May 2, 2020
Harvey Starkman
 

I was born in 1947; that makes me 55, right?
Okay, I know that Math isn’t my best subject. 
My rational self knows that I’m not 55, but I feel 55. On really good days, I feel even younger. I cycle to work; I negotiated my first climbing wall not so long ago; while my wife and I were in France in February and March, we regularly walked way more than the standard 10 000 steps -- before rushing back to Canada at the urging of our children and our prime minister.

But COVID has suddenly placed me and my demographical brothers and sisters into a class that makes no sense to us. Suddenly we are elderly, and as such we are at higher risk. Suddenly we really need to self isolate and, more than others, to keep ourselves out of harm’s way.

I’m confused. I hadn’t thought of myself as elderly. Maybe I should have. Occasionally on crowded buses or subway cars young people would offer me their seat. ‘Why?’, I wondered. Cashiers at our neighbourhood grocery store would ask if I wanted help carrying the bags to the car. Sure, I wanted help, but not because I couldn’t carry the bags. I’m lazy, and if someone else offers ….

We are hearing more and more that COVID is changing everything - that we will need to adjust to a new reality. 
Does that mean that now I’ll have to start acting my age?