“During most of human history only one in ten people lived to the age of 65,” writes Gail Sheey (The New Passages”). “In contemporary America, eight in ten people sail past their sixty-fifth birthday.”

Drs. John Rowe and Robert Kahn (“Successful Aging”) put it even more dramatically: “It is currently estimated that of all the human beings who have ever lived to be sixty-five years or older, half are currently alive.”

And not only are more of us reaching sixty-five; we’re living longer (and more healthfully) after that: “Those over age seventy-five now represent the fastest growing segment of our population.”

What these stats say for me and my peers is that we’re traveling unexplored terrain. Sheehy calls it a “second adulthood” and a “bonus stage.”

So I intend to be a good explorer and document the journey. You’ll read about it here.