By: Michael Saraceno, MA, LPC, NCC
The other morning, I stood up and immediately noticed my left knee wasn’t thrilled with the idea.
My first thought was, “Really? I’m only 33.”
Then, I laughed. This knee has actually earned the right to complain every now and then.
About 10 years ago, while I was studying abroad in Italy, I injured it playing soccer. Eventually, it needed surgery, and every so often it reminds me of that chapter of my life. Honestly, if you’re going to end up with an old sports injury, getting it while living in Italy is a pretty good story to tell. I would happily take the occasional ache if it means I also get to keep the memories that came with it. Still, that little reminder from my knee made me think about something many of us experience but rarely talk about openly: our complicated relationship with aging.
Somewhere along the way, we begin treating birthdays like bad news.
Twenty-five becomes thirty.
Thirty becomes forty.
Gray hairs become something to hide. Aches become something to complain about. Wrinkles become something to fix. We joke about “getting old” long before we’re actually old. But why?
As a therapist, I spend a lot of time talking with people about perspective. We work on challenging the stories we tell ourselves, especially the ones that aren’t serving us well. It made me wonder whether aging is one of those stories we’ve gotten completely backwards.
What if aging isn’t something to fear?
What if it’s the miracle we spend far too much time trying to avoid?
Not everyone gets the privilege of growing older. That reality alone changes the conversation.
When I stopped looking at my sore knee as evidence that I was getting older and started seeing it as a reminder of a life that has been lived, everything shifted. That knee has carried me across soccer fields in Italy, through graduate school, into a career I love, on vacations with people I care about, and through countless ordinary moments that became extraordinary simply because I was there to experience them.
The ache is real, but so are the memories.
One of the things I love about psychology is that research often confirms what our hearts already suspect. According to psychologist Laura Carstensen and her colleagues (2011), emotional well-being often improves as we age. As people become increasingly aware that time is finite, they tend to prioritize what matters most: meaningful relationships, emotionally fulfilling experiences, and the people they genuinely love.
In other words, aging doesn’t simply change our bodies.
It often changes our priorities for the better.
Another fascinating area of research has found that our beliefs about aging actually influence how we experience it. Levy (2009) found that individuals who hold more positive attitudes toward aging tend to experience better physical health, greater resilience, and improved psychological well-being compared to those who internalize negative stereotypes about getting older.
Think about that for a moment.
The story we tell ourselves about aging matters.
If we constantly tell ourselves that growing older means becoming less valuable, less capable, or less relevant, we begin to believe it.
But what if we told ourselves a different story?
At 23, I had healthier knees. I also had less patience, less perspective, less confidence in who I was, fewer meaningful friendships, fewer memories, and fewer passport stamps. Most importantly, I had fewer experiences that shaped the person I am today.
Today my knee occasionally reminds me that I’m getting older.
Everything else reminds me that I’m getting richer.
Not richer in the financial sense, but richer in the ways that matter most.
Richer in relationships. Richer in perspective. Richer in gratitude. Richer in stories.
That’s one of the beautiful paradoxes of aging. Our bodies inevitably change, but our lives continue to deepen. We accumulate experiences that become wisdom. We discover that many of the things we once worried about were never worth the energy. We become better at recognizing what truly deserves our attention and what can simply be let go.
This doesn’t mean aging is always easy. Physical changes can be frustrating. Illness, loss, and grief are very real parts of the human experience. And at the same time, appreciating aging doesn’t require pretending those realities don’t exist.
It simply asks us to hold another truth alongside them: every year we grow older is another year we’ve been fortunate enough to live.
As I was reflecting on all of this, I found myself thinking about my dog, Nino. He recently passed away at nearly 18 years old after filling my life with more love, laughter, and companionship than I could have imagined. Losing him has been incredibly difficult, but it has also reinforced the deep sense of meaning and purpose for me within this blog.
I never once wished that I had loved him less so losing him would hurt less. I wished for more time.
Because that’s what aging gives us.
Time to build relationships.
Time to create memories.
Time to laugh until our stomach hurts.
Time to travel.
Time to learn.
Time to forgive.
Time to become who we’re meant to be.
When someone or something we love is no longer with us, we realize that the years were never the problem.
The years were the gift.
Maybe that’s the miracle of aging.
It isn’t that our bodies stay the same because they won’t. It isn’t that life becomes easier because sometimes it doesn’t.
The miracle is that every passing year gives us another opportunity to live a fuller story than we had the year before.
So the next time another birthday arrives, another gray hair appears, or your knee decides to remind you of an old soccer injury from Italy, I hope you’ll pause before criticizing what has changed.
Instead, ask yourself what those years have given you.
My guess is you’ll find they have given you far more than they have ever taken away.
References
Carstensen, L. L., Turan, B., Scheibe, S., Ram, N., Ersner-Hershfield, H., Samanez-Larkin, G. R., Brooks, K. P., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2011). Emotional experience improves with age: Evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling. Psychology and Aging, 26(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021285
Levy, B. R. (2009). Stereotype embodiment: A psychosocial approach to aging. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(6), 332–336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01662.x
