Fifty-Three and Sinking: A Field Guide to Aging Well
Last week I saw an Instagram post that hit me squarely in the existential solar plexus. It said the average life expectancy for men around here is 77. That’s it—77 years. Which, if the math checks out, means my midlife crisis was due sixteen years ago. Sixteen. I should’ve been panicking in cargo shorts at a custom mountain bike builder back when iPods still had click wheels.
And so here I am, 53 years old, feeling the gentle but insistent thud of time catching up with me. I suppose you could call it a midlife crisis, although at this point it feels more like a “final third awareness event,” which is somehow less dramatic but considerably more accurate.
Maybe it’s because both of my kids are studying abroad this year, happily roaming Europe with zero assistance from dear old Dad. They book flights, navigate foreign transit systems, and plan sailing trips with the ease and swagger of people who’ve never once wrestled a paper map or paid a long-distance phone bill. The house is now eerily quiet. The dog looks at me like, “So… is it just us now?” And for the first time in decades, I have time—oodles of it—but also this gnawing sensation that I’m withdrawing from the bank account of life at an increasingly aggressive rate.
The thing is, I don’t feel old. Not really. Most days I’m still biking to work, hitting the gym, diving Lake Superior — stubbornly pretending I have the body of someone who thinks a 401k is an ultra marathon. But then reality intrudes: SCUBA diving now involves shouldering 130 pounds of gear and stumbling over rocky beaches that seem to grow sharper by the year. Realistically, how much longer can I keep doing this? Five years? Maybe ten, if my knees and healthy dose of denial hold.
And that, I suppose, is where this curious new phase of life is getting interesting. Just this morning, I found myself plunging into the frosty, freighter-tossing waters of Lake Superior, and by afternoon I was wading about in a marsh, chest-deep in murky water, tucked into a floating blind in pursuit of a decent photograph of something with wings. These days, I seem to be hurling myself—often quite literally—into diving and wildlife photography. It’s not so much a retirement plan as a spirited refusal to sit quietly while the clock stands over me, tapping its foot.
Out here with my loyal flock of plastic ducks, doing my best to fool nature—and, occasionally, myself
Like most big life changes, this one snuck in quietly, disguised as normalcy. First, the kids go to college. Then they’re home for the holidays. Then less so. Then not at all. Eventually, you look around and realize the bustling chaos you spent two decades navigating has vanished, and in its place is… free time. Glorious, unsettling free time.
And here’s the kicker: the real job—the parenting, the guiding, the worry-saturated decision-making—is over. Somehow, against all odds and breakfast-cereal diets, my daughters turned into genuinely amazing humans. They’re kind, intelligent, and just the right amount of rebellious. In that department, I feel like I hit the Powerball.
The only catch? That lottery payout fills the heart, but not the checking account. And it doesn’t exactly answer the question: Now what?
A female hooded merganser, looking both skeptical and stylish, paddled past—proving once again that in nature, great hair is effortless and suspicion is mandatory.
There’s something about this age. Time used to be ambient background noise; now it ticks like a metronome in a silent room. I’ve got friends getting joint replacements. Others are settling into golf (which I’m told is a sport, though I remain skeptical). Only one still mountain bikes with any real fury, and he’s either aging miraculously or undergoing secret medical experiments. Either way, I applaud it.
As for me, I’m healthy—mostly. There was a heart attack five years ago, which does tend to sharpen your perspective. But I still get after it: biking, gym sessions, diving year-round in Lake Superior. Some days, after a good workout, I like to think I’ve still got some muscle on me. Then I catch a glimpse in the mirror—grey hair, twenty-year-old gym shorts, looking like a time traveler from 2003—and realize I might be the only person aging in reverse on the inside and fast-forward on the outside.
Amid Lake Superior’s perilous cold, beauty etches itself across stone and sand, indifferent to the human struggle.
If there’s a secret to handling this phase of life, I think it’s this: don’t slow down. Speed up. Do more. Do the things that make you forget what day it is.
For me, that’s diving and photography. Diving is a glorious contradiction—it’s a complicated, mildly terrifying, machine-driven process that leads you into the most peaceful, alien environments on Earth. And underwater photography? That’s just the icing on the very soggy cake. You descend into a surreal silence, tasked only with witnessing and capturing fleeting moments no one else will see. It’s exhilarating. It’s meditative. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to time travel.
Sure, the gear is heavy and the water’s cold, but there’s a magic to it that makes me want to keep going. My body will eventually protest—probably in several languages—but if that happens, I’ve got a backup plan: buy a boat and roll my creaky self off the back. No rocky hikes, no scraped knees. Just a gentle splash and the buoyant grace of the underwater world. No knees required. Just curiosity—and, ideally, a very good drysuit.
You dream of sharks in far-off seas, but sometimes wonder is a scruffy little sculpin right in your own backyard. In Lake Superior’s cold depths, this oddball was almost as exciting.
Let’s be honest—exotic trips to photograph sharks or grizzlies aren’t exactly in the cards right now. Time and money are both a little tighter than they once were. But that’s okay. Adventure doesn’t always require a passport—or a six-figure travel budget.
These days, I’m finding joy in the small expeditions. A dive in Lake Superior in January. A dawn session in a floating blind, fingers cold but heart full. Today, I was out with the birds, knee-deep in muck, perfectly content.
Would I love to be in the Socorro Islands right now? Of course. But I’ve made peace with the idea that a few hours with sculpin and blue jays, a few days a week, can feel just as profound—especially when it’s part of a life you’ve chosen on purpose.
So what’s the takeaway? Maybe just this: if the clock is ticking, that’s all the more reason to dive deeper, shoot more, and worry less. Don’t wait for retirement. Don’t bank on “someday.” Worry about the water conditions. Worry about whether tomorrow’s dive will be canceled.
Time may be short—but it’s also right now. And right now, there’s still adventure, there’s still beauty, and there’s still plenty of breath left in the tank.