"Writer Louisa Thomas says, 'Old age is not a country one can visit and leave.' I realize that's exactly what I want to do; I want to visit for a little while and see how it goes, and if I don't like it, well, then do something else.
"People say seventy is just a number. For me, it's a number that feels like a ninety-degree turn toward a very different life. I think I'll like this new life of walking more and taking public transportation far more often and having easy access to all the places I want to go. No more driving to Symphony Hall only to find the garages full and no on-street parking anywhere.
"But this ninety-degree turn also means real compromise. In theory, I am willing to sacrifice space for location, but in reality, I have been looking at apartments so small they would easily fit in my current living room. There's much to be said for downsizing, for de-cluttering, and I'm all for it. I realize this move will mean giving up much, if not most, of what I now own, from furniture to pictures to cherished sets of china.
"While it's easy to scoff at our attachment to material things – a first-world problem if ever there was one – the fact is they are our things and they matter. My things are alive with memories. My grandmother served Thanksgiving dinner on the dishes I'll soon have no room to store. Every wall in my condominium is covered with framed posters and pictures from museums in France and Italy; each one a reminder of an earlier and happier time in a marriage now over. A dining room table that comfortably fits ten, or even twelve if we squeeze together, and has hosted decades of family holiday meals has not a ghost of a chance fitting in a small, very small, studio.
"What was it William James said about one's things? 'The loss of possessions ... gives a sense of the shrinkage of our personality; a partial conversion of ourselves to nothingness.' His perception is dramatic, to be sure, but the feel is right. We know that aging is synonymous with loss, and this drastic downsizing feels like the first big step in a trove of losses yet to come."
