“What is a person to do when life is shrinking?”

What happens when you round that last curve and find yourself heading down the rest of your life? Your career has reached its end, your children are off on hectic lives of their own, your spouse has gone to greener or darker pastures, and you are left to face the onslaught of old age on your own.

On top of that, your friends have flown off to be cared for by family members, or are languishing in a memory loss unit, or show up in the latest obituary column.

What is a person to do when life is shrinking?

Me, singing in a community chorale, I become aware of how much I love the emotional thrill of blending my deep voice with the other parts, in harmonies that make every bone in my body quiver. Singing old favorites, such as “A Wonderful World,” I become enraptured, feeling the music seep through me, lifting me to the sky.

My nonchalant bridge games become solid bi-weekly events. All those years seated at my mother’s side as she played with her lady friends — social games that became serious the minute the hands were spread open — left their mark.

After a series of lessons with seven other women, I take my place at the duplicate table and enter a couple of tournaments. These latter prove too nerve-racking for my taste, but sharpen my game and my pleasure in the intense concentration in which my brain is exercised to the fullest. Playing bridge back home with friends becomes a cinch. I become rather good, am appealed to for opinions — the most fun since I beat nine other seventh-grade contestants at marbles.

I adore games, the fun of sparring with others to figure things out. I adore the deep probing of music, which satisfies the soul and fills a visceral longing for some kind of connection with people that can’t be explained.

I have decided that to find what you love, to develop something that you can pour your consciousness into, is one of the fulfillments of old age — when you can indulge in the things that make you feel good.

My outdoor physical activities have been gradually replaced with more internal, gentle pursuits. I like it that way.

And I write. One day I come across an old folder and pulled out a short story typed on an old Royal machine with a large A in red on the top. Not even a minus. Pretty good!  A kernel in me begins to stir.

Once I was an avid reader. Writing flowed naturally from that, but marriage and babies intervened, and it wasn’t until retirement that I returned to writing. It has filled my life ever since. First a memoir to record my growing up in Minneapolis — once stimulated, the memories come flooding back. I received encouragement, joined a writing group, wrote a second memoir, then a novel.

I’m off on a grand adventure.

My latest is The Night Owl Sings and Other Stories of Old Age. These stories about love, marriage, motherhood, and friendship reveal the shifting tides of life as one experiences the ups and downs of aging —years that challenge us to make choices and uncover who we are.

Writing is a friend and mentor I can no longer do without. Where there had been a vacant space at my side, there is now an intimation of a presence — a force that accompanies me everywhere.

Life is good.