My perceived age versus my birthday age

My daughter Elizabeth celebrated her 26th birthday about a week ago. My son David will turn 23 in a few weeks.

And I ask myself: "How can I be old enough to have children that old?"

The age that I perceive to be and the age that I actually am don't match up. My perceived age is a lot younger than the date of birth listed on my driver's license.

It's a Baby Boomer thing. I don't think perceived age is exclusive to Baby Boomers. My mother has said on occasion that she doesn't see herself as old as her chronological years said she is. But Baby Boomers are making more noise about it because we're the generation that vowed to a) never get old or, failing that b) die before we get old.

Most of us prefer a) over b).

Del Webb, builder of 55 and older communities in several states, did a poll recently to measure Baby Boomers' outlook on life. It found that older Boomers feel an average of 13 years younger than their age.

"Baby Boomers have a much different mindset toward growing older than earlier generations," Deborah Blake, Del Webb creative director, said in a statement. "Feeling older is just a state of mind for many of them -- one that most have no interest in."

It's why we believe that 50 is the new 40, that 60 is the new 45.

Part of the perception is driven by a connection to an idealism borne of the 1960s and '70s that our relevance as a generation still counts. So we've remained engaged in communities, politics and parenting. To a certain extent, we still think we're smarter than everyone else.

I can still see a kid in the mirror getting ready for a day at Oswego Catholic High School. I still see a sophomore in Randall Hall at the University of New Hampshire. I still see a young reporter brushing his teeth at night after a long slog in the newsroom at the Peabody Times.

Sure, it's a little harder to see past the wrinkles under the eyes, the gray in what's left of the hair, and the double chin that's trying to go triple. But I see it in the eyes that still have the outlook of 1968, 1973 and 1980.

I'll put another candle on the birthday cake soon enough to celebrate 57. But don’t wish me a happy 57th birthday. I won't believe you: 44 is the new 57.

My weekly education from "This American Life"

Every week, for an hour, I go to class.

It's a part of my Baby Boomer continuing education.

It is said that as we age we need to keep those synapses working, give that cognitive tissue a workout.

We need to keep our minds healthy just as importantly as we need to keep our bodies healthy. Good body health may keep me away from diabetes and heart disease. Good brain health may help keep me away from Alzheimer's. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

To accomplish both, in a true kill two birds with one stone manner, I exercise both my body and my brain by taking a four-mile power walk while listening to a podcast of "This American Life" on National Public Radio.

I look forward to the walk and the way it raises my heart rate, and I look forward to what I'm going to learn from "This American Life" host Ira Glass and his merry band of contributors.

On my most recent walk with Ira in my ears, I learned about parasites, not a subject I would normally approach in the normal cadence of what I do day to day. I learned about the hookworm parasite as a possible cure for allergy sufferers, and it was fascinating.

I'm not making this up.

They did a terrific job -- better than anyone in the media, in fact -- explaining the housing crisis and how it helped bring down Wall Street. For once, I understood stood something about the economy. It was so good that a new group -- Planet Money -- has emerged as a National Public Radio contributor to explain economic-related news in a way that Joe Average like me can understand.

"This American Life" airs on noon each Saturday on my local NPR station. I am not allowed to hear it live. If I'm in the car listening to public radio at the time in comes on the station has to change. That's true in my car and it's true if I'm riding with my wife Jane in her car.

Because I download the episode as a podcast then transfer it to my iPod for my weekly walk with Ira.

The broadcasts are no more than an hour, which fits in to my pace of walking my four miles in under an hour.

I often laugh out loud -- particularly when a contribution from David Sedaris is involved.

And I always learn something new.

This graying brain appreciates it.

A lesson in living

When I met Dana Jennings back in the late 1970s, I thought of him as the student and I was the professional; he was the boy, I was the man; he was the intern, I was the full-fledged reporter.

After many years, Dana (at left) and I saw each other this week at the University of New Hampshire, where he'd been invited as a visiting journalist as a part of the UNH journalism program.

We're only separated in age by five years. Funny how time skews context. Back then, with me in my mid-20s and Dana in his early 20s, the difference of five years seemed like a big deal, a gap of generations.

These days, the gap has closed: We're 50-somethings, Baby Boomers, dads to children who are either in college or college graduates. We're empty nesters.

For one semester a generation ago, when I was the City Hall reporter for the Peabody, Mass., Times daily newspaper, Dana came on as an intern from the University of New Hampshire.

I thought then I knew it all and that Dana had a lot to learn.

And, in the context of being a reporter, that was probably true. I did know a lot and Dana was just starting out.

Since then, I've worked at various community newspapers for 33 years and retired in June 2008 to a reinvented career as a keyboard for hire, writing web content for a variety of news sites.

Dana worked at a variety of newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and is now at the New York Times, all in relative anonymity ... until he started blogging on the NYT's Well blog about his prostate cancer.

You need to take some time and read Dana's posts.

Go there now. Click on the link above. If you don't come back to these words that's OK. But find a way to read Dana's posts.

He will show you through his writing -- through his grace and his humor -- how he has coped with his diagnosis, treatment and recovery from an aggressive Stage 3 cancer.

Many of us as we age, want to find a way to express how we lived, to put the years into some kind of context and perspective. Dana shows how writing can lead to discovery.

He transforms the personal into the universal. His posts about his cancer are intensely personal, but have a universal ring to the thousands of people who have responded online to his posts.

As a reporter over the years, Dana like other reporters played an anonymous role of providing readers with just the facts ma'am. "Blogging," he said to a gathering at UNH, "gave me time to find my voice."

Dana told me the other day he regarded me as a mentor back then. He returns the favor. A hundred fold.

He, like he does for so many who read his blog, mentors me by showing what it means to live and reach beyond who you think you are and what you're capable of doing.

Could I live here?

When my wife Jane and I travel to different areas these days, I have a question in the back of my mind: Could I live here?

It's not that we're actively looking for another place to live. But as I think about where I want to spend my so-called "retirement years" I look at the places where we travel as a potential new home.

The classic retirement move isn't so classic among Baby Boomers.

The stereotype had been to retire, pull up stakes and get thyself to the Sun Belt -- Florida, Nevada, Arizona ... anywhere folks could escape the cold and snowy parts of the country.

But the first wave of retiring Baby Boomers hasn't followed the stereotype.

The migration to the Sun Belt states has cooled as Baby Boomers like myself, because of finances and other considerations, take a more analytic view of where we want to reluctantly grow older, if indeed that's anywhere different from where we are right now.

Certainly, there's a lot of research that's available in this analytical approach. There are any number of "10 Best Places to Retire" lists out there.

It's an interesting shift of sensibilities, a process of age.

When we graduated from college, we went where the jobs and opportunities were. When we were married and had kids the quality of the school system was a consideration.

But as much as you can assemble data about a place you have to have a good feeling about a place.

It's like when my children were looking at where to go to college.

They could do all the research they wanted about a school's academics and tuition and acceptance standards. But they also had to have a good feel about the place.

It's why my daughter Elizabeth never got out of the car when she got to the University of Connecticut at Storrs. She just didn't have a good feeling about the place. It's why my son David never applied to Brown in Providence, R.I. He didn't have a good feeling about the place.

You have to know in your gut that something is a good fit to who you are.

So when we visited various places in Florida a couple of weeks ago, I assessed the locales both in my head and from my gut. I did the same thing when we spent some time in Alabama and Delaware.

There are some places on my radar that I want to check out, such as Cape May, N.J. We traveled through there after getting off the ferry from Lewes, Del., and I'm curious to spend some time there.

One component in the process is the availability of work. Retiring for Baby Boomers doesn't mean shutting down professional productivity. It might mean a shifting of gears and doing something different, but it doesn't mean we just idle as we age.

Certainly the internet and the ease of access has made work much more portable. The work I do in my study in New Hampshire I could also do from another study in another state.

The other important component, at least for me, is the proximity of family.

Jane and I can get to a good chunk of our family -- and they can get to us -- within a half a day's drive.

There's a comfort in this access to my mother, and some of my siblings, and nieces and nephews, and my children and some of my stepchildren, and someday to grandchildren.

Do I want to be a plane ride or train ride away from that? I'm not sure. Probably not.

But I'll keep investigating in the meantime. If nothing else, it gives us a good excuse to get away from where we are to maybe appreciate where we are a little better.