Gretchen Rubin, the writer who has a wonderful career encouraging happiness; wrote:

"Years ago, my mother helped me to re-frame a challenging situation so I was grateful, rather than resentful, about my husband’s lack of interest in our apartment renovation.
Actually, I was lucky that my husband was happy to let me make all the decisions!

As we try to reframe the way we age, and the entire culture of aging, I'd like to suggest a giant slice of reframing and a generous dollop of humor can add up to much happier older age. 

Which brings me to the unforgettable New Yorker article Roger Angell wrote in 2014:

This Old-Man - when he was only 94 years old. After several hilarious paragraphs of revealing the damaged, diseased and missing parts of his anatomy and several more about heart wrenching loss,  Angell says: 

"Recent and not so recent surveys (including the six-decades-long Grant Study of the lives of some nineteen-forties Harvard graduates) confirm that a majority of us people over seventy-five keep surprising ourselves with happiness. Put me on that list. Our children are adults now and mostly gone off, and let’s hope full of their own lives. We’ve outgrown our ambitions. If our wives or husbands are still with us, we sense a trickle of contentment flowing from the reliable springs of routine, affection in long silences, calm within the light boredom of well-worn friends, retold stories, and mossy opinions. Also the distant whoosh of a surfaced porpoise outside our night windows."

I encourage you to read this piece and reread it whenever the bits and pieces of your changing being seem too daunting.

Thanks, Roger!