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There exists a cultural script for your 70s: slow down, simplify, make peace with things.

With fewer years stretching ahead we stop spending energy on the performances nobody was watching anyway.

Well-being rises again in our late 60s and 70s. Not because life gets easier, but because we change.

When I turned 70 nearly five years ago, no one was more surprised than I. Not by the number, but by what came with it. I decided not to talk about what I’m about to say here until I was at least a few years into the decade so as not to have it all considered some kind of fluke.

My 60s were spent wondering whose DNA I inherited, since my mom left this world at age 69, having had health issues for several years before that. It was scary to hear myself say I was “in my 60s” at the time — like waiting for an unwelcome stranger to come over the crest of a hill. While that stranger never arrived, I kept my eyes open and my health checks current. Still, each time I got cleared of health issues, I heaved a sigh of relief. I still do.

Now for the part that genuinely shocked me. I've lost weight. I feel better in my skin now than I did at 60. I'm also a master of my own makeup tricks (I've always thought of that word as "making up" for what you don't have), more confident, more energized, and honestly more fun at parties. Which is disorienting, because I never got the memo that this could even come close to happening.

There exists a cultural script for your 70s, and it goes something like this: Slow down,........

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