The Weird Surprise of Growing Old
Catherine Hiller tries to make sense of the astonishment so many of us feel when we look in the mirror.
If there’s anything that should not surprise us, it’s growing old. Everyone we have ever known has always been growing older. We have known this since we were small, and at first we loved the idea. Toddlers are excited to turn 3. Adolescents are thrilled to turn 16 or 18. Adults celebrate turning 30 and 40, although we’re often less happy with 50 and 60. And upon turning 70—well, we can no longer claim “late middle age.” We have passed “midlife”; we are, at least chronologically, old.
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten,” says the Bible. For millennia, 70 was considered a good long lifespan, but now it’s just the relocated portal to old age. Today, a 70-year-old woman in the US can expect to live, on average, to 85-87 years, while a 70-year-old US man can expect to live to 83-85 years.
At 70, then, we have plenty of time ahead of us to be old. And before that, we’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea of being old. Plenty of time to understand that how we feel and how we look may not be perfectly aligned. Plenty of time to read books about preventing aging—as well as books about embracing aging.
So why at 70 are we surprised to find ourselves cast upon the shore of old age? Surprise is surely ridiculous yet . . .
I don’t know a single person of 70 or older who is not astonished that they, too, have grown old. At 78, I’m still absorbing this idea myself, and I announce my age a lot, in sheer disbelief. (I’ll confess it’s gratifying when people feign shock at the number.)
Toddlers are excited to turn 3. Adolescents are thrilled to turn 16 or 18. Adults celebrate turning 30 and 40, although we’re often less happy with 50 and 60. And upon turning 70—well, we can no longer claim “late middle age.” We have passed “midlife”; we are, at least chronologically, old.
“The most common emotion people feel about getting old is surprise,” wrote sociologist and author Martha Beck on her website in 2022. “I remember reading this in my 30s and finding it hilarious. Surprise? About the single most predictable thing in life? Oh, those old folks, I thought. Those doddering darlings! How silly they are! I’m pretty sure that was last week. Except now I’m about to turn 60.”
We age year by year, inexorably—so what is the source of our bizarre and irrational surprise at becoming old?
One sage philosopher explains it as follows:
“Part of the surprise lies in the gradual nature of aging—years pass, but day-to-day life often feels static. Days blur into weeks, and before we know it, decades have passed. This phenomenon creates a feeling of disconnect between our internal sense of self (which may feel youthful) and the external markers of age (grey hair, slower movement).”
(That sage philosopher is Chat GPT4, which—whom?—I sometimes consult and always credit.)
I think it’s like inflation. The price of eggs isn’t that high compared to last year’s price, but we also unconsciously measure it against some average price eggs have cost throughout our lives. This average is maybe $2.49—so $5.99 for a dozen eggs now seems exorbitant.
I don’t know a single person of 70 or older who is not astonished that they, too, have grown old. At 78, I’m still absorbing this idea myself, and I announce my age a lot, in sheer disbelief. (I’ll confess it’s gratifying when people feign shock at the number.)
Similarly, we are not comparing age 70 to age 69 but to some sort of average age we vaguely feel ourselves to be. I call it the Law of Personal Averaging: the tendency to blend past and present in how we perceive our age. If we see ourselves as, say, 45, it feels completely insane that at our next birthday, 70, we are in the category old!
Our mental image of ourselves (some nights I still feel irresistible!) hasn’t caught up with our chronological age, so the turnings of the decades come as a surprise. I haven’t met a single person whose personal age is older than their actual one.
The shock of that old face in the unexpected mirror or shop window produces a similar surprise. In our mind’s eye, we are younger, perhaps middle-aged. It seems just yesterday that I didn’t want to look middle-aged—now it’s an aspiration!
So who is that crone staring back at me? Surely not the same woman recently photographed at the beach, in golden light at sunset, with her standard photo face. We all have one. Mine features high cheekbones and a wide smile. Perhaps we come to think we really look like that photo face, so it’s a jolt when we see that we usually do not. Some random, ill-lit mirror has shown us the surprising truth. (My own makeup mirror bathes me in a flattering light, a deliberate choice to help boost my confidence.)
The Law of Personal Averaging also applies here. We kind of think we look some average age between 20 and 70: say 50. So we are dismayed when the cashier or the conductor gives us the senior discount without our even asking for it. How did we get to be here? And how does everybody know?
The shock of that old face in the unexpected mirror or shop window produces a similar surprise. In our mind’s eye, we are younger, perhaps middle-aged. It seems just yesterday that I didn’t want to look middle-aged—now it’s an aspiration!
Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables, “Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.” What, then is 70? The middle of old age? A man on Quora opines, “If 70 isn’t old age, then what the fuck do you think it is?” Yet demographers distinguish between the “young old” of 70-80, the old of 80-90, and the “old-old” of 90-100. After that there’s the glory of being a centenarian, of which there are some 100,000 in the USA today, a group that is expected to triple in the next 30 years. Most are probably as surprised to be 100 as I am to be 78.
The disconnect is real. One friend says, “It’s this weird feeling when you look in the mirror—as if you don’t belong in that body.”
Surprise! You do! You’re old!
Catherine Hiller writes the Substack newsletter The Pleasure Principle.
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At ninety-two, with mobility now all but gone, aches and pains becoming more acute, and a growing sense of alienation from a world in tatters, I still say this. Here's to old age, with its added perspective on life itself, growing curiosity about what lies ahead, and he many gifts long-term memory offers. I still find old age a great adventure, maybe because I've reached this conclusion. Life is at its best when lived for the sake of giving to others, not taking from them.
Nobody tells us how quickly we start aging postmenopausal! It's like overnight you gain 15 pounds, your hair falls out, your face starts melting, and your skin is splotches and dry to boot. And where are all these bruises coming from??