I wish to gently challenge you on this. Why on earth do you picture yourself in a rocking chair at 80? This isn’t a slam- but it is a throwdown. This is ageism, the notion that after fifty (or whatever) we inevitably decline. Why? What on earth makes anyone just assume that? I would invite you to imagine a Very Different Eighty. Your Eighty. Your badass, active, athletic, intense, amazing and happy eighty. You don’t even fucking own a rocking chair. I can’t speak for you but I sure don’t. At 66 and counting, I plan to still be out hiking, biking, exploring, kayaking, skydiving (yes, damn right) and horse back riding at eighty. I am in training for just that. You are, too. Or you and I can plan for decreptitude at eighty. That can also happen. But it sure as hell doesn’t have to. All I have to do is go out and run Red Rocks here in Colorado to be surrounded by eighty-somethings who are training for three weeks hiking the Alps. Eighty is just eighty. How you fill those years has nothing to do with societal constructs. That’s up to you and me. Just saying.