I am bone-weary of people who complain to me about getting old as a source of unrelenting cost, misery, and diminution. When I hear how nobody cares, and doctors don’t talk, and insurance is insane, I can shake my head. All true, but I’m not sure talking about it will ever change a single thing.

Age definitely has its problems, but so does any other stage of life. Being young was an unrelenting nightmare for me. Being old is a lot of meaning and satisfaction. I can’t quite account for it.

I admit one different thing – and a big thing – about getting older is that death is no longer such a remote possibility.

It has calmed me down and focused me on what matters. I can let so much baggage slip away and disappear. Age is a great liberator, looked at in a certain way. I’ve never felt freeer.

I see aging as a kind of life chess: it makes a move, I make a move, and we know who ends up outsmarting each other in the end.

In our culture, we run and hide both from aging and death. We love bad news, but we can’t stomach real news. When it comes, so many people I know are entirely unprepared.

They seemed stunned by the idea that they might get sick and that they might – well – die.

People rush to Facebook to share the news, and everyone writes that they are sorry. But I suspect something is often missing – a spiritual underpinning of thought and perspective that helps us get ready. If we can’t deal with aging, we have no chance of coping with death.

I think the whole idea of lurching towards the end of my life keeps me sharp and thinking, and not in a morbid way; it’s kind of exciting. I’m not fighting it; I’m responding to it, hopefully in a creative way. There is no denying it.

There are some things I can do something about, other things I can’t. It’s not always easy to know the difference.

As you know, I work with the elderly almost every day at the Mansion, and I have great love and respect for the people I meet and work with there, aides and residents alike.

They have a lot to complain about. Living in assisted care, separated from family, friends, grandchildren, work, and freedom, is a painful and challenging experience. So is working there.

As I get older, I identify with these people even more.

But I never complain about my age, or aging, or about health care.  Billy Graham changed my life so many years ago when he sat down with me on a park bench and scolded me for whining about the price of gas.

Don’t white about the cost of things, he said; they will always be going up. Don’t talk poorly of your life. It is listening, and you will become your prophet of ruin and grow up to be an angry and nasty older man.

There are too many of them as it is, he said, be something else.

His words went right to the depth of my soul and stayed there; they are there still. That was one sermon that went right to my heart.

I see getting older as one of the significant creative challenges of my life, and all my life, I have met creative challenges head-on, winning some, losing others, but never giving up.

Like most people my age, I have noticed some short-term memory loss. I understand this is commonplace and somewhat inevitable, and I accept it.

To me, another creative challenge, perhaps the ultimate one. I keep getting awakened to the reality of life, which has been very good for me and very healthy for me. I am no longer shocked by the nature of life.

For the first time in my life, I went out (online, you can be leather journals in the country) and found a beautiful red leather-covered Daily Journal for the rest of this year and 2022. This is quite overdue and has become a valued and essential journal and schedule keeper of my daily life.

I keep it on the dining room table right next to where I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the morning, the first thing I do is record my weight (I lost 11 pounds in the last month) and my daily appointments, obligations, and responsibilities.

When I agree to visit the Mansion or drive into Albany to Bishop Maginn High School, see a doctor or meet a friend, pay a bill, fill up the refrigerator, take some of my more exotic medications, or get the dog to a vet or order hay or wood, I write it in the journal right away.

Without writing something in this book, I don’t make any commitments or appointments, becoming a journal of life and a life-saver. It has a better mind than I ever did, at any age.

And I admit it is satisfying to look page over the dynamic pages and see the story of my life, as well as my appointments.

Over the past few years, I’ve blown more than a few appointments because I thought I could keep them all in my head, and I was reluctant to admit that I couldn’t, especially after my heart attack and a growing circle of doctors and tests.

And no, I do not have Alzheimer’s; I’m just getting older.

I have a few choices when it comes to getting older. I am either do old talk (“when you get to our age, etc.”) and join the Army of the Discontent,  or I can look for a solution. I panicked one recent Sunday because I had a problem with my Leica which I couldn’t fix.

Instead of panicking the next time, I did some homework and found a certified Leica instructor I could call when there was trouble.

I don’t need to panic anymore when my camera acts up or gets rebellious; I can call Sawyer at the Leica Academy. The same with my friend Andrew, the Apple whiz in Vermont. When there is trouble with my Mac or Iphone, I can call him, and he will help me.

I identify the sources of emotional difficulty and get the right help. It’s a wonderful alternative to fear and complaint. I don’t have to bitch about the price of things, the difficulty getting help with cameras or the headaches of devices. The Rev. Graham’s caution have never left me. There’s room for only so much in anybody’s head, and I prefer it to be something good and meaningful.

My therapist and I have reunited after a separation of a dozen years, and talking to her helps me finally shows me how to respect myself and to blow off the strange and broken people who live to tell me what to do and what I feel.

There are a lot of haters out there, and I will have to live with them and get on with my life. They are a part of life now, just like higher gasoline and food prices. I suspect on some level, I might even miss them.

My Journal Of  Daily Living is a big step in the right direction for me. It is my memory, my journal of obligation; it has given me a simple, inexpensive, but powerfully effective way of meeting my responsibilities, helping my memory, and learning to pivot with the changes of growing older.

It takes away my excuses and reminds me that I am responsible for my life.

I say this to my body all the time: you make a move, I’ll make a move. I say this to life. Let’s see who breaks first, as if I didn’t know.