Older people just want to have fun
There’s something to be learned from Big Apple residents who have reached their 80s
The average life expectancy for someone living in New York City is 81. The Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University has tracked down 20 older New Yorkers living active lives — a mixture of rich, poor, black, white, Hispanic, Asian — and followed them through their daily routines from 2015 to 2017.
They are featured in the Exceeding Expectations project, a series of narratives, photos and videos showing “that older people have goals, they have lives that are dynamic,” says Dorian Block, director of the project. “You can be the person you’ve always been.”
Even with its focus on New York, the Columbia project has provided lessons about aging that apply to anyone. Among them:
1
Have a purpose; a reason to get up in the morning.
Take the example of Sylvia Lask, who is 84. “If you do nothing, you’re going to sit and rock, and your life has no meaning after that,” says Lask, who still works part time as a psychiatric counsellor at a mental-health clinic in the Bronx. “It doesn’t mean because you’ve reached a certain age that you have to stop!”
2
Celebrate and cultivate the social connections.
Sandy and Art Robbins, 83 and 89, live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in an apartment that serves as headquarters for her theatre company, rooms for her husband’s art therapy clients.
Florence Lee, 83, a retired teacher who moved to Queens about 14 years ago after living for many years farther east on Long Island, plans to stay put in the city. “I’ll never move” to a seniors-only community with “no young voices, no people going to work,” she says.
3
Do not be defined by your obstacles.
Jacquie Murdock, 87, a former professional dancer, is blind and was recently given a cancer diagnosis. But she’s such a fashionista that she was profiled by a popular blog, Advanced Style, which celebrates fashion for older people, and she is sometimes recognized on the street because of that. Until her illness slowed her down, she regularly took the subway around the city and participated in dance classes for senior citizens.
“Some people live with health and other challenges as the main plot of their lives,” says Columbia’s Block. “For so many other people, it’s just the background.”
4
Money isn’t as important as you might think.
Block says the New Yorkers who had the basics of a safe roof over their heads and enough to eat seemed content with their lives, even though some of them are barely scraping by. Some of the people in the project who had the least income had some of the richest views of life. For instance, Rosa Mendoza, 88, a Cuban immigrant who gets by on her US$1,200 monthly income from Social Security — while paying a rent of US$800 — treats herself to ice cream when she has a little extra. And even though she recently lost her husband, she finds joy in making jokes, singing in her church choir and keeping up with family and friends.
5
Acknowledge that aging can be lonely.
Most of the participants had lost old friends and relatives, Block says, and tell her, “I don’t have peers anymore.” Many “felt very alone in their experience of aging,” she said. The lack of conversation about aging in the culture at large also contributes to the feeling that “there’s no one left for them to talk to,” Block says, adding that this makes other social connections even more essential.
6
Have a routine.
Lee says that in addition to her Thursdays at the Philharmonic, she sets aside Tuesdays for doctor visits, Wednesdays for her hairdresser in her former hometown, and Fridays for yoga. Block says that most of the participants are “secure in their routine,” which shows that they know what matters to them.
7
Location is important.
Even though many older New Yorkers qualify for subsidized senior housing, the city’s lottery system for that housing can mean that they are placed in a new apartment in a borough or a neighbourhood far from their original home. For Jin-Fu Lu, 83, that means travelling 9.5 kilometres across Brooklyn to attend a community centre in Sunset Park, where he and his wife had previously lived, because it caters to the Chinese community. “It shows how important place is,” Block says.
8
Death has no dominion. Nearly every person in the project, Block says, has no fear of death and no hesitation about talking about the end. “Younger people are scared to talk about dying,” she says. “It’s such a reality for people in their 80s.” Many of them told her that they had lived a full life and were ready to go, she says.