Lori Duff Writes

Given that I am fifty-four years old, I’m only middle aged if I live to a hundred and eight which is possible but is also highly unlikely.  None of my four grandparents lived until seventy, and my parents didn’t make it to eighty.  Of course, all of them were unrepentant smokers, but still.   I guess my age puts me in ‘early old age’ from a mathematical standpoint: ‘late middle age’ at optimistic best.

I’m not complaining.  There are many things I love about being over fifty, the main one being that no one can argue that I haven’t already paid my dues.  It’s time to reap rewards.

That said, I don’t think anyone would describe me as elderly.  There’s nothing wrong with my health.[1]  I don’t have grey hair. I can still walk for miles and miles without trouble, I can put on my own shoes, and even sometimes drive at night.

So why are so many of my friends dead?  I feel like I’m too young to know this many dead people.  Every day, it seems, Facebook sends me a notification of the birthday of someone who will never, on this earthly plane, anyway, know that I wish them well.

When I was a little baby child, I remember thinking how elderly my grandparents were.  But, now doing the math, they were probably younger than I am now.  A  college friend of mine recently pointed out that Buddy Ebsen, who played the wizened Jed Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies, was exactly our age when the show was filmed.

I’m sorry, what?

But yeah—the Golden Girls were younger than me when the show started, too.

Get.  Off.  My.  Lawn.

Feelings lie, but facts don’t.  I looked it up, and if you are now fifty, you have a 7.5% chance of dying before you are sixty.[2]  That means for every 200 Facebook friends you have that are fifty, fifteen of them will likely die before they are sixty.  At last check I had 1,300 Facebook “friends.”[3]  Granted, they are all ages, but a good number of them are older than me.  So saying they average my age is probably fair.  This means that by the time I’m sixty, I could place a reasonably certain bet that sixty of them will be dead. 

This could be—and is, on many levels—depressing.  Every single one of my Facebook friends is someone with whom I have made a connection at some point.  I’m not popular enough for random strangers to want to friend me.[4]  That’s, on average, ten holes in my life every year until I’m sixty, nearly one a month.

But.  It’s also a reminder that life is short, which is itself a reminder that I need to squeeze every bit of joy out of living that I can.  I’m old and experienced enough to know that I don’t want to have to tolerate my life, I want to love it.  Life is too short to grin and bear it. 

Nope. I’d rather grin and mean it. 

[1] Nothing that will kill me, anyway.

[2] Odds of dying: by age, gender, lifestyle stats | Finder.com

[3] I even know who most of them are.

[4] Distinguish that from random scammers, who want to friend me often.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more like it, visit Lori on Twitter or on Facebook or read her award winning books.  You can order her novella, “Broken Things”, by clicking here.  The audiobook can be found on Audible or iTunes.  You can pre-order her novel “Devil’s Defense” coming in November 2024.

Lori Duff

Lori B. Duff is an award-winning author who practices law on the side.  Her latest book, “If You Did What I Asked in the First Place” was awarded the Gold Medal for humor in the Foreword INDIES awards in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook. For more blogs written by Lori, click here. For more information about Lori in general, click here. If you want Lori to do your writing for you, click here. If you want Lori to help you market your book, click here.