This year Marlee Millman wrote an essay to read to her family and friends who were gathering to celebrate her 65th birthday in her hometown of Chicago. She was excited and wanted to have a speech prepared. She emailed me:

Hi Sheila,

Here’s the beginning of my essay on meeting Medicare. It’s hard to believe I am turning 65 and need to write about the feelings. I feel it’s a good beginning, but I don’t know where to go with it. I think I need to put stuff in after the “wasn’t it just yesterday questions,” like after wasn’t it just yesterday I went to college, talk about the excitement of being on my own and meeting lots of new people. Am I on the right track with that?

Medicare Essay

A few months ago I received my Medicare card. What a shock! I was sure I wasn’t turning 65 and thought the card was a mistake. The government had certainly mixed me up with someone else. After all, wasn’t it just yesterday I graduated from high school and then went to college? Wasn’t it just yesterday I voted for the first time? Wasn’t it just yesterday I moved to Los Angeles from my hometown of Chicago to pursue my dream? (I didn’t and a year later moved back). Wasn’t it just yesterday I got married?

It’s my 90-year-old mother who is on Medicare. It’s my 66 year-old brother-in-law who is on Medicare. It’s not me. No matter that I have nephews in their thirties. No matter that I’m a great-aunt. Plenty of people have that and they are not 65. My beloved husband didn’t even live to see 65. Yes, there is something wrong with this picture.

I work out six times a week. I am participating in a 60-mile walk for breast cancer. My resting heart rate is that of a 40 year-old. I am told I look between 45 and 50. I have more energy than some 35-year-olds. So, the government is totally wrong.

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I enjoyed the surprise and denial the speaker feels about being identified as “elderly” when she is in good health and physically active. However, I think the thing that most struck me as I read this early draft was how much I wanted more from this speaker. Why was she so shocked and sure the government was wrong? I realize that she goes on to list information about time seeming not to have passed, but aside from time not seeming to have gone by, what else strikes her as odd about getting a Medicare card from the government? At the end of the first paragraph, I certainly do want to know more about the items on the “just yesterday” list. Just as Marlee suspected in her note to me, adding more to the list does provide an opportunity for her to describe more of her life.

There are things to do that would enrich the essay. After Marlee states, “It’s my 90-year-old mother who is on Medicare,” I found myself looking for elaboration on all that being on Medicare implies for Marlee and how it competes in her mind with her concept of who she is and how active and healthy she is as well as words on what it means to be oneself at 65, Medicare or not.

 Marlee had a strong occasion from which she was writing and needed to beef up that paragraph about what being 65 would mean to her if she felt she were really 65. Cutting some phrases and doing a little rearranging in the first paragraph would open up a place to write what being 65 really means to the speaker. She could go on a bit about why she was so sure she wasn’t 65. I agreed that she could write more about all of the items on her list of what was just yesterday.  She could add all that being on Medicare implies for her and then more about how she is the opposite of what those implications call up. She might come to a new ending, I thought, about what it means to be herself at 65, Medicare or not.

Here is the version Marlee sent back with my next comments to her in the text in caps:

A few months ago I received my Medicare card. What a shock! I can’t be turning 65.  I work out six times a week. In a few weeks, I am participating in a 60-mile walk for breast cancer. My resting heart rate is that of a 40 year-old. I don’t look a day over 50. I have more energy than some 35 year-olds and just last week, my eye doctor told me I had the eyes of a 20 year-old! Who’s on Medicare? My 90-year-old mother. My 66-year-old brother-in-law. Not me.

No matter that I have nephews in their thirties. No matter that I’m a great-aunt. Plenty of people are and they are not 65. I know my birth certificate reads 1939. I can do the math. But, wasn’t it just yesterday I graduated from high school and went on to college, my first time away from home and the excitement of discovering my own way in life? I found out what it was like to be popular among my peers. Wasn’t it just yesterday I voted for the first time and excitedly cast my vote for John F. Kennedy, then walked out of the booth believing that I could change the world with just a turn of the lever? Wasn’t it just yesterday I moved to Los Angeles from my hometown Chicago hoping to find the man of my dreams? At 25, I was feeling old because my friends were all married. I thought I had met every single man in Chicago. Los Angeles seemed the land of big opportunity. Wasn’t when I moved back the next year just yesterday, too? And finally meeting the man of my dreams and getting married a week before my 39th birthday? What about the twelve heady years of our marriage before he died and my world turned upside down? He didn’t live long enough to get a Medicare card, to be as shocked as I am.

Medicare means swinging on a front porch, retirement from work and even sometimes from life. Medicare means weekly visits to the doctor and cupboards filled with every drug imaginable. Nope, not me. First of all, I don’t have a front porch (or visible gray hairs). I am not retired from work just in transition. My visits to the doctor vary from every six months to once a year and my cupboards are filled with every vitamin imaginable.

So, the government is totally wrong. And so are all the companies sending me letters telling me that soon I will be 65 and it’s time to start thinking about supplemental health care. But, just in case the government is not in error, I have also applied for supplemental health care through AARP. WHY? WHAT DOES IT HELP YOU WITH SHOULD YOU REALLY BE 65? I have allowed the government to take out the requisite $66.00 per month from my social security, which I receive as survivor benefits. I’M NOT CLEAR ABOUT WHAT TAKING OUT THE MONEY MEANS–SEEMS LIKE YOU WOULDN’T WANT THEM TO DO THIS–HOW DOES IT HELP YOU JUST IN CASE THEY ARE RIGHT?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining about being 65. I cherish the fact that I am able to have another birthday. I am grateful that I am an independent, healthy, sexually alive woman, who is still looking for the man of my dreams.
The issue is where did the time go if it all wasn’t all just yesterday?

In the next pass, Marlee’s draft was quite a bit more developed. Sometimes, a few responses from a trusted reader go a long way in helping the writer put more of their narrative and thinking process into a draft:

I was in shock when I received my Medicare card a few months ago. There was no way I was turning 65. The card was a mistake. The government was totally wrong and had certainly mixed me up with someone else.

After all, I work out six times a week. My resting heart rate is that of a 40 year-old. I don’t look a day over 50. I have more energy than some 35-year-olds and two weeks ago, my eye doctor told me I have the eyes of a 20-year-old. And, just last weekend I participated in a three day, 60-mile walk for breast cancer.

I know my birth certificate reads 1939. I can do the math. But wasn’t it just yesterday I graduated from high school and went on to college? It was my first time away from home and discovering my own way in life. I found out what it was like to be popular among my peers. I was like a flower whose buds were just beginning to open. Wasn’t it just yesterday I voted for the first time? Being able to cast my vote for John F. Kennedy is a memory that’s forever imprinted in my mind. I walked out of the booth truly believing that I could change the world with just a turn of the lever. Wasn’t it just yesterday I moved to Los Angeles from my hometown Chicago hoping to find the man of my dreams? At 25, I was feeling so old. All my friends were married and in the vernacular of the time, I was becoming an old-mail. I thought I had met every single man in Chicago. Los Angeles seemed the land of big opportunity. Wasn’t when I moved back the next year just yesterday, too? And finally meeting the man of my dreams and getting married a week before my 39th birthday? It was a heady time. We were the best of companions. We spent all our leisure time together, playing tennis, going to the theater, movies, symphony, taking wonderful trips. I felt so secure with him and my single days were well behind me, or so I thought. Life can play cruel tricks. Twelve years later, the man of my dreams died. He didn’t live long enough to get the Medicare card and be as shocked as I was.

So who’s on Medicare? It’s my 90-year-old mother. It’s my 66 year-old brother-in-law. It’s not me. No matter that I have nephews in their thirties. No matter that I’m a great-aunt. Plenty of people have that and they are not 65. Medicare means little gray-haired people sitting or swinging on their front porches remembering the “good old days.” Medicare means retirement from work and sometimes from life. Medicare means weekly visits to the doctor. Medicare means cupboards filled with every drug imaginable. Nope, not me. First of all, I don’t have a front porch and there are no visible gray hairs. I am not retired from work just in transition. My visits to the doctor vary from every six months to once a year and my cupboards are filled with every vitamin imaginable.

So, the government is totally wrong. And so are all the companies who have sent me information on health insurance and telling me that soon I would be turning 65 and it was time to start thinking about supplemental health care. But, just in case the government is not in error, I have allowed them to take out the requisite $66.00 (soon to be more) from my social security, which I receive as survivor benefits. I also have supplemental health care through AARP. Of course, this is just my protection against the possibility that the government and other insurance companies just might be right.

I do know that for the first time in my life, I feel aware that I have less ahead of me than ever before and that just can’t be. I know that at 50, 55 and 60, the same could be applied, but it didn’t feel that way at those ages. Now I’m not complaining about being 65. I cherish the fact that I am able to have another birthday. I am grateful that I am an independent, healthy, sexually alive woman, who is again looking for the man of her dreams. The issue is where did the time go if it wasn’t all just yesterday?

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When I read this version, I felt a richness I hadn’t felt earlier. Marlee had gone further than the breezy romp she wrote at first. I felt the poignancy of aging, of admitting it, of knowing that whether you are healthy or ill, life is limited. In this version, I felt the life review leading me to insight, to the feeling that in the end, life is fleeting. I admire the essay for moving me in this direction. And I know that Marlee finished this draft in time to read it at a party in honor of her 65th birthday. Bravo, Marlee! Keep running and writing and reminding us all that though our time here is limited and filled with loss, it is also full of love and hope.