The Strange Reality of Turning 70

So I made it to 2026. I'm 70 now, and my health has begun to decline rather precipitously. After being on extremely expensive blood thinners for about three months to prevent clots, stroke, and heart attack, my body is now, for some reason, making far too many red blood cells. The result is very thick blood. My rising hematocrit numbers are a growing concern.

There are indications that, along with heart and kidney issues, this blood problem may be part of the larger process of decline that eventually comes for all of us.

If it weren’t happening to me, it would actually be a fascinating look at how humans age and slowly break down before the end.

Reaching seventy is a strange milestone. In my head, I’m still twenty-five.

The late George Harrison once said in an interview, “It’s nothing to go from 17 to 57. It just happens so fast.”

For me, the years from 50 to 70 passed in the blink of an eye.

In that short stretch of time, I lost my mother, my brother-in-law, a sister entered memory care, a dear friend next door passed away, and a nephew’s young son died far too early. My ex-wife lost her father and her life changed as well.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, my perception of time — and my own mortality — shifted dramatically.

Intellectually, I’ve always known that all living things eventually die. But watching it happen in real time is something else entirely. It’s a jolt to the consciousness.

At seventy, that jolt hits exponentially harder.

Living alone with almost no human contact forces me to have these conversations entirely inside my own mind. There’s no outside input, only my own worries and concerns echoing around.

It probably isn’t healthy to live so isolated.

But it’s the life I chose many years ago for reasons that seemed solid at the time. Back then, it felt easier.

Looking back, I clearly didn’t think it through.

My mind needs more input now — more living, more nature, more discovery, some kind of passion for something… anything.

Today a neighbor and his wife came over and started vacuuming leaves in my yard with two mowers. It was an oddly uncomfortable experience watching it happen.

Just a few minutes earlier, I had been talking with him about some of my health issues — something I seem unable to avoid when asked how things are going. The next thing I knew, he and his wife were bagging leaves in my yard.

Do they see a frailty in me that I can feel but don’t want to acknowledge?

Are my health problems becoming visible to others?

My mother used to tell me, " Never tell everything to anyone."

I’ve had trouble in the past from forgetting that advice and saying too much before thinking.

People — even well-meaning people — don’t actually want to hear all your problems. They probably have plenty of their own. And once they hear yours, they feel obligated to respond: What can I do to help?

But most of the time I’m not asking for help. I’m simply answering the question.

So perhaps the better response when someone asks how things are going is the one my mother suggested long ago:

“Fine. It’s great to be alive. Thanks for asking. How are you?”

One thing has always been certain:

Nothing is for certain.

If I wake up tomorrow, it’s a good day.

If God’s plan for me doesn’t end today, then I need to have a plan of my own and go get after it.

Worry won’t cure anything. Concern won’t heal the cause of it.

Find something else to think about.
Do something — anything.
Just get up, move, and keep moving forward.

If I make it to 71, it won’t be because I sat around worrying about my health when I could have been living every single moment and absorbing some kind of life — any kind.

The end will come soon enough.

There’s no need to invite it early.

More peace.
More music.
Laugh some.
Worry less.

Live every minute.

Go to the gym.

 

Notes from the Edge of the Circle

If I were to die right now while writing this, it might be months before anyone discovered it.

My bills are on autopay. Months sometimes pass without a text or a phone call from anyone I once knew. That’s the reality of the life I ended up living.

Being just a couple of years shy of seventy has me conserving what energy I have left to live the days God may give me. Yet I still spend long stretches of days looking back over this life, trying to understand how I arrived here—living in a quiet isolation that sometimes feels like a hermit’s life.

I’ve managed to avoid the usual woe-is-me that often accompanies stories like this. I did well financially and spent years traveling the world with a job that was often interesting and sometimes even fun. But none of those things ever quieted the restless places in my mind.

At my age, thoughts about mortality seem natural. For me they come almost daily. Not in panic or fear, but in quiet acknowledgment of how life has unfolded.

When the matriarch of our family, my grandmother, passed away, the family slowly drifted apart. What had once held everyone together disappeared, and we rarely gathered again except when someone else died.

The Bible says we are meant to leave our parents and go build families of our own. That seems to work for most people. I tried once. Soon after, I found myself pushed out of that life and never attempted it again.

Looking back, the pattern may have started earlier than I realized. As a child, I was often told to play alone rather than with the other kids in the neighborhood. That solitude followed me through school and into adulthood, where being quiet and apart was sometimes mistaken for arrogance when it was really just distance.

A kid who played alone.
A man who stayed that way.

The square peg.

Being young and alone is one thing. Growing old and alone is something else entirely.

Still, I sometimes miss the years when it might have been possible to turn things another way.

In memoriam to easier times, and to those of us who never quite fit anywhere.

twenty twenty four

Another year is almost gone.

One failed marriage quietly set the course for the rest of my life. A long road of solitude that now stretches behind me farther than I ever imagined it would.

The old music still brings the same emotion it always did. The songs, the memories, the people who once filled my life—they all come back the same way they did then. Those days were beautiful, and like most people living through them, I had no idea how quickly they would disappear.

A small part of my life today couldn’t be more perfect. The larger parts remain broken beyond repair—questions that will never be answered and paths that can never be walked again.

Many times I’ve wondered what it would mean if I could trade the successes I’ve had for the failures that mattered most. Would the world look different to me today if I had?

But life doesn’t offer replays. There is no turning around and choosing the other road.

The new year approaches whether we welcome it or not, and I step toward it with more apprehension than hope. The country I once believed in feels like it’s drifting toward something darker—something we fought wars to prevent. If the will existed to stop it, we would have seen it by now. Millions would already be standing up.

But I don’t see it.

So I move forward the only way I know how—through prayer and memory. I think about the people who fought before us, at home and abroad, so future generations would never have to face the kind of world I now fear may be coming.

I listen to the old music. I remember the old days. And I think of those already hurting, and those who may soon feel the weight of what lies ahead.

My hope is simple: that the people who can least afford to suffer somehow find the strength to endure.

Good luck in the year ahead.

Stay close to God. Speak to Him often.

And to the millions of patriots who must still be out there somewhere—may you find the will to act before it is too late.

Godspeed.

hello there old friend

The house was quiet tonight. The kind of quiet that almost has a sound to it.

It’s been a while since I last wrote here, though not much has changed. There have been a few good days scattered in, but mostly the kind where nothing much moves you. I still miss the people who are gone, and I still say real prayers for the people who remain. Sometimes I have to remind myself to include my own name in those prayers.

Jason had a birthday a few days ago. The kid I used to hold next to me is now a middle-aged man with a family of his own. I didn’t call. I never want to force myself into a place where I might not be wanted. He knows how to reach me if he wants to.

That thought always takes me back to my own father. Neither of us called. Not once. And then one day it was too late, and he was gone.

Maybe that’s why I stopped in here tonight. There’s a chill in the air outside — not cold, just uncomfortable enough to notice. I know that feeling well. Sometimes it has nothing to do with the temperature. It’s the same quiet chill that settles over a life lived mostly alone.

Still, there is peace in knowing that, unlike so many others who have passed through my life, my God has not left me. Even when the darkness and silence try to convince me otherwise, I believe his promise that I will never walk alone in this world or the next.

Physically, I haven’t been feeling well the past few weeks, but the lab results tell a better story. The disease that should be getting worse has, at least for now, stayed where it is. For that, I’m thankful.

Ruben stopped by a few days ago to check on me. He didn’t look so good himself — maybe a little thinner than usual. I fed him some of his favorite cat food. One tub turned into three, and he ate almost all of it before wandering over to sit with me for a while. We took our first selfie.

Truth is, Ruben may be the only one who regularly checks to see if I’m still around. No one else ever knows if I’m dead or alive these days.

And if I’m being honest, some days I feel like a little of both..

At least the practical things are getting done. I sent all the tax prep to Mel today and took care of some banking and Ameritrade business — things I usually put off until the last minute. It felt good to finish them early this year.

Tonight the house is quiet again.

But for a little while, it wasn’t.

Thanks for stopping by, Ruben.