We got a link to this HuffPost essay. Granted, this writer’s experience might be a bit extreme, but much of what she writes sounded oh-so-familiar to us.

As with other life transitions, aging IS an adventure. We’re all of us on a journey to a place we’ve never been before. We have to learn to live with the conditions in which we find ourselves, for instance suddenly single, as with the writer, or coping with physical ailments. This has some parallels with the experience of new parenthood. As much as you might have read about how to look after a new human, there’s nothing like actually doing it to achieve some real understanding.

And we all, but especially we who are farther down the path, also need to stay engaged with the world, with nature (to the extent comfortable), with ideas, with people. Particularly people who are, as they say in Australia, ‘good value’. Someone whose worldview is similar to or at least overlaps your own, who is a good listener, whom you can count on.

With these we can hope to find that sense of well-being to which the writer refers, a kind of reward for taking the journey.