By Jane Gordon Julien
August 18, 2025
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about how to age gracefully.
But then I forget what I was thinking about and move on to the next thing. Like this blog, which I wrote weekly during Covid. Now I have to think: when was the last time I wrote. So I’m going to once a month, first Monday of the month. After I get this little note out to you. Before I forget.
More pressing, my campaign to age gracefully has suffered a small setback, in part because, like an appliance whose parts start falling out, my own body is breaking down. I could blame aging, and I will.
But stupidity also plays a part.
A few weeks ago, when nobody was home, I decided to move a heavy desk from my third floor to my second floor. I have excruciatingly narrow stairs in this little beach house of mine, and as I fought this hulk down the steps, my right shoulder made a little noise. Hmm, I thought. Since when do shoulders talk?
Later on, that little noise grew into a scream. Every time I moved my shoulder a stab of pain reminded me not to. Smart people go to the doctor. I started moving furniture with my left arm.
Then I went for a long walk, longer than usual. The next day, a groin muscle started to spasm. The spasm knocked out movement in my thigh and knee. So I just stopped walking.
All of these shenanigans pointed out something obvious: my parts were falling out.
Don’t worry about me – I’m fine. Although I have been searching for care and counsel – is this just me, or are parts of everyone I know falling out?
And will I let myself be miserable about it?
There’s a term for happiness in aging. it’s called ‘joyspan.’ A professor of geriatric medicine and gerontology at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine coined the term and used it in her new book, “Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half.”
Her point in this book, and I paraphrase from the New York Times: a lengthy life span does not mean your life has been well-lived.
You have to like your life too.
Here’s what she advises, and even if this won’t help my shoulder or groin muscles, it will certainly help my spirits.
1. Grow. Curiosity and a desire to learn – a language, bird-watching, how to knit or crochet or needlepoint, how to work a new program on your computer – are key. Make a curiosity list, whatever you fancy, and challenge yourself to try a few activities from the list.
2. Adapt. Look at the changes in your life as part of the human experience. Use audiobooks when you struggle to read type. I wish they would make an audiobook for shampoo and conditioner. Can’t they make the type bigger? Who wears eyeglasses in the shower? I am making stickers for these bottles so I can see them. They’ll get wet and fall off (At the moment, I am looking for waterproof stickers. So there’s that.)
3. Give. Kindness is paramount. Patience is too. If you have free time, sign up for AARP’s Create the Good program. It matches volunteers with opportunities where you live.
4. Connect! Loneliness truly will kill you. I have a friend who hosts a game night every month. Another who hosts a little group to watch a particular show every week. Write letters, as elderly as that makes me sound. But I started this note off sounding elderly, so I may as well finish it off in like fashion.
As for you, don’t move heavy desks by yourself. And if you hurt yourself anyway, well, I told you so.
For the writers among us, write about your own ‘joyspan.’ What brings you joy? What do you do each day, week, month, to ensure that joy? And do share!