We are the emerging seniors! Whether we are 50 or 80, we are emerging in force. With lifestyle options that our parents never dreamed of, but which can be ours, with some planning and deliberation. Yet, this new stage of our life’s journey can also create in each of us an “in-between” feeling that we may not have experienced since junior high. We don’t feel “old” as we expected “old” to feel. But we also don’t feel like we did in early adulthood with so much of adult life still forming.
Remember when we were in junior high? We were no longer small kids, given some slack by older kids and grown-ups. Looming ahead of us was that terrifying high school with intimidating older kids. We thought that that in-between feeling was over when, as successful adults, we finally felt older and wiser ourselves.
Now here we are again at an in-between stage that we may not relish, or fully embrace, but cannot avoid. No longer physically or mentally quite as quick and strong as we were ten or twenty years ago, but fearing that thing we call “being old.” And yet it is coming. We are marching steadily towards it. We look at our cohorts who are aging faster and think ”Not me!” Then we look in a mirror and are surprised at who is looking back. We are not yet stooped or diminished in any obvious way, but our reality check shows us that we are also not as quick, mentally or physically, as we were just yesterday. That seeming proximity of “just yesterday” is also frightening as we look ahead, and wonder how quickly we will arrive at that stage called “being old.” We begin to wonder if we will have enough time, or money, to accomplish all that we still have on our ‘to do’ lists.
As a Gerontologist I have come to believe that this is the best time to take stock, to reevaluate priorities and plans. Having a Plan A as well as a Plan B for the future is the best way to put those concerns to rest and to move confidently through the next stages of our journey. By realizing that this is another transition phase, we can evaluate what we will need to be really successful in the culminating stages of our life’s journey. It is important to take inventory of our desires, our finances, our physical health and limitations, our legal paperwork that delineates our wishes as well as appoints those who can be trusted to carry out our wishes, and the work-arounds that we will want to be ready to implement if, and when, they are needed.
With that accomplished, it is time to put all concerns aside and stride confidently into this new stage of life, where we can be the ones with experience to share, new interests to pursue, problems to resolve and joys to experience. It is a time for renewed goal setting in line with the realities we will encounter. We will be the first generation to have available some of what we will enjoy as we travel this journey: assisted living arrangements that are fun and attractive, encore career opportunities, self-driving cars and Uber and Lyft type systems to assist with transportation when we cannot drive, assistive devices for work-arounds for many of the nuisances we will face, and 24/7 home care available for as much or as little as needed…. And, the best part is that we can help develop these, and more that we can imagine, for our own use for when we get there.
So, Emerging Seniors, the best may be yet to come. Enjoy and conquer!