Dayton Diary: Being 90

I never expected to reach 93. Most of my colleagues, classmates and companions have gone on ahead. Yet here I am, still walking, still reading, still curious and still wondering, why me?

People often ask, “So what do you do all day?”

Well, I get up. I walk. I read. I meditate. I spend too much time scrolling on the computer. I shop and cook. I practice my trombone, though not as faithfully as I once did. I worry about the latest political or social outrage.

Artificial intelligence can now handle our routine tasks, leaving us free to “be ourselves.” I’m still trying to figure out what being myself really means. 

For most of my life, identity was tied to work.

Now I wake without obligation. The day stretches ahead like an unmarked score, waiting to be played. Sometimes I fill it with music. Sometimes with reading or reflection. Sometimes, with idle worry or quiet nostalgia. But underneath it all runs a steady current of gratitude — for another sunrise, another meal, another tune.

“Nothing lasts forever, except perhaps the small kindnesses we leave behind — a note, a memory, a song.”

Nothing lasts forever, except perhaps the small kindnesses we leave behind — a note, a memory, a song.

What remains is simple: the desire to see, to listen, to love and to be.

I don’t have answers. I have questions — and time to ask them slowly.

So I get up. I make coffee. I read a little poetry. I play a few notes. I send a birthday card to someone in my music group. And I give thanks.

Time has forced Aaron to change the name of his blog from Moseying Through My Eighties to Moseying Through My Nineties.

A version of this article appears in print in the Spring 2026 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 63. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE