1990s FOUR LAYER BIRTHDAY CAKE WITH RASPBERRIES AND STRAWBERRIES (Photo by J. Graham/ClassicStock/Getty Images)
getty
After studying aging for decades, one of my conclusions is the importance of having a sense of humor. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reminded me of this. The article described how past a certain age dinner reservations after 6:00 are considered late. In a group of couples, the familiar pattern is of men sitting at one end and women at the other. The conversations are about sports at one end and about grandchildren at the other. When the whole group is involved, the conversation shifts to who fell or whose funeral they recently attended. Why Saturday Night Live doesn’t seem as funny anymore or how we don’t know most of the people in People magazine.
What makes this article funny is how true it is at this age. Similarly, there is a classic scene in the 1991 movie City Slickers. Billy Crystal is invited to his son’s elementary school class to explain his career in radio advertising. But Crystal goes off-script, and instead describes (to the bewildered and horrified children) how life can go downhill as you get older. It is hilarious. If you haven’t seen this clip or it has been a long time, watch it again.
Many of my previous columns have stressed the importance of pushing back on the (often negative) stereotypes of aging. My hope is that when you turn 70 and beyond you are living the life that you want to live—rather than the one you are expected to accept.
Realizing You’re The Oldest Person In The Room
Joyce Maynard, a New York Times best-selling author, recently shared her perspective on aging in an essay. “I was the baby in my family … I published my first memoir at 19; published my first novel at 26, got hired by the CBS News at 20, and went to work for the New York Times as a reporter at 21.” She was usually the youngest person in the room. Maynard said, “Now when I’m on a plane, or in line at some store, or on a beach running down to the water, I often look around and realize I’m the oldest person in sight.”
While Maynard’s career trajectory is unique, you’ve probably experienced something similar. Many of our formative experiences happen when we’re the youngest person in the room (or at least, not the oldest), and we can carry that sense of personal location with us for many years unchallenged.
Similar to Maynard, it wasn’t until I approached 70 that I realized things had changed; now I was often the oldest person in the room or close to it. I would find myself in Board meetings, on the subway, or in clothing stores looking around and concluding I had the most years of life experience. While I did not feel old and I didn’t think they were treating me as such, it was a strange realization.
“Milestones” like this, while not negative per se, can feel unsettling or even sad. That’s why finding and maintaining your sense of humor around these common experiences is so important.
Find Humor To Rewrite What 70 Means To You
Roger Rosenblatt is an author who has written many essays and books on aging. One book was Rules of Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life became a national bestseller. Newsday called it “the humorous, thinking man’s self-help book.” He followed this book with More Rules for Aging: Making the Most of Your Ridiculous, Wonderful Life. These books remind us to not take ourselves so seriously. It is best to be self-deprecating, have the ability to laugh at ourselves, and to try to find the humor in situations. Life happens and some of it is just plain funny.
Laughter can be a coping mechanism. Catherine Hiller recently published a humorous essay on Substack called Aging is Funny, Okay? She writes, “If we can laugh about something (divorce, decrepitude, death), it makes it less potent. Laughing about one’s fears is one way to cope with them.”
Hiller continues, “Perhaps mortality presents the ultimate contrast between what should be and what is. We may feel that we should live forever, but when we’re old and death starts claiming our friends, we know that we, too, will die. We always knew this theoretically, but in old age we know it for real.”
Nora Ephron became famous for her sense of humor. She wrote and directed iconic romantic comedies including When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail,” and Julie and Julia. But did you know Ephron also wrote a book titled I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman? It is witty, smart, and honest. After reading her book, I could not stop looking at my neck!
For my 70th birthday, a friend gave me the book by Judith Viorst I’m Too Young to be 70: And Other Delusions. It is a book of poems where Viorst shares advice, wisdom, and humor. Her writing is trying to help us come to terms with getting older. Viorst invites us to consider, “drinking wine, making love, laughing hard, caring hard, and learning a new trick or two as part of our job description at seventy.”
In reality, there are losses that often accompany aging. But humor reframes loss as absurdity instead of tragedy. The bottom line is to keep your sense of humor. Laughter can be the best medicine. We are all getting older. No one is getting younger. Recently Ted Danson shared his four tips on aging on CBS Sunday Morning and he said, “Keep laughing. You have to laugh. Maybe that is why I made it my career.”
[EP1]My family’s version is “Guess who died?” hahaha
