Month: September 2022

September 2022

By Richard Fleming

Despite my age, or perhaps because of it, my understanding of what it means to grow older is evolving. I will open by deconstructing this phrase. Growing means developing, expanding, increasing in size or substance. Older means more advanced in the years of life.

Growing older is best understood contextually. In my youth, I embraced it enthusiastically. Growing older meant a driver’s license. Voting. College. Marriage and family. An interesting field of work. Travel. For the young, growing older is aspirational.

But youthful exuberance carries an expiration date. At some point in each of our lives, growing older loses its luster.

For me, this transition happened in my 50s. The idea of growing older became daunting. Turning 60 or 70 was less appealing than turning 20 or 30. Further, I failed to understand how people could grow old. Aging seemed the antithesis of growing. People became old. We attained old age. Actually, as we aged, growing ceased, replaced by diminishing. Diminishing height, stamina, cognition and, importantly, skin texture and elasticity. Our bodies may expand and increase in size or substance, true that. But aging seemed more a process of running down than of growth.

I formulated two theories to explain the fallacy of linking the concept of growing to aging. First, perhaps the term growing old arose from an unintentional mistranslation of Old German root words many years ago. Or second, it was intentionally developed as an ironic device to insure senior citizens know we are no longer evolving in a positive and useful way.

Fortunately my ability to learn and adjust persisted. As I reached my 60s, my understanding of aging continued to develop, thanks to lessons from those older and wiser than me. I reflected on the fact this phrase, growing old, has been in widespread use for centuries. Its longevity suggested it rested on a solid foundation. Was there a path that could help me understand that aging is – scientifically speaking of course – a growth process?

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During decades of family-building and work, one’s time is constrained. While they are years of growth, they are also years restricted by sturdy fences. The highest level action items are helping one’s family and contributing to the Social Security Trust Fund by remaining gainfully employed. Other activities rank lower on the priority scale.

As people attain higher levels of seniority in the job of life, their energy and fortitude lessens. Multiple well-performed medical studies offer confirmation.

But – assuming their health allows – people also have more freedom. Barriers which delimited family and work responsibilities become weathered and worn. Some of the fencing collapses. And new vistas emerge.

I thought back over my years practicing medicine and recalled many of my elderly patients becoming first-time photographers, book club members, overseas travelers, knitters, exercisers, community volunteers. They became mentors to troubled youth, part-time teachers, learned new cooking skills, got politically involved, took online courses to learn about medieval history or modern art.

Objective scientific assessment could only conclude these elderly people were growing. And, yes, they were growing older.

Unfortunately, not all senior citizens embrace the opportunities which open as the years accumulate. Some are unable to because of physical limitations. But others opt to rest after many decades of hard work. Or they prefer to dwell in the seductive lands unspooling on television and social media. They are getting older but not growing older.

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I continue foraging  down the path. Day by day, step by step. As I do so, I have learned what lies ahead is not strictly a process of simple subtraction. The equations of my future years can incorporate the process of simple addition.

And this is already underway. Since retiring, my wife and I travel more. We volunteer for Meals on Wheels. Spend more and better time with our grandchildren. Are active in voter turnout efforts. We gave Covid-19 vaccines at a local community clinic for six months. I teach medical students. Exercise more consistently. Joined a city commission on sustainability. Started a blog.

Of course some growth activities remain off limits. I refuse to sign up for art appreciation classes. Learning to crochet is not on my bucket list. Ballroom dancing is a dicey proposition because I would like to avoid fracturing my wife’s foot bones. The jury is still out on pickleball.

But novel opportunities abound. My challenge is to pick wisely among them.

Thanks to my fellow travelers, I have come to understand that whether to get old is not a choice. Whether to grow old is.

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September 2022

By Richard Fleming

An unusual feature of aging is the rapid acceleration of time. Each year goes by quicker than the preceding one. And much faster than those we lived through 5, 10, and 20 years ago. Astrophysicists advise us that time is not a fixed concept. As an object accelerates and approaches the speed of light, time slows down. And conversely as that object slows down, time moves more quickly. So it should not be surprising that for humans too, as we grow older and our rate of speed slows down, time speeds up. It is just basic astrophysics.

In my early years of practice, older patients often told me about this phenomenon. Most presented it as a complaint, a discriminatory experience. People in their 70s and 80s said how unfair it was that time accelerated as they aged. Time should be prolonged, not abbreviated. I sort of understood what they were reporting, but it did not really hit home until I was around age 50. After I had accumulated a half century’s worth of living, I began to notice this basic principle of astrophysics applied to me also. The interval between major holidays appeared to shorten. The time between birthdays shrunk noticeably.

Seasons began to fly by. In the old days, autumn – my favorite season – would shape the land for three months or even longer. When I was young, I loved to be outside as the temperature gradually cooled and leaves lazily turned to red and gold. Trees slowly shed their ornaments, and birds I had seen throughout the summer flew off and away. My friends and I played touch football in Topeka’s Edgewood Park, a short walk from where we lived, and the games seemed to go on for hours. Dusk gradually came earlier, but each day lingered for hours.

As I grew older, I noticed autumn growing shorter. No sooner did I start enjoying the magical fall transition than it was over. Trees grew bare quickly. The world assumed the gray hues of winter before autumn even matured. Time accelerated before my eyes. In grade school, an autumn weekend day would last forever. Now that I’m in my 70s, these same days vanish before I even take a deep breath.

There are other ways to understand the startling compression of time as we age. For example, when I took American history in high school, the country’s existence seemed to extend back for centuries. Because that was actually true. So much had happened. We studied our country’s major military conflicts, including the Revolution, the Civil War, and two World Wars. These conflicts were meaningful parts of our history, even though they were so ancient.

But aging casts the unspooling of history in a different light. I recently realized I have been alive for 29% of the total time the U.S. has existed. I have been breathing, living, and walking the earth for well over one quarter of the years since the country’s founding. (Am I being optimistic or pessimistic if I round this off to about one third?) I’ve been alive 45% of the time since the Civil War. That is close to half! It turns out the Civil War did not end all that long ago. OK, since I’ve piqued your curiosity, I’ve been alive for 68% of the years since the end of World War One. Don’t even ask about World War Two.

What happened? Where did time go? There are so many things I’ve been intending to do. I need to face the reality I won’t have time for them all. So many books will go unread. Those novels incubating in my brain will go unwritten.

I’m not full of despair, though. Not at all. I have done many things, seen many places, and read many books. I had a rewarding career. I’ve maintained many friendships, including a group of friends from Topeka I’ve been close with for over 60 years. I’ve been a good husband, step-father, and grandfather, and am proud of the family I’ve been part of building.

But there is always more. Always so much more. Why didn’t I manage my time more efficiently? Why didn’t I listen to those wise elders who told me a few decades back to not wait on things I wanted to accomplish. Or did they offer that advice just a few years ago? Time is amorphous, unstable, illusory. Clocks try to fool us. Calendars are deceptive and dishonest. Wristwatches are liars and cheats. Trust me when I say that none of these markers of time can be trusted.

So what lessons can I draw? While I wish my years ahead would be more and longer, I am where I am. Aging is helping my ability to focus. I will concentrate on fewer, more meaningful goals. I have months and years ahead and much life yet to live. I have memories still to create, both for myself and my family. And when my time comes, these memories will be the main legacy I bequeath to my family and loved ones.

Yes, it would be nice if time would slow down as though I was approaching the speed of light. But it can be fulfilling and rewarding to live fully at the speed of life.

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