When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
I had coffee today with a baby editor. And by that I mean he has acquired and published exactly one book. I’m guessing he’s 25. I’m 62. You know how you walk around for most of you life and feel like you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing? Not today at coffee. I felt like a life wizard, I felt like I had a hundred years of solitude. I remember when I first started taking agents to lunch when I was a baby editor. God it was painful. They were such assholes. I remember one agent dressing down a waiter and I didn’t have the gumption to say something. I had lunch with a guy who had four bloody mary’s and talked about the one big hit he had twenty years ago. It was always an ordeal. I think I’m nicer. More approachable. Less braggy. Less of a showboat. But who knows? I will say I was glad to be at the end of the road instead of the beginning.
Where are you in your life?
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Betsy Lerner 
i’m 57 and almost divorced and taking a screenwriting certificate course out of UCLA. i have no fucking idea what i’m doing and that’s all right. #carryon
24,104 days and counting! I’ll be 66 on Thursday (and have plenty of arthritis to show for it). I still love waking up each morning and easing into the day. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing half the time either, but I’ve learned to hang on and enjoy the ride!
They say you’re happier when you’re older. Less self-doubt, or maybe you’ve just come to terms with that self-doubt. More time spent with loved ones, less time with soul suckers, and the wisdom to tell the difference. Less time spent on BS. Maybe because you realize there’s left time to waste, and your BS meter has become honed to surgical precision over the years. Less worried about hitting the next rung in the ladder. Yet, somehow, strangely, happier, good health, actually thoroughly enjoying life. Writing every morning, working still, into my 60s, and, strangely, loving it. Knock on wood.
“Where are you in your life?”
In the autumn of my time, with winter drawing nigh. Those crops left unharvested will rot in the fields, returning to the dust from which they arose.
I am trying to avoid the age-old old age snares of resentment and complaint; however, as I showed recently hereabouts, into those traps I can fall. Shall I chew off a foot and free myself?
Is it my fate to be a Lion in Winter? Can I choose that? Or are my options all closed down, hemmed in by choices I made along the way, or by the fate that set me out to be as I am and no other?
I don’t know. Let’s go see.
At 70, I am perhaps more hopeful than ever, having survived much. I am free now to pursue my writing goals with no other responsibility than maintaining my body and mind. I know more…and less…and I seem to be okay with where I am.
60. I was talking about that today. You don’t know what age is when you’re young you think the moon face of a child looking into your pram is old. Then you can’t imagine prefect with tin badges not being old. You’re mum and dad weren’t old. They were like trees. Just there.
Winding down, ready to retire at 67. Well, probably not really retire, but for sure leave the rat race I’m in now. I often walk to work, a mile and a half mostly along the lake shore. This morning it was a trudge through the first significant snowfall of the season. The lake was beautiful, black water contrasting with the fresh snow. Where am I now? Often has been the time when I’ve wanted to pass by my destination and just keep walking. The day I retire, I’ll do just that.
I just turned 76 and I’m letting go of the hustle, writing what I like to write, submitting where I want, living my best life. At last. Definitely more at peace with myself and my place in the world. Hope it sticks as I round that final corner to…?
I love this.
A perfect plan for a writer going forward. I’ll remember this.
63 – might as well say 64.
A survivor – of the most scary kind of crap.
Oh, and I’m considered nice. Maybe too nice, sometimes.
And adding – at a point where less is more. In all things, from writing to the rest.
Where am I in my life?
There’s a lot more sand in the bottom of the hourglass than in the top. I keep wondering what I could have done when I was younger to make this transition to less ‘beach’ easier? Not a damn thing. WTF, it just happens, if you’re lucky.
I like where I’m at.
Bylines come easily. They run whatever I write. My shtick…I’m a minnow in a mud puddle. Suits me.