DEATH, TAXES AND CHANGE

On my way to work, I used to stop for coffee at a corner gas station. This was before Starbucks peppered the landscape with its iconic green Siren logo. Back then, you took what you could get.

   The gas station was owned by a grumpy old goat who inexplicably offered free coffee in pump thermoses for his customers—a rarity even then. There was regular, decaf, and the bane of his existence: hazelnut. He hated hazelnut coffee with the passion of someone personally wronged by it. Every morning, the smell alone seemed to set him off.

   A greasy old TV sat perched in the corner atop a stack of outdated manuals and old carbon copy invoices, blaring local morning news at 7:30 a.m.—just more fuel for his ire. The place was full-service: oil changes, repairs, someone to pump your gas if you didn’t feel like doing it yourself, and, whether you asked for it or not, a running commentary on local politics, “trends,” and “the kids today”—of which I was one, at 28.

   That station is long gone, of course. Replaced by a Whole Foods.

   Now thirty years later Starbucks is so ubiquitous that it’s strange when there isn’t one. Coffee comes in flavors no one even imagined back then. Hazelnut, while still around, is practically a relic. Change is pervasive, sometimes insidious, always constant.

   When I was 28, sipping bad coffee from a Styrofoam cup, I wasn’t thinking about PFC’c or retirement. It didn’t even register that I was at the very beginning of a long and winding road toward it. Now, it enters my thoughts daily and shows up in conversation more than I’d like to admit.

   Just this morning, I saw an ad targeted at “seniors.” Not high school seniors—the other kind. The old kind. For reference, they kindly included the age bracket that qualified. And qualify I did. Hmm. (If you heard that in Yoda’s voice, we are indeed kindred.)

   It hit me like a slap—a sharp, slightly humiliating jolt into a reality I’ve been trying to keep at arm’s length. According to them, I’m a senior citizen. Now, if you go by government math, I’m not quite there. Not officially. I’m still considered “middle-aged”—whatever that means when you’re 58 and getting AARP mailers right alongside your mortgage statements. But government numbers are fluid—from retirement age to the cost-of-living index to the national GDP.

   By those same standards, my parents were senior citizens at 53. Back then, turning 50 was practically the last call at the bar of vitality. Today, we’re expected to run marathons at 60 and launch startups at 70. The goalposts keep moving. 

   Still, I’d be lying if I said the ad didn’t rattle me. It felt like being handed the senior menu without asking. Although—ask me if I want the senior discount and I’m a hell yes.

    But I don’t feel like a senior citizen. I don’t live like one. Working a full-time in a job that would be much easier if I were thirty years younger cures that.  Well… unless you count the two hip replacements. And the cataract surgery. And the foot reconstruction. Okay—so maybe I’ve been medically reassembled like a classic car. A little creaky but still running.

   Sometimes it feels like I’m just being patched up to head back into battle—the battle being the ever-evolving chaos of my job. Once, I worked to build a future. Now, I work to soften the landing. Retirement is no longer some far-off notion; it’s gone from being off my radar to appearing clearly on the horizon—and it’s sailing steadily into port. 

   And honestly? I may never fully retire. What surprises me is that I’m okay with that. More than okay—grateful. When retirement moved out of my subconscious and meandered into my consciousness as something other than my 401(k) balance, I began to look forward to it the way a child counts down to summer break: certain it would be sweet, simple, and full of freedom. Today though, there is a different reality evolving.

  Regardless, I’m simply grateful I still have the capacity to work. More than that—my heart’s still in it. And somehow, a quiet, steady stubbornness keeps showing up, long after the shinier parts of me have worn away. What once looked like youthful arrogance has softened into something steadier. A resolve that keeps me going when it would be easier to stop.

   And that, I think, is its own kind of grace.

   Aging doesn’t arrive all at once. It sneaks in—quietly, persistently. It comes in fragments. In ads. In slower healing. In the “ma’ams” from well-meaning colleagues who think they’re being polite. But it also brings perspective. Clarity. The ability to let go of what doesn’t matter and hold tightly to what does.

   Benjamin Franklin famously said that nothing is certain except death and taxes. I’d amend that: nothing is more certain than death, taxes, and change.

   Check back with me in twenty years. I’ll probably have added a few more items to the list—and by then, I’ll be a full-blown termagant (look it up; I had to 😉). Of course, I’ll deny it with every ounce of charm, wit, and sarcasm I’ve got left at 78.

   And because change is inevitable, I’ll be twenty years closer to my final chapter, will still be paying taxes and life will look nothing like it does now.

The ad that started it all