If things go to plan, growing old is something we all expect to face at some point. When we are young – like, really young – we don’t feel as if this is the truth. Older people, even those our parents’ age, seem like a whole different species. Then we make it to adulthood, and it seems slightly more within the realms of possibility, but still like something we may miraculously manage to postpone indefinitely. Then we hit middle age. This is where I’m at now. Things start to go wrong. Things that used to be so easy we didn’t spare them a thought suddenly feel like immense challenges (like, you know, getting out of bed in the morning). Old age suddenly feels much, much closer.
Because I’ve got medical issues, and because we’ve all been living through a global pandemic, death has felt like it’s riding shotgun for a few years now. I’m at the point where I’m realizing that growing old isn’t something to dread – it’s something to hope for. I’ve been looking up how much each of my different medical issues is supposed to shorten my life expectancy, and it’s looking like I’ll be lucky to make it much past my mid-60s. I hope that estimation is based on old information that has been improved substantially by advances in treatment. I hope I’ll hit 70 still swinging. But. I have no way to know, and then there’s how much extra is shaved off by the comorbidity of various things occurring in one body. So who knows. I’m basically just crossing my fingers and trying not to think about it.
All of this has been swirling around in my mind, so when I saw this book, I thought I might as well find out what I probably will miss out on, or what will likely hit me a lot sooner than planned. Also I find I can relate to some of what people typically don’t experience until retirement, because it’s already happening. The subtitle of this book is what really got me though – it denotes a certain sarcastic approach that I can definitely appreciate.
I hadn’t heard of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas before, which is surprising because she spent most of her life writing about her travels and experiences with pre-contact hunter-gatherer societies. I have a degree in Anthropology, so this is something I’ve read a lot about, I might even have read some of her work without her name sticking with me. She discusses her work and some of the adventures she had in this book, and man, she has lived several lives already (I’ll let you find out why she has a tiger’s poop in her freezer). But one of the most interesting aspects of her previous studies of other cultures very different from our own is how she is able to compare different ways of viewing and dealing with things like age, family and death. I really liked learning about some of the different ways humans have found to deal with these important and central aspects of humanity. It’s a good reminder that there’s not just one way of seeing aging, nor is there only one option for what happens to us at the end of our days.
Further to that, Thomas shares how it feels to deal with aspects of aging. She discusses losing her partner. Losing friends. Having a medical emergency while alone with no one close by to help. The pros and cons of retirement communities. The value of living alone. And the importance of planning for the inevitable. She is realistic about things she might not be able to do anymore (at least, not without being a burden on those around her), and accepts that some things have irrevocably changed. It’s interesting to spend this time with her, and meandering down all these paths. I liked her forthright and blunt approach, and I laughed at her flat refusal early in the book to give up some of the things she loves, but knows aren’t good for her.
I didn’t find that this book was 100% wonderful, there were some parts that really had me nodding or giggling, others that didn’t really hold my interest. But it was worth the time I spent on it, and I definitely thing it’s one that will have value to anyone facing old age (particularly facing it alone and/or someone who is used to a lot of independence and adventure) or for people who want to understand what those in their lives who are going through this phase of life are feeling and thinking about. Important topic, well written, sometimes funny, not too depressing.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, chronicling the customs of pre-contact hunter-gatherers and the secret lives of deer and dogs. In this book, the capstone of her long career, Thomas, now eighty-eight, turns her keen eye to her own life. The result is an account of growing old that is at once funny and charming and intimate and profound, both a memoir and a life-affirming map all of us may follow to embrace our later years with grace and dignity.
A charmingly intimate account and a broad look at the social and historical traditions related to aging, Growing Old explores a wide range of issues connected with growing older, from stereotypes of the elderly as burdensome to the methods of burial humans have used throughout history to how to deal with a concerned neighbor who assumes you’re buying cat food to eat for dinner. – Goodreads
Book Title: Growing Old
Author: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook
Published By: HarperOne
Released: April 28, 2020
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Aging, Culture
Pages: 224
Date Read: June 19-July 2, 2024
Rating: 7/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.69/5 (438 ratings)