude and grief, holding hands.
I sometimes tell my children I will be alive and well and jumping on a trampoline well into my hundreds.
They laugh.
I mean it.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have an expiration date. Or at least one I could choose.
I imagine doing it properly.
I would wait until I was in my prime health. Let’s say one hundred and twenty.
I would throw a party. Gather everyone I love. Offer only the finest libations. Raise a glass.
Say thank you.
Say you made my life richer than gold, finer than silver.
Say don’t be afraid.
And then I would go.
Not slipping away.
Not apologizing.
Just ascending with a smile and saying,
“See you all later. I’ll be there to greet you.”
What a lovely send-off that would be.
Like savoring a good cup of coffee (latte, please) and curling up to crack the day’s Wordle in under four tries.
Now that’s a life well lived.
Thank you Gary. You make this journey to old age easier by realizing there are others having the same experiences. Someone said “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” I’m glad to still have the spirit!