Dear Will:

Several months ago, Dana and I decided to celebrate our vaccinations by throwing on our masks, venturing out from our pandemic bunker, and going to a movie. In a theater! It was both disorienting and exciting to be doing something so familiar that nevertheless seemed new and foreign after so much time away. We were welcomed by a freshly trained, chirpy kid at the ticket counter who asked if either of us was over 60. I assured him that we were not. “Actually,” my wife corrected, “we both are.”

Wait. What?

It gets worse. Soon thereafter, I tried to justify this brain-lapse to my daughter Bryn. “I wasn’t trying to pretend to be younger than I am. It’s just that I’d never been ‘carded’ like that before and it caught me off guard. There has never been a time when the answer to that question could possibly have been yes. And since when did they make the senior citizen cut-off so low, anyway? I thought it was 62, or 65, or whatever.* Besides, I turned 60 only a few weeks ago, so it’s an innocent mistake.”

“Actually,” my daughter corrected, “you’re 61.”

So, to recap: Apparently, at some point during the pandemic, I became (ahem) a “senior.” It’s like something out of a Hemingway novel: How do you become an old guy? “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.” Your head goes bald and your beard turns gray one hair at a time, and before you know it gray is white and you can’t remember how old you are.

Sixty-one, or so I’m told. Barring a tragic encounter with a deadly virus or a moving bus, that means I’ve got maybe 30 more years to play with (give or take). I still have thousands of meals left to eat and untold hours of television and movies ahead of me. Cut back on those hours a bit and I’ll be able to read hundreds of books as well. There’s plenty of time, in other words, to choose both bad restaurants and good ones, true art and mindless entertainment, classic literature and low-brow page-turners. On those fronts, I can still be sloppy with my choices and no big deal.

But I have only so much adventure currency left in my account. Realistically, how many more backpacking trips will my knees and back let me get away with? Eight? A dozen maybe? Twenty if I’m really, really lucky? Likewise, between now and the last one, how many far-flung vacations will we be able to eke out of our savings and creaky joints, and which ones will they be? Every choice to invest time and resources and energy into something memorable also represents countless alternatives that we simply will not get to.

So, no pressure or anything, but when it comes to those extraordinary, “you should have been there” experiences, increasingly the term “once in a lifetime” probably applies. If I follow my urge to one day walk across Scotland, it might ultimately mean that I will have to skip the Fjords altogether. I’d better choose wisely, is what I’m saying, lest I squander one of my remaining adventures on something kind of lame. I would hate to get to the end of my life and say, “Well, I never made it to Waikaremoana, but that week in Fresno was . . . well, it was kind of a dud, wasn’t it?”

I don’t mean to pick on Fresno. I’m just more aware now of my diminishing opportunities, and I want to get it right. Even at this moment, I’m pondering my options for this summer. Do Bryn and I follow through on our threat to hike the Sawtooth Wilderness Loop? Can I also take Seth up on his offer to return to Mineral King so he can see firsthand what Bryn and I loved so much during our backpacking adventure there in 2019? And what about that trip to the UK that Dana and I had to postpone because of the pandemic? For now, the primary limitations are time (I do still have a job) and money. But sooner than I like, my spirit may remain willing for this kind of thing even while my flesh is becoming too weak to tag along.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing the voice of the poet Mary Oliver in my head, and it’s getting louder: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Such a good question. Ask me again in a couple of years, and I’ll show you pictures. By then I’ll be [checks driver’s license] . . . 63!

PW

_{* Turns out that the actual cut-off at our favorite theater is 55. We’ve been overpaying for years and didn’t know it. No doubt because we look so young and nobody bothered to ask. Right?}