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97-year-old Seattle blogger shares honest view on aging

A retired nurse is helping explain what happens when we grow old. Some of it might surprise you.

SEATTLE — A 97-year-old blogger is helping explain what happens when we grow old. Some of it might surprise you.

Each morning, Doris Carnevali sits at a desk in her West Seattle home and starts writing.

“The ideas are bubbling in my head between the time I'm asleep and awake,” she said.

She has plenty to say about what it's like to age and she's sharing it all on her blog, Engaging With Aging.

“Sure, there are times when I am down, and the 14th thing I drop in a day makes me frustrated as all get out. But on the whole, it is so much more exciting than I ever thought it was going to be,” Carnevali said.

She is retired from the UW School of Nursing and has written medical textbooks. Then at the age of 95, she picked up a new hobby: blogging.

“I had been ranting about the fact that I thought aging had gotten a rotten deal. That it was much more pleasant, exciting, and challenging than I had been led to believe,” she said.

After hearing that rant, the dean of the UW School of Nursing urged her to publish her thoughts. So Carnevali's granddaughter created a blog account and the words flowed.

Today, she's written dozens of passages on what she calls age-related changes.

“My hands don't pick up things the way I used to, do I say I'm losing my hands? No, I’m changing how I use them and that way I don't get down in the dumps,” Carnevali said.

Engaging With Aging isn't a how-to advice blog. It's more of a diary about what she's going through. If her readers extract lessons, great. If not, the exercise keeps Carnevali sharp.

“I'm still growing, I'm green, I’m inept, I’m clumsy, I'm learning every day, but I'm green, and I'm growing,” she said. “I thought of aging as being grey, no, it's green.”

She does not shy away from the fact that there will come a day when her hobby is no longer possible.

“When it happens, it happens, and it would be nice if it didn't, but I’m too busy doing other things to worry about it right now,” she said.

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