A recent experience got me thinking about aging.
The other morning I went in for a tooth extraction. This is the second one I’ve had. The first went extremely well and healed up very nicely. Still, as I drove in, I noticed I was anxious and worried about the experience. As I prayed for calmness, I began to remember the other extraction, surgeries, and fractures that all healed nicely and allowed me to stay in good health.
And then it hit me: yes, my body may be slowing down and deteriorating somewhat over the years—but my mind is sharp (although I do forget more than I used to!), and I am still me. The same inner presence. The same quiet sense of self. Just a bit more lived-in.
Later that day, I sat on the porch with a cigar and a cup of something strong, the summer heat slowing everything down around me. I realized: for most of my life, summer meant getting ready for the fall, syllabi, rosters, room setup. But not anymore. I long ago stopped planning for a new school year.
There was a strange pause in that. Not sadness, exactly. Just… space.
It’s from that space this post emerges. I’ve been wondering:
What if aging isn’t about disappearing?
What if it’s about expanding—our awareness, our compassion, our presence?
And what if this quiet season we find ourselves in—this summer of rest—might actually be the perfect invitation to explore what growing older gracefully really means?
The Cultural Narrative of Shrinking
We live in a culture that subtly (and sometimes loudly) tells us that aging is about doing less, stepping aside, becoming invisible. The language around aging is often one of subtraction—”retiring from,” “slowing down,” “no longer able.”
This can hit especially hard for educators. For years, we were used to being the steady presence in the room—teaching, guiding, planning, adjusting. Our identities were tethered to usefulness, to motion. So when the classroom goes quiet and our schedules loosen, it’s easy to wonder: Am I still relevant?
But I want to gently challenge this idea that aging means shrinking. What if it’s the opposite?
The Psychology of Still Becoming
The developmental psychologist Erik Erikson believed that in the final stage of life—what he called Integrity vs. Despair—we are invited to reflect on our lives and, ideally, find a sense of wholeness. Not perfection, but meaning. We look back and say, “It mattered. I mattered.”
It’s not about how much we’re doing now, but how fully we can see our lives in the round.
Psychologist Becca Levy, out of Yale, studied the connection between how we think about aging and how we actually age. Her findings are stunning: people with more positive self-perceptions of aging live, on average, 7.5 years longer than those with negative perceptions. They recover more quickly from illness. They engage more deeply in life.
In short: how we view aging shapes how we live it.
We may not be in the classroom anymore—but if we believe we are still growing, still becoming, still contributing—then we are.
The Educator’s Heart Still Expands
I’ve come to realize that I’m still teaching. Just differently.
I see it in conversations with former students. In mentoring younger educators. In writing this blog. In listening more than I speak.
Maybe you’ve noticed it, too—those quiet moments when someone turns to you for your perspective, your calm, your lived experience. That’s not just nostalgia. That’s relevance. That’s legacy.
There’s a deep kind of teaching that doesn’t require a classroom, a bell schedule, or even a formal title. It requires presence. It requires you.
A Spiritual Kind of Expansion
Some of the most profound expansions in aging have nothing to do with physical strength or intellectual prowess. They come through spirit—through slowing down, letting go, and tuning in.
A few weeks ago, Kelli and I stood near the sea. The waves were coming in steady and wide, and the horizon seemed to go on forever. I felt small. But I also felt a deep, calm belonging.
There’s a scripture I’ve always loved that came to mind:
“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
—2 Corinthians 4:16
We may not always be growing upward anymore—but we are growing inward. And that kind of growth? It lasts.
A New Way to Ask the Question
Instead of asking, “What do I still have to prove?”
What if we asked, “What is asking to be nurtured now?”
That might be a new curiosity. A deeper relationship. A creative project. A spiritual practice. A quiet moment of gratitude.
It might be this very summer.
Here are a few journaling prompts if you’re sitting with these questions too:
- Where in my life am I still expanding?
- What’s something I’m discovering now that I didn’t understand in my younger years?
- What old belief about aging is ready to be released?
- What might it look like to grow in grace instead of worry?
A Final Moment
A few days ago, I ran into a former student at the grocery store. We talked about their new job, their family, and before we parted, they said, “You probably don’t remember, but something you said once really stuck with me.” And they told me what it was.
I didn’t remember saying it. But I remembered the student. And I realized: the things we plant continue to grow, long after we’ve stepped away from the field.
That’s what expansion looks like. It’s not about pushing harder—it’s about opening wider.
This summer, may we all open to the quiet beauty of who we are still becoming.
💭 Perspective Shift Reflection
“We grow not by holding on, but by opening up.”
