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Not Just Wine Improves with Age
This week, I came across a new term that caught my attention. It was coined by Dr. Kerry Burnight, a gerontologist who studies not just how long we live, but how much joy and satisfaction we experience across that lifespan. She calls it joyspan.
I’m interested in all things related to increasing joy in our lives. And since I’ve completed eight decades on planet Earth, articles about aging well tend to draw me in. As often happens when I’m considering a topic for Cuppa Joy, life presented me with a timely example of how easy it is to resist change—one of the hallmarks of aging.
On Wednesday morning, I drove downtown for a 10 a.m. medical appointment. I allowed plenty of time to get there, but after circling block after block for a parking space that never appeared, I grew frustrated. Each turn of the wheel brought a little more tension, until I finally gave in and pulled into a nearby parking garage.
I find them complicated, each one a little different, so I tend to avoid them whenever possible. First you have to figure out what to push to get in—and, more importantly, how to get out. I’ve been behind the poor soul trying to get the bar to rise while drivers line up behind them.
As I stepped out of the car, I could hear my inner voice chattering away—How does this work? Where do I pay? Will I know what to do when I come back? And most importantly, reminding myself to pay attention to where I parked the car.
As I waited for the elevator, I repeated a mantra to myself, “You can do this. It will be easy.” I held onto the small slip of paper with its coded markings—the key to retrieving my car later—and started walking toward my appointment.
Somewhere along that walk, my sweet mother came to mind. She passed four years ago, just months before her 96th birthday. Mom lived with me the last five years of her life, in a little granny unit attached to my home. I took her to her appointments, handled the details, navigated the parking, the paperwork, the small confusions that come with a world that no longer feels quite as simple as it once did. And I could hear her voice—”Thank you for taking such good care of me”—so grateful she didn’t have to manage those things alone.
Only twenty years separated us, and now I find myself stepping into that same age where she began to rely a little more on me. I don’t have a daughter who will one day take my arm and say, “I’ve got this.” I have wonderful sons who reassure me they will be there, so I’m not worried about it.
But the memory of my mom also included how much I enjoyed caring for her—how useful I felt, how alive. Those moments—driving, waiting, helping—were not burdens, but invitations. Invitations to show up, to love, to matter in someone else’s life.
In our culture, it’s easy to absorb negative beliefs about aging—that it’s all downhill from here (wherever “here” is), that the best parts are behind us, that we should brace ourselves for loss, limitation, and a slow dimming of the light. We see it everywhere—in advertisements promising to reverse it, disguise it, delay it, as if growing older were something to resist rather than something to embrace and enjoy.
I have a dear friend, just five years older than I am, who, whenever she’s feeling the weight of aging, likes to say, “You just wait five years.” She sets a great example of staying active and joyful, so I give her a bad time when she offers that warning—and quietly cancel her little predictions.
This is why the term joyspan spoke to me. It’s not that I deny the changes age brings. I see those changes in myself and in my friends, and I watched them creep up on my dad and my mom. I remember when I first noticed my mom’s crinkly skin on my very own arms—and then, eventually, on my whole body. I could despair or be amused. I continue to choose amused.
Yes, aging brings losses. Bodies change, energy shifts, and the world can become more complicated in ways we didn’t anticipate. But that is not the whole story. Research shows that many things can actually improve with age—our ability to regulate emotions, our clarity about what truly matters, and our capacity to appreciate the small, ordinary moments that once slipped by unnoticed.
I can see that in my own life. There is a freedom now I didn’t have when I was younger—no one else is relying on me to take care of their needs. There is a deeper appreciation for a beautiful sunrise, a conversation with a friend, writing, reading, walking my dog—the very simple things. I can see that joy is not something that arrives when everything is perfect. It is something we choose.
I learned to choose joy after the loss of my son. Grief could have closed me down, but fortunately I realized that I had a choice—not about what had happened, but about how I responded and where I placed my attention—on the loss, or on the love. Choosing the love didn’t erase the grief. It simply allowed joy to stand beside it.
Now I see that the same principle applies here. Aging asks us to notice what is still here. It asks us to lean into what is growing, even as other things fall away. It asks us to stay engaged with what is opening, rather than standing back and bemoaning what has changed.
Dr. Burnight speaks about four simple practices that help increase our joyspan—continuing to learn and grow, finding ways to adapt, giving of our time and talent, and staying connected to others—nothing out of reach. Just small, steady choices—to remain curious, to keep showing up, to consider that our lives still matter.
Perhaps what joyspan is calling us to do is to stop treating aging as a problem to be solved, and to begin seeing it as a chapter to be lived, fully and intentionally, with all the wisdom and tenderness we have gathered along the way.
When I returned to the parking garage, I paused to watch someone else exiting and reassured myself that this would be no big deal. I followed the steps—scanned the ticket, slipped in my credit card, and watched as the bar lifted. Easy peasy.
I don’t even know what the parking cost, and I realized I didn’t really care. It felt like a small victory—and it made me smile. I’m even getting pretty good with QR codes and tapping my credit card. Silly? Perhaps. But I count it as a win.
That feels like what Dr. Burnight is pointing to. Not just the big, meaningful moments, but the small ones—the ones where we tell ourselves, “You can do this,” and discover that we can.
Children delight in discovering their world. Joy comes easily to them. There’s no reason for that to ever end, no matter how old we are.
Even if it’s something as simple as getting into and out of a parking garage.