Old People

09 Dec, 2024

On Sunday, I was reminded of how wonderful it is to spend time with old people.

I went to breakfast with my landlord and his wife. We talked about my time in Boston. What it’s like to be married for 55 years. Travels to Egypt and Peru and China. Boston’s parks. Why the new Copley Square is such a disaster. What it was like to live through the Big Dig. We talked about love.

I'd never met M & A until Sunday, yet we talked for hours. Nonstop. The waitress must have thought we’d known each other for decades. Or that I was their grandson.

I feel a certain calmness around old people that I almost never experience around people my age. Maybe it's that I’m something of a “sponge”, absorbing the emotions of those around me, and old people are just calmer. Maybe it’s that people with 80 years of life experience are better at the simple stuff, like making conversation with new people. Maybe I just have an old soul.

The idea here isn't to suggest I like old people more than people my age -- just that it's so important to talk to old people, and that on average we probably don't do it enough. We have so much to learn from one another.