Photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash.
The realities of aging alone are very different from the most of the stories we read.
So many stories are written about “how I experience getting older.” So many invitations to accept aging and enjoy what we have.
We know that physiology matters. Differences in health, mobility, and cognition shape how people age.
But people also differ in how they react to those changes.
And when you are aging solo, defining yourself as a single person, your experiences and expectations will be very different from those of married people.
Too often, writers generalize not only about getting older but about how people should feel about it.
For some people, aging is an occasion for self-deprecating humor. “I forgot where I left my car keys again.”
For someone else, the same experience may feel devastating. Their reaction is closer to “I’d rather be dead.”
Stories about aging can be more annoying than helpful because they assume everyone experiences aging the same way.
They don’t.
First, people differ in the degree to which they face age-related challenges.
Some people can barely walk. Others have serious vision problems. Some face major illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, or liver disease that require surgery and constant monitoring.
But the social context of aging also matters.
Single people have often become accustomed to freedom. Freedom from explaining where they are going or when they will be home. Freedom from negotiating daily routines with another person.
Married people may experience aging differently. When a spouse dies, they must suddenly cope with loneliness and the loss of shared roles.
Second, people differ in how much something bothers them.
What is a minor inconvenience to one person can feel unbearable to another.
A friend once said to me, “I hate having televisions in waiting rooms. I never watch them.”
I asked, “Do you ever say anything?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not that bad.”
For him, it was an annoyance.
For me, it feels like an assault.
You can even see these differences within families.
In one online discussion, someone described their mother announcing at age fifty-eight that she wanted no more medical treatment. “I just want to go,” she said.
Meanwhile, their ninety-year-old grandfather wanted every possible intervention.
“No matter what it takes,” he said, “I want to live to one hundred.”
Same family. Completely different attitudes toward aging and survival.
For people who have lived alone for decades, another issue becomes critical: control over their environment.
About thirty percent of households are now single.
Someone who has lived alone for ten, twenty, thirty, or fifty years will react very differently to the idea of living with a caretaker or entering a monitored facility.
In Never Say Die, Susan Jacoby describes a single man who was forced to accept a caretaker. He stole the caretaker’s car keys, drove to a bridge, and jumped.
Jacoby’s point is that he should not have been forced into a situation that felt intolerable to him.
For some people, living with a caretaker might be an inconvenience.
For someone who has built a life around solitude and independence, it can feel like a nightmare.
Hospitals and institutions are largely blind to this issue.
I have spoken with many single people who are not afraid of dying alone. Yet experts constantly warn about it.
“What if you die alone with your cats?”
Many single people respond, “That would be wonderful.”
Solitude changes how you experience everyday things.
Noise is one example.
Television noise feels overwhelming to me. Living in silence feels healing and restorative.
But many medical staff find this baffling. The idea that someone might want to read quietly instead of listening to a blaring television simply doesn’t register.
And they have no training in dealing with people who prefer quiet.
That is not the same as introversion. Many people who enjoy solitude also enjoy social interaction.
I certainly do.
Holidays are another example.
People constantly ask, “What will you do for Thanksgiving or Christmas?”
Many singles look forward to those days. They enjoy reading, watching films, or spending time outdoors.
Other people cannot tolerate the idea of being alone on a holiday.
I once had a friend who believed strongly that Thanksgiving had to be spent with family.
Her relatives lived near a suburban train station but refused to pick her up.
Every year she rented a car to reach their house.
It was expensive. She could barely afford it.
If it were me, I would have stayed home, bought myself a wonderful meal, and gone to a play or a movie.
But she didn’t want alternatives. She believed Thanksgiving meant family, no matter the cost.
Finally, lifestyle preferences make some forms of aging easier and others harder.
I have friends who love cruises. They have taken them for years.
Cruising works well as people age. You can travel comfortably into your seventies, eighties, and nineties.
But many people prefer independent travel.
When I travel, I book my own flights and hotels. I stay in one place for a week or two. I walk all over the city. I eat small meals in cafés.
I have no interest in being herded onto buses or sitting through huge group dinners.
As I get older, it is becoming harder to travel that way.
Eventually I may not be able to do it at all.
That will be difficult for me because travel has been central to my life. I have even held jobs that required one hundred percent travel.
Cruises, however, hold no appeal for me.
They involve single supplements, crowded dining rooms, and constant small talk with strangers traveling in pairs.
I tried a cruise once. I did meet a woman who had asked to be assigned a random roommate.
She loved the arrangement.
I would have been miserable.
Having never lived with someone by choice, sharing a room on a cruise or in a hospital would feel like a prison.
So I cringe when I read articles about the importance of “acceptance.”
Could I accept group travel?
Probably not.
My friend who hates being alone on holidays will struggle more than I will with solitude.
People who cannot tolerate their own company often cling to relatives who treat them badly. They are seen as needy, and over time they may lose friends.
Ironically, they may end up more alone.
Those of us who enjoy solitude will do well until the day we need help.
That is when our preferences may collide with reality.
Personally, I have told my doctors that I do not care about living to one hundred. I would rather die before entering a nursing home.
Fortunately, they respect that.
People who enjoy groups and togetherness may thrive in retirement communities and on cruises.
But I will never be one of them.
In the end, aging well depends partly on luck and health.
But it also depends on something else.
The quirks and preferences we were given by the universe.
And those quirks shape the kind of aging we can accept.
