Years ago, in the late 1990s, I was reporting a story about the wafting program run by River Dave on the Eno River in Durham. It was popular program that involved paddling up a mile-long mill-dammed section of the Eno, then drifting back down, both physically and spiritually.
During the summer, River Dave ran the program three times a day on weekdays, then usually one night a week on weekends. I understood why outdoorsy types were drawn to the program, but was curious about its obviously extensive appeal among the masses, so I set out one weekday and interviewed about a dozen “wafters.”
I had finished interviewing one woman and, as newspaper reporters are want to do, I asked her age. She paused, then simply said, “I’m old.”
It was an unexpected reply. “Why do you say that?” I finally asked.
She smiled. “I … one day I just woke up and thought, ‘I’m old.’ I just realized I was old. It came out of nowhere.”
As we continued to talk she revealed her age as 62. I was 45 at the time and thought to myself, “Yeah, you are old.”
I recalled this exchange when I turned 62 some 17 years later. “Funny,” I thought, “I don’t feel old.” And that lead me to wonder just when, if ever, does that occur, that you just wake up one day and think, “I’m old”?
The woman from my paddling interview did not appear or act old. I mean, she was out here on a hot July day paddling, after all. Yet some switch had flipped in her mind that suddenly made her think otherwise.
I’ve thought about this exchange increasingly as I approached 70, an age that none of my grandparents achieved. 70 — technically, that means I’m no longer middle-aged, unless I expect to live to 140. There are things I can no longer do, like run a trail marathon in less than 4 and a half hours. But there are so many things that I can do and, frankly, they’re the things I want to do.
I may not hike 25 miles every weekend, but I still hike. I may not climb onto the roof to clean gutters any more (though frankly that’s not something I should have been doing in the first place), but I’m still basically a DIY type. If I think about it, there’s really nothing I can’t do any longer that I wish I could.
It’s a sign of aging, sure. But not a sign of being old.