From THE GLOBE AND MAIL, JAN 11, 2014

Not long ago, I came across a little list I’d scribbled in a notebook.“Here is what 47 feels like on a bad day”:

• You prepare a little milk, with a dash of vanilla, in a mug, which you go to heat up in the microwave. There is already a mug of milk, with a dash of vanilla, in there.

• You discover in the bathroom drawer a product you remember buying to give hair more “volume and energy.” You have no hair.

• You run into people you know, but can’t remember the level of intimacy you have with them. (Do we hug? You approach fearfully.)

• You worry you have become too unfit to successfully perform CPR on someone like you.

There were more items on the list, including one that started and simply trailed off. I’d either forgotten what it was or grown too depressed to continue.

Aging happens, of course – I just hadn’t expected its sour breath so soon. Isn’t 50 supposed to be the new 30? Apparently not for me. For whatever reason, I’d gotten old the way the way Hemingway said people go broke: slowly and then quickly.

And then came a stroke of amazing fortune. Olga Kotelko dropped into my life.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/what-a-94-year-old-track-star-can-teach-us-about-aging/article16286101/?page=all