The Sturdy Centenarian excerpt by Doris Carnevali

Necessity is the mother of invention.
When one door shuts, another one opens.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Never name the well from which you will not drink.

At 95: Birth of a Blog.

I am a 95-year-old woman who was coasting along with the flow of life and then one day thought “I wonder what difference it would make if I were to engage actively with the process of aging. Scrutinize the parts of it. Interact with it differently.”
And that’s just what I began to do. I called this new process of scrutiny and response engaging with aging, and it began to add zest, intrigue, and comedy to life. (There are times when aging is just ludicrous.)
I had already had a long career in nursing and had also co-authored three editions of a textbook, Nursing Management for the Elderly. This gave me a gritty, practical education on aging, normal and otherwise.
Consequently, I had both the advantage and the burden of knowing what aging would surely bring – and what it might bring – in my advancing years. Or rather, thinking that I knew! Because until I became my old self, I didn’t know the half of it.
Then someone challenged me to start a blog, and since then I have written something for the blog almost every week.
One more piece of my background. I’ve been remarkably healthy and have lived alone for the last 12 years in a home my husband built 68 years ago. I have the active support of my two sons and their families. I’m white, from a Swedish background, living in Seattle. In other words, I’m privileged. However, from my nursing experience, I have some idea of what daily living is like for those who are not so fortunate.
I’m not a scientist, though I do consult the literature at times. This blog will consist of my ideas, discoveries, and strategies as I explore this business of living with my own aging. They will show some ways one person lives with aging and being old – But certainly not the only way.
Turning 95
I never ever thought about being 95. Never expected to live this long, never aspired to it. Somehow it just happened, one mid-January day, there it was.
This was the first birthday I refused a party. Much to my family’s dismay, I wanted to spend the day at home alone getting used to the idea – not sad, not happy, just a little bemused.
Well, now I’ve had eight months to get used to being 95. Actually, it’s quite fine. With this landmark birthday behind me, I find myself feeling remarkably free to get on with life.
Sometimes I use the 95 as an excuse to avoid things I don’t want to do – that’s legitimate.
Surprising me too are the vistas of life in earlier decades arising in my thoughts. They seem to be from a 95-year-old’s distant perspective. They intrigue me. They invite exploration. I find myself not just wanting to examine them but to engage with them. That’s new.
In my professional life, I wrote – a lot – for academic publications. The transition to writing for general audiences has not been easy. But as one of my professors once said, “As long as you’re green, you’re growing” So here I am, green and growing, home-schooling myself in writing non-academic blog posts about my personal experience of growing old.
I’ll explain how I moved from just getting older to actually engaging with the aging process. How I examine what’s happening to me and figure out how to deal with it. Who knew there were more adventures in store for someone as old as me?