I’m still a few years off from 50, but alongside aches and pains, I’ve accumulated something else as I’ve aged – friends in their 70s, otherwise known as septuagenarians. Now, none of these friendships started when they were in their 70s, but my point is that I have a lot of friends who are 25-30 years older than me, more so that I have 25-30 years younger. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but I’m trying to figure out how to sit with it and how it came to be so.

All of these friends but one are colleagues, either from the university I work at or my field of study. The one who isn’t was a former neighbor and he was a soon-to-be retired college professor when I met him. They say most relationships start at work – only I didn’t get the romantic kind, just the father/mother figure kind. Again, not a bad thing. Just trying to work through it. And yes, some of my older friends are female, and one is a lesbian. She and I get along like peanut butter and jelly and she’s one of the few people I know who has a fouler mouth than me. Boy, she loves to f-ing cuss!

Some of these friendships are mostly propped up by email, as a couple of the guys live on the other side of the country. Sadly, I’ve only seen each of them once a piece in the last five years and I don’t know when it’s realistic to expect to see them again. I’ve kind of come to terms with the likelihood that I may never see them again. I’m not exactly alright with that, but I don’t know if the stars will come back into alignment. While I was rambling around the west this past summer I had full intention – or at least hoped – to see them both, but it just didn’t work out. While I was down in SW CO, I was eyeing getting down to Santa Fe, NM, to see one, but it’s almost a 4-hour drive and my window was too tight. The other is up in Bellingham, WA, but spends time in Hood River, OR, and I was driving into Portland from the Rockies about the time he was to be at his cabin. But as luck would have it, the day I was to pass through he had to head back north to attend to some business. Opportunity missed.

My future older-self wondering where all my younger friends are. (Image retrieved from here and comes courtesy of Pixabay.)

Another is down in Athens, GA, and I’ve seen him somewhat regularly the past three years, staying with him most times I go down there to see music. We have the most regular communication of those not rooted to my adoptive hometown in some way, frequently texting and emailing one another. My other female septuagenarian friend I’ve known the longest, about two years before I started my doctorate. When I was looking at programs, knowing I wanted to study music fandom, I stumbled across her edited collection on Deadheads. Another friend encouraged me to email her, and I did. We chatted by phone and it was a great exchange. Small world that it is we live in, I ended up working at the same university as her, and to make that world even smaller, we share the same suite even though we’re in different departments. You can’t make this stuff up.

My former department chair is someone I count as a friend as well. Now retired, he and I meet up for beers 3-4 times a year. Another colleague from the social work department, also retired, I met in the first few months of starting my job. My dean said that he and I would be fast friends, describing him as a “crazy man.” We met and did indeed become fast friends. We hung around a lot for several years, but ever since he became a grandpa 4x over, I see him far less often.

This brings me to my former neighbor, the septuagenarian friend I see the most. It’s not unusual for me to see him once a week and he’s often watched my dog. When he moved out of his house and was staying with his ex-wife in an apartment while he looked for something more suitable, he practiced his drums at my house for at least a year. He’s very well-read with an amazing mind for history and social analysis, though the latter is skewed because of his political leanings as a self-professed communist. He’s borderline bat-shit crazy, too, and I’ve seen him at his highest and lowest moments, and sometimes those come within minutes of one another. He undoubtedly has some undiagnosed mental illnesses, but he’s one of the most interesting people I know. I would’ve liked to know him in his 20s, he must’ve been a hellraiser…

I have friends that span the age spectrum. The youngest I count as a friend (i.e., someone who I would go get a beer with, might call up randomly and have it not be weird, and can be mostly honest with) is 27. The oldest in the group is 79. This certainly does allow me to get different perspectives and understand what matters – and what doesn’t – to people in different stages of life. When I think back to my younger self 20-25 years ago, I often wonder if he would’ve gotten along with my current self. Now I think about my current self in relation to my future self 25 years down the road.

Having older friends allows me a glimpse into what’s ahead, and I think that will be wildly beneficial, even if nothing currently sticks out as a remarkable insight or life lesson at this point, in terms of what I’ve gathered from my septuagenarian cohort. I do wonder what they think of having a much-younger friend, though, as only two of the seven have any other younger friends that I’m aware of (perhaps unsurprisingly, those are the two deeply invested in the local music scene). In general, do they feel younger when they hang out or converse with me? Does doing so allow them to connect to their pasts in ways they otherwise might not be able to?

It’s kind of weird that I have so many septuagenarian friends in a way, as I honestly don’t feel I treat them any different than my same-age or younger friends; they’re just people. But when I interact with my parents (slightly older, in their early 80s), they seem like dinosaurs to me. Maybe that’s why I find it odd – it’s so easy to be myself with my older friends, and more challenging to do so with my (older) parents. I guess there’s probably something there in the relationships I have with my septuagenarians that in some way what I wish I had in my relationship with my parents. (Kind of.) But I also wonder if having friends in their 70s helps me to understand my parents better or appreciate them more. Maybe. I’ll have to give that some more thought. If nothing else, it gives me more opportunities to notice the subtle changes that occur more frequently as we age, and that may pay off in terms of following my parents’ health arc more closely.

My final thought on having all these older friends, much as with my older parents, is that they’re not going to live forever. Eventually, their health will decline. Eventually, they will die. When that downward trajectory begins, what will be my role in their lives as a friend? What will I learn from them as their lives come to an end? How will that affect me going forward?

Before too long, I’ll be in my 70s (god willing), and I wonder if I’ll have good friends 25 years younger. I hope so. I just wonder if what I get from them at the point will be anything like what I give to my older friends now. Time will tell; I guess…

Marco Esquandoles
Time Traveler