on approaching 80

       Sometimes, birthdays can be hard, particularly when they end in a zero.

      Even 30 had been tough, when we weren’t supposed to trust anyone over that age. And there I was, on the morning of my 30th birthday, waking up with a stinging stye in my eye. I’d been blinded, I thought, and everyone, obviously, had been right about what would happen when you reached such a disreputable age.

      Since, there have been a slew of numerically significant birthdays. All, at least at the time, seemed sobering.

      Forty meant I was no longer officially young. Fifty confirmed I was middle-aged. Sixty came a few years after I had begun to get mailings from AARP and had become a certified older person. Hitting 70, after retirement, clinched senior citizenship.

      My wife insists that at each major birthday I have expressed concern and usually felt or acted at least a bit bereft. But approaching 80 now feels qualitatively different. And, to be honest, more than a little foreboding. 

      And I don’t think it’s just in my mind.

      In just the last few months or so, the gradual process of aging seems to have sped up. What had been happening bit by bit, now seems to have arrived all at once. In fact, research suggests aging often accelerates around age 80 when there is a rapid, non-linear decline in biological systems such as the level of red bone marrow.

      Almost suddenly, my knees have started to hurt walking down the steps. The balance has grown shakier. The lower back is much stiffer getting out of bed. As 80 hove into view, even my voice has deteriorated, becoming thinner, frequently hoarse and less supple.

      Oh, 80 is definitely different, no matter what my wife says.

      In much of the West, 80 is understandably often considered the beginning of “very old age.”Earlier decades of life (the 60s, even the 70s) may be considered the active retirement years, lots of pickle ball, with people in their 70s as “older adults.”But “people in their 80s” is an easy euphemism for that dreaded term “the elderly.”

      Maybe that’s because the 80s are the first decade beyond typical life expectancy.With people in the West generally living somewhere into their high 70s,reaching 80 feels like crossing a statistical threshold — past what people subconsciously think of as a “full lifetime.” 

      It makes the number feel weightier. Approaching 80 is like entering a new category, more than just the next step right after 79.

      And the signs of that new entrance seem to be everywhere.

      More friends and relatives are already gone or somewhat diminished. I keep seeing obituaries of people who have died, at 82, 84, 85 (Country Joe McDonald! Jesse Jackson!), which is a long life, to be sure, but as I approach 80 seems uncomfortably close, much too nearby.

      There are far more medical appointments now, far more of us forgetting where we left our keys and whom we saw for dinner last night. By 80, most major life transitions are already in the past. The birthday becomes more reflective rather than forward-looking, and that, too, makes it feel heavier.

      I am trying as much as I can to not let it get oppressive. As I approach 80, I try to remember I still run a couple of miles every day or two, and I lift weights and regularly get on the floor for pushups, and I remain damn good with the Times’ Spelling Bee cognitive challenge.

      And perhaps most important, I know I need to keep reminding myself: I have a number of good friends who are in their 90s, and doing well, physically ok, cognitively sharp. But, oh, what would they give to be approaching 80!