The deep dive of aging

It's tragedy and comedy combined, but we do have a choice in how we to respond to it

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas

IF YOU’RE LIKE 71-year-old me, you’ll be filling out an online form whose drop-down menu asks for your birth year and wonder if there’s any bottom to this deep dive. Mine looks like this:

2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
1979
1978
1977
1976
1975
1974
1973
1972
1971
1970
1969
1968
1964
1963
1962
1961
1960
1959
1958
1957
1956
1955
1954

Whew. Still with me?

The exercise is like being one of those free divers who plunge to ocean depths of up to 400 feet just so they can say they did it.

Well, I did it, but my mouse finger started growing weak somewhere in the mid-’80s; I began perspiring in the ’70s; and I began blacking out — appropriately, I suppose, for a Baby Boomer — somewhere in the ’60s.

When I reached the bottom, I was just short of comatose.

So, this is the lighter side of growing older, the side where you take aging with a grain of salt. The side that involves She Who asking if I’ll hand her a piece of paper and I hand her a nearby stapler.

“I said paper, not stapler,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I promise I’ll get hearing aids next year, but not now. Too many moving parts in 2025.”

The more serious side of growing older is sitting down with a friend at a cafe, as I did two weeks ago.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m starting to get forgetful,” he said, eyes turning glassy. “I’ve been diagnosed with the start of dementia.”

And so here we are, descending into the darkness of the ocean’s depths, the unknown, the inevitable — though, unlike the free divers, not by choice. Unlike the divers, we are not wearing masks to seal out the water but masks of comedy and tragedy to seal in the polar emotions that comprise this time of life.