Try This On!

Try this on! The Golden years? Well, it turns out, some of us are not so sure. Maybe it's more the Iron Age Years, when it takes iron will to get up in the morning and make it through the day, secure in sufficient armor to protect one from assaults of body and mind, heart and soul, and yes, aging.

Or perhaps it is the Brass Age, when one discovers the machinations of the brassy are the real contributors to survival and overcoming the attacks of aging and change and uncertainty.

Maybe, however, it is really the Copper Age, when one turns green with envy observing the freedom and alacrity and insouciance of the young.

We come to retirement with expectations, only to find, too frequent disappointment. We face the golden years with fantasies of freedom, challenges in the number of choices we can make with what to do with our time and energy in one day. We discover the wonder of not having to be "on time," except for a doctor's appointment, or a meeting with our broker to decide if income will outlast life span.

Yet, with all of that, there are glorious, delicious moments. One of the practices I have developed, at almost 70, is choosing the cocktail hour to include a series of phone calls to persons all over America, with whom I have frequent evening telephonic communication. The voice and its inflections radiate much greater intimacy than the word on an email sent at some odd hour.

So, when lonely or challenged, afraid or distressed, deliriously happy and ready to share, pick up the phone and call one of those other whatever-genarians, with whom you have shared wonderful life moments and travel to other times and places, remembered only by the two of you.
It will make the moment the Age of Communication, which is and remains the best age of all.