Growing Old: A View From Within

What is it like to grow old? What is it really like? As a social worker, I of course read many books on this subject. I knew about the increasing numbers of older people in the nation’s population, the sociological and economic causes and effects of this increasing top-heaviness in the population pyramid. My own professional specialization was in a different field, but I sympathized with those who felt unwanted and left aside, and discussed and wrote about plans for making their lives happier and easier within the rather limited boundaries of the possible. Naturally I thought, too, about the approach of my own old age, decided where and how I wished to spend my declining years, opened a savings account and made a considerable effort to get together the necessary resources. But the actual experience of aging, what the books can’t tell, this was closed to me.