Dear James: Never Too Old for a Barbaric Yawp

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at [email protected].

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Dear James,

I turned 82 last Bastille Day, and I cannot figure out how I got here. I should be dead. I have emphysema, I’m basically immobile, and I no longer really go anywhere—I certainly don’t travel. Otherwise, I’m just fine!

Dear Reader,

I very much appreciate this letter: the grit, the pith, the doom-tastic defiance. Thank you for sharing all this with me. Obviously, you are not fine, but your spirit is strong, and—perhaps even more important—your sense of humor is intact. I salute you.

In fact, I would like to take this opportunity to salute, from the gentle-ish tumulus of middle age, all of my correspondents who are dangling so bravely and with such élan from the gnarly heights of their 70s and 80s and 90s. I’m 56 years old, clear on some t...
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