Aging Gracefully: Who needs it?

I’m not patient, laid-back, or compliant so when I hear the expression “age gracefully” all my hairs stand up. It’s unlikely for me to go to my grave any other way but kicking, screaming, and leaving fingernail marks in the sand as I get dragged. A boom in the head in the middle of the ocean at age 95 sounds acceptable, primarily because I’m nowhere near 95 and it feels comfortably far off at the moment. Heaven help anyone who tries to ease me into a lifestyle deemed comfortable and appropriate. I refuse to “go gentle into that good night.”

Aging gracefully is a matter of luck. If you’re lucky enough to have a boat, a friend with a boat, or the money for chartering, then you’re lucky enough. As long as I can swing a healthy leg over the lifelines, I can take a dinghy sailing on a mid-winter afternoon. On the water, my muscle memory kicks in, I become completely present and clear-headed, and the glimmer of the sunshine on my bow wave makes me glad I untied the dock lines. It’s the best way I know how to add a twinkle to my wrinkle.

Sometimes I miss my big boat so much it physically hurts. I poured 15 years of elbow grease and countless dollars into her, but life got in the way and I had to sell. For a while, life continued to get in the way and I felt stuck and untethered. “Was this me getting old?” I contemplated with horror. This intrusive thought hit me like a cold plunge challenge. 

I thought about a dear friend who is 104 and nothing short of phenomenal. Not much has slowed her down—ever. She was a code girl during the war, she ran a one-room schoolhouse in Wyoming that had no running water or electricity, and she moved to teach in Alaska as a single woman in the 1950s because it sounded exciting. She’s tiny but mighty. Her face lights up at the thought of riding on a sailboat in the warm sunshine. She may need to be carried down the dock, but her enthusiasm once aboard is contagious. 

Thinking about her sense of adventure and how it has sustained her throughout the decades gave me the swift kick I needed. I’ve started jumping on boats whether I have the time or the inclination. I say yes to day sails with friends, to mid-week beer can races, and to every charter where I can savor a delicious sunrise. And something inside me has shifted. I’ve stopped talking to myself about myself and have taken a vacation from myself. This is, after all, a part of the kicking and screaming before the final reckoning that I’ve always envisioned. Getting old is for the birds, so I might as well put up a fight. Currently, I’m working toward my next goal of an Atlantic crossing. Until then, I’ll volunteer to help friends with rigging or even cleaning bilges. Varnishing, on the other hand, is a bridge too far.

As Gertrude Stein said: “We’re always the same age on the inside.” It just took me getting off the sofa to realize it. In some small and surreal way, sailing feeds my soul and gives me the purpose I need to slow the march of time. 

At its most basic, aging gracefully is a matter of resources and attitude. So long as I have health on my side and resources like time and money, then I have the means to do things with fortitude, and arguably also with grace. After that, there’s only my attitude. And since I’m in complete charge of that, there’s no excuse. 

March 2026