THE NARRATIVE ARC

The Last Thing I Want in My Life is Longevity

Coming to terms with myself and my future

Martha Manning, Ph.D.
The Narrative Arc
Published in
8 min readAug 15, 2024

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woman looks out at the sea. Appears to be an older woman wearing a blue and white gown. Wistful tone.
Photo by Francesca Stangoni on Unsplash

Mabel

On a morning TV show that happened to be on in my dentist’s waiting room, I saw something that scared me more than the drill that awaited me.

The host of the show gave shout-outs to viewers who were 95 or older and able to remain vertical for the few seconds that their picture was taken.

Mabel, 103 “years young” had a highlight video. She was strapped into her wheelchair, her head was down, stretched at the neck, straight into the cheesy corsage pinned to her chest.

Her breasts sagged so low that she could have stored a phone or a wallet under them.

Tubes came and went from different parts of her body.

All of this would have been fine if she had said, “Hi Fred. Thanks for the birthday greetings. Yes, I do like to crochet and in fact, my lifetime number of blankets is 89. This is my family all around me. I feel so lucky.”

She said nothing. Her expression never changed. She didn’t move. After a couple of agonizing moments, Fred gave her the sendoff that for some reason, people inflict on old people, “Well, bless your heart, dear!”

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Martha Manning, Ph.D.
The Narrative Arc

Dr. Martha Manning is a writer and clinical psychologist, author of Undercurrents and Chasing Grace. Depression sufferer. Mother. Growing older under protest.