Behind The Scenes of the Acceleration of Aging
This is the first in a BTS for each new podcast episode. Our most popular recurring guest (my husband Sam) reflects on the sudden acceleration of aging and what he’s seeing in the mirror.
Listeners to the podcast seem to love my husband’s dry sense of humor and, frankly, I do too. He teases me a lot but it makes me laugh so it’s okay. Sam (aka Sam Harrington) is a retired physician and author and almost always has something medically useful to say. He is not, however, tech savvy. So this episode required two takes to get usable audio.
Eventually we sat down together with my iPhone between us and recorded face-to-face. I’m always a little nervous even though he’s been a guest on the show multiple times. When he’s sitting across from me, I can read his body language, wave at him when he goes on too long, and remind him to ask me questions. But there is still magic to the interview because I don’t know exactly how Sam is going to respond or where the conversation will go.
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The behind-the-scenes for this episode is that we’ve both noticed recently that old age has caught up with us. For a very long time, until our early 60s, we both looked “young” for our age. Not so, a decade later. We both look 70ish, which is what we are.
We also feel it, which I’ve been writing about, including my approach to slowing down. And while this observation about physical appearance may seem superficial, it’s really not if you are the one looking in the mirror.
Beyond noticing wrinkles and jowls, what you’re seeing is the beginning of your final chapter. Sam points out in the episode that there’s a hall of mirrors effect in watching a 92-year-old parent decline (in this case, my father). So it’s not impossible to imagine a decade hence (80), and then another decade beyond (90), and what that might look like in your reflection.
I don’t mean that all is downhill from here, that there is nothing to look forward to. But getting old is a physiological reality and I am trying, really hard, to embrace that and be okay with it. Hence the focus of this episode. As Sam is fond of putting it (and as you’ll hear him say in the episode): “Eighty may be the new 60, but 86 is the new 85.”**
We also talk about:
How modern medicine has vastly improved healthspan (60 or 70 are much younger than they were 50 years ago)
What it means to live in an aging society (the current demographic shift is staggering: by 2030 there will be more people over 65 than under 18)
The parallel in my mind between the acceleration of aging and the acceleration of global warming (at first it’s not very noticeable, then it happens all at once, like this past summer)
If there’s a subtext to our discussion in this episode, it’s this:
Embrace old age: Acknowledge it and own it. It doesn’t make you “less then.” Being old should be a badge of pride and even pleasure — not shame. Which it sometimes is in our youth-obsessed society.
Don’t take good health for granted: Shit happens. This is perhaps Sam’s biggest message, to me and anyone else who will listen. As a physician, this is what he knows at the deepest level: illness or disease can happen at any moment. Another way of putting it is: practice gratitude and then practice again and again.
Of course, this subtext is easier written about than achieved and, as I age into my 70s, I have a lot of work to do in these areas (and will be exploring them in upcoming essays). If there’s a bubble over my head right now, it reads, “Yes, you idiot, mortality applies to you too.”
** Sam’s book on end-of-life decision-making for the elderly – from which comes his “86 is the new 85” mantra – is informative and a great read. Learn more here: AT PEACE: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life.
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If you have an idea for a specific guest or topic you’d like to hear this season, please let me know in the comments.
Find over 100 episodes of the podcast on my site, along with complete show notes with useful links and more information about each guest and topic.
spot on. and for others, knowing Debbie speaks French, I decided to play with the language in my response. also, it sort of works, because no one has dusty closets quite like the French of a certain age.
Debbie
It was really nice to just sit back and listen to the two of you talking about rapid aging after a certain point.
Interesting, I was talking to our oldest adult daughter about the fact that we have now sold our house and liquidated most of our ‘things’. I told her what a tremendous job her mom had done and how, it would be difficult to understand, but cleaning out the accoutrements of life is really a huge benefit for the children who are left She was somewhat annoyed with me for talking once again about my potential passing.
J’ai expliqué qu’elle a raté ce que je voulais dire…. Leur mère les a donné un grand don. Un cadeau. Le cadeau est qu’elle, et sa sœur, ne seront pas obligées de vider les placards de nos vies.
Les objets que ma femme et moi avons collectionner, ce sont des choses, les accoutrements , de nos vies. Ces choses constituent, une fois qu’on passe, la poussière de nos vies. C’est comme si, ces objets n’avez rien à faire avec la vie de nos enfants. Pourquoi pas les nettoyer avant de passer ? Autrement, c’est à nos enfants de vider les placards.
I hope you found the French a bit of fun
Thank you for your insightful podcast :-) chat with you soon
Trip