Here’s another blog that might or might not be included as part of a book I either will or won’t write, but that I definitely blogged about earlier, here and here and here and here. It’s a decent topic to write about, though, and fits with the theme of the book. It’s in a very raw form, so forgive me. Editing will come later.
If there is a mantra that resonates with me at my current stage of life, it comes from legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige. Satchel was famous not only for his prowess on the field, but also his personality off it. He was a charismatic dude, prone to sharing nuggets of wisdom, whether anyone asked for them or not.
One of his favorite nuggets was this: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” Whether Satchel came up with that on his own is up for debate. But he adopted it, and spread its gospel far and wide.
He didn’t just spread the gospel, though. He lived it. At the age of 42, long after most pro baseball players were already retired, Satchel was a very effective major league pitcher. In 1948, he played a key role in helping the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) win the World Series. They haven’t won one since then. Seventy-eight years and counting.
Satchel (always “Satchel,” never “Paige”) got a late start in the major leagues. He spent most of his pro career in the Negro Leagues, back when baseball was racially segregated. He dominated the Negro Leagues, and would have dominated the white leagues if given the chance.
That chance finally took root in 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier and became the first black man in the modern era to play in the big leagues – or at least the Caucasian big leagues.
A year later, Satchel signed with Cleveland. By then, he was an old man in baseball terms. But he didn’t let his physical age dictate whether he should be a major league ball player. He embraced a more important age – the one that has nothing to do with years on the calendar, but resolve in the body and mind.
The age that told him, Forget how old you are. Focus on how young you feel.
*****
We tend to measure our age in strict numerical terms. The number of years, months, weeks, days and hours we’ve spent on planet Earth.
We all know the number of years, because social mores demand it. Every year, our birthdays are celebrated. “Happy Birthday” might be the most common phrase on earth, outside of “hello” and “goodbye.” “Happy Birthday” gets said every minute, in hundreds of languages, millions of times a day, the world over.
We attach a certain significance to that number, those years. Age becomes a guiding light in our lives, a spreadsheet, telling us what our lives should look like with each passing year.
Our years determine when we should start school – and when we should finish it. When we should start driving a car. When we should launch a career. When we should get married. When we should start a family, buy a home, retire. When we should grow old, and then die off.
We get welded to those years, those numbers and ages. They become our boss. We dare not question them. And that creates all kinds of problems.
When our physical years don’t align with the established milestones, all kinds of weird shit can happen. Panic sets in. Torment. Confusion. We look at the number of years and wonder why things don’t add up, why we’re behind on the calendar, why the spreadsheet doesn’t make sense, why we haven’t achieved this or that or the other thing. We race ahead, or look behind, or give up altogether.
I’ve known that feeling. Plenty of people have. It’s hard-wired into our brains.
Here’s an example:
In the United States the median marrying age is about 31 years old for men and 29 for women. It’s probably similar in other countries.
But – and this is important – that age is not stagnant. Over time, it goes up or down, but mostly up. Right now, it’s around age 30. A century from now, it could be closer to 40. In the year 3226, who knows? Maybe people will marry at 63. Or maybe some kind of evolutionary hiccup will occur, and most people will marry at 17.
No matter what age it is, it will get embedded into our minds and ring in our ears like a car alarm that won’t go off. We’ll become glued to it, subservient to it.
And it will be just as ridiculous then as it is now.
*****
When I turned 30 years old – the marrying age – I was single, living in a cheap apartment, earning a pedestrian income, and more or less drifting my way through life.
I had just entered into a relationship with a woman that would last another eight years, off and on. At some point during those eight years, I made a half-hearted attempt to ask her hand in marriage. I bought a value-priced ring (again, pedestrian income), and made the world’s lousiest proposal.
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to get married. So was she, as it turned out.
The important thing about that event was that it had less to do with what she and I needed or wanted, but what society told us (well, me) we should do. I was past 30. She was younger, but not by that much. We’d been dating a few years. So naturally, thoughts started invading my head. Thoughts like:
Let’s get married!
It’s time to settle down!
Our ages and circumstances demand it!
Except that our ages didn’t demand it. Or our circumstances. Only outdated societal directives demanded it.
Age is a fluid thing. So are the circumstances and milestones we attach to age. They keep changing. Trust them not.
Don’t believe me? Let’s check the data.
According to USAFacts, nearly 80% of U.S. households were headed by married couples in 1949. Here’s the progression since then:
- 1960: 74.3%
- 1970: 70.5%
- 1980: 60.8%
- 1990: 56.0%
- 2000: 52.8%
- 2010: 49.7%
- 2020: 48.5%
- 2024: 47.1%
Clearly, marriage does not take up nearly as much space in our collective heads now as it once did. If the normal progression holds, the percentage might hit zero by the year 2090 or so.
As for me: My former girlfriend and I never married. We broke it off for good in 1996, and haven’t spoken since. No hard feelings. Just life.
Less than a decade later, in 2024, I got married to my current wife.
We met when I was 41 years old, in Los Angeles, working for the same company. We got married when I was 45. We bought a house together when I was 49. We had our first child when I was 50. We had our second when I was 53. We moved abroad, to London, when I was 59. We returned to the States when I was 64. Our kids are teenagers.
You won’t find those ages on the normal life scorecard. And therein lies an important lesson.
*****
Although my focus above is on how physical age colors our views of marriage, it could apply to just about any milestone. It could apply to when you should get your first job promotion. When you should buy your first house. When you should start raising kids. When you should have your debt paid off. When you should see some of the world. When you should get rid of that silly-ass, outdated haircut.
I was late on just about all those things – way late, tres late.
But here’s the weird thing: The only age milestones that really bothered me had to do with my career, my professional life, my writing life. They had nothing to do with marriage or family. I just always figured one day I’d meet the right person (I did), and start a family (we did). I never doubted those things would happen. Don’t ask me why I felt that way. I could not tell you. My Mom (RIP) probably helped, always assuring me that one day I’d find the right woman. That’s what Moms do with older, unmarried sons.
It also helped that I am a male. Society favors males when it comes to marrying and starting a family late. Hopefully, that will even out in the future.
But:
For the longest time, I felt like I was at least a decade behind where I should have been as a professional, a journalist, a writer.
The one time I felt my age really bang me across the jaw was when I turned 40, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t achieved any of the professional goals I’d set many years before.
I hadn’t written the book(s) I kept promising myself I’d one day write.
I hadn’t landed a job at a big-city newspaper or magazine, like I promised myself.
My age kept nagging at me, and nagging at me, and nagging at me. It kept telling me, “Why are you still running in place as a writer? Why haven’t you advanced further? What the f**k is wrong with you?”
Of course, those were the wrong questions to ask. The better questions would have been:
- What do you plan to do to advance toward the goals you’ve set for yourself – beginning right now, this very minute?
- Where do you see yourself in a year or two, and how do you get there?
- What is the first, most important step?
- If you didn’t know how old you are, how old would you be?
That last question was the most important of all. Because if I hadn’t known how old I was, I would have felt like a much younger man. I would have pegged myself as a 30-year-old, young, still growing, still developing. Plenty of time to check those career/writer boxes. No need to panic. No cause for worry.
I eventually checked those boxes. I got a job at a big-city newspaper, in New York, less than a year-and-a-half after that dark, dismal 40th birthday. I wrote my first book in my late 50s and my second in my early 60s. Both are published (buy them here! and here!).
Age had nothing to do with any of it. Age is a mirage, a lie, a huckster standing on the corner, trying to con you. Don’t listen to it. Give it the finger. Tell it to screw off. It is not your friend.
*****
As I write this, my father is 92 years old. He’s fit, sharp, and just as big a wiseass as ever. He and his wife (my stepmother) have full and active lives. They drive to the store and to church, to nearby restaurants and watering holes. They play cards. They socialize with all kinds of people in the sprawling, resort-like retirement community they live in.
Dad cracks jokes, because he’s always cracked jokes. He wins money at the poker table. Some of the residents in his community are 20 years younger in years, but 20 years older in every other respect. His age does not define him. His mindset defines him. I look at him and I see hope, a bright future.
I have officially reached retirement age, but am not remotely close to retiring. Not with two teenage daughters. Not with so many bills to pay. Our daughters will be in college soon – and college ain’t cheap.
Even if I could retire, I have no desire to. No interest in it. I want to work, exercise, be a Dad, a husband. I want to travel, learn, grow. This isn’t a mind game I play with myself to convince myself I’m younger than I really am. It’s just what I want. I feel 20 years younger than I really am. I feel no age at all, most of the time.
Satchel had it right: You don’t need to know your age. You only need to know what’s inside of you. Heed that. Ignore the rest.
Image: AI creation, with these instructions: Create a somewhat abstract image with the theme of how we view ages, and an underlying message that you are only as old as you feel, and that you should ignore your physical age and focus on your mental and spiritual age. I hate to admit it, but it’s an interesting exercise to give AI these kinds of weird instructions and see what it comes up with.
Vance Cariaga 