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My granddaughter informed me the other day that I am older than Pope Leo XIV. “Did you know that?” she asked. Apparently the new Pope is 70. I am 76. “You’re a lot older than the Pope, actually,” she repeated, delighted with herself. And the truth is, I hadn’t thought about my age that way before. You don’t walk around feeling 76. I feel approximately 32 until I stand up too quickly or attempt to read a restaurant menu in bad lighting. But afterward I kept thinking about it. Because when I was a little girl, 76 was ancient. Biblical. The kind of age associated with stern women who smelled like powder and spoke exclusively about weather and constipation. Meanwhile here I am, older than the Pope, still impulse-buying olives and occasionally ignoring medical advice out of spite. What nobody tells you about aging is that you simply continue being yourself while your face changes without permission. Inside, I am still the woman who once took a train alone to San Francisco with one suitcase and absolutely no backup plan. My granddaughter knows none of this, of course. To her, I have always existed as Grandma. Someone who already knew how to cook soup and pay taxes and fold fitted sheets. And I realized recently how much disappears that way. Entire lifetimes compressed into “old person.” I tried writing some of it down years ago and immediately sounded like a depressed historian. Then I found this one guided writing website. And what I liked about it was that it didn’t treat my life like homework. It just asked questions. About fear and love and mistakes and strange turning points you haven’t thought about in decades. Most of the time I answered using speech-to-text while out walking or cleaning the apartment. Stories started surfacing everywhere. Things I thought I’d forgotten permanently. A few months later, I had an actual book. Not notes. Not files buried in a drawer. A real hardcover memoir with my name printed across the front like I was somebody worth remembering. I gave it to my granddaughter mostly as a joke. “Well,” I told her, “if I’m older than the Pope, I suppose I should leave behind some scriptures.” She laughed. Then she read the whole thing in two nights. Afterward she looked at me differently. Not worse, no. Just... somehow more interested in me. Like she’d suddenly realized I existed before her childhood memories began. That’s the thing about getting older. People think aging is losing yourself. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes it’s realizing how much of yourself never made it into the conversation at all. Share your life story with those you love most. This is what I used – and I can recommend it with a clear conscience https://www.getmemowrite.com/campaigns/landing