Every day of physical and mental health is a gift. This has always been true, but I’ve never appreciated it more than now. One life expectancy calculator estimates I have another twenty years to live. But of course no one can know for sure. Although it’s possible I’ll live two more decades, perhaps even longer, the likelihood of a catastrophic illness or accident is higher now than it ever was, and grows daily.
That was one motivation for going to New York: I’m still in the youth of old age, fully mobile and able to cope with whatever curveballs (such as a sudden subway stoppage) the country’s most frustrating metropolis throws at me. Not too long from now — again, the when is unknowable — I’ll slip into the frailties of middle old age and face physical and mental limits that may rule out a trip to New York. And sometime after that I’ll lapse into true old age, when just going outside will require military-level logistical planning.