So, I get a call from the AARP guy after my last column, which attempted to make light of the aging process by pointing out the humor in failing eyesight and memory loss. I know, I know: a real barrel of laughs.

"Why don't you write about how great it is to get old," he said. (I'm paraphrasing.)

Let's see. All the great things about getting old. Hmm, how about ... uh. Well, there's ... um. Cheap coffee at McDonald's?

Here's one: You don't have to worry about dying young. (Thank you to Advertiser columnist and blogger David Shapiro for that one. I feel so much better now.)

How about the satisfaction of knowing you've matured emotionally and intellectually and are a much wiser person today? Problem with that is the people you most want to impart your hard-earned wisdom to — the kids — don't want to hear it. They won't realize how wise you really are until they've done pretty much everything you advised them not to do.

What the AARP guy meant, of course, is that aging doesn't have to diminish one's fulfillment and enjoyment of life — as long as a stroke or a stock market crash doesn't get you first. OK, that last part was me being negative again. Sorry.

I get what he's saying. Many older folks are engaged in active lives full of meaning and purpose. I know a lot of people like that, and I see pictures of them in the AARP magazine and in TV commercials, mostly for pharmaceuticals. These people are my heroes. I want to be just like them when I get old.

But I can't think about that right now. At 50, on the cusp of elderhood, the idea of enjoying the "senior lifestyle" is a mirage on the distant horizon when I have a kid in college and another in middle school, and I'm looking at another 15 to 20 years of full-time employment. (Yes, I could've managed the retirement-planning thing better.)

I imagine it's the same for people taking care of elderly parents, or simultaneously caring for kids and elderly parents, or raising their grandkids. There's no time to appreciate the joys of aging, because that would require slowing down a bit, and I feel like I'm going 100 miles an hour, and my achin' knees can't seem to keep pace.

It's hard to be optimistic about the future when Suze Orman is on your back all the time about the sorry state of your personal finances and you have a front-row seat for the decline of your parents as they struggle with illness in their final years.

I do get what the AARP guy is saying, and more power to him and other advocates for the elderly. I certainly don't want to cross one of the most powerful lobbying forces in the nation. (Hey, they started it, sending me all those membership offers when I hadn't even hit the half-century mark, launching me on this "I'm so old" spiral.)

This just isn't a good time for me to be looking ahead. I'm sort of stuck in the now. Once I get a little older (and wiser), it'll be a different story, I'm sure.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.