I am looking at the silhouette of my husband at the bow of the boat as we slowly skim the circumference of the thirty two acre Lac Laffite. It is not a fancy schooner, just a pontoon boat coasting around an adult size kiddie pool somewhere in Missouri, with catfish and crappies moving below the surface. The cast of the sun is golden, reminding me of the Cape Cod sunsets of my youth, late August, leaves crisping yellow at the edges, the bright green marsh against the blue Atlantic.

I think about digging into low tide mud, scooping up clams and measuring them with a small metal ring. Or leaping over the cracks of a long jetty, the sun setting as my dad makes his final cast. I remember the thrust of the Boston Whaler speeding out of Wellfleet Harbor, bouncing up and down with the hope of bluefish bites and a stop at one of the small uninhabited sand barges to sunbathe. Pink sunburns, gulps of Hi C Punch, musty motel rooms, handfuls of penny candy, and always the burnt sienna skies at the end of the day.

My husband is teaching me how to drive the eighteen-year-old pontoon boat. Sitting at the helm, the throttle set at ten miles per hour, slow, slightly faster than trolling, we pass the houses along the lake, coasting into little coves and commenting on what we see.

“Why did they choose that gray rock? It takes up so much of their yard,” my husband says, critiquing the new construction home whose sod stops at a beach of baseball sized granite rocks framing the water.

“Probably less grass to mow,” I speculate. I do not hate it as much as my husband does.

A heron stands like a statue among the rocks. “Look John, a heron.” A contemporary pterodactyl, its long wingspan opens, lifting into the sky and careening above us.

This is what we do now, putter along the lake, judging the neighbors’ choices and noticing the wildlife; sunbathing turtles, a baby fawn tucked behind tall grass. The sunset of our lives has begun. We are in the freshman class of old age, scoping out the new school, looking to the upperclassmen in their sixties, seventies, and eighties to see who is cool, what not to do, and praying certain events do not happen to us, like hearing aids, sponge baths, bedpans, and group drumming classes.

Our son is back at college with three roommates and a girlfriend, and the occasional Venmo request confirming he still needs us.

We try to exist in the world, continuing to look for purpose, but everyone is younger or acts very importantly. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. I try to recall when I had my turn to be heard, understood, and very important, but I only remember finger pointing and accusations, slacker, MTV generation, latchkey kid. I push the throttle to full speed, twenty five miles an hour.

“Massachusetts in the house!” I scream at the top of my lungs, swerving the boat side to side, zigzagging across the lake. I stand at the helm, whooping and hollering, swinging my arms like Arsenio Hall. “Whoop, whoop, whoop!” My husband raises his hands and joins me with a shout. Little sparks from shoreline firepits flicker as neighbors watch the crazy middle aged woman howl.

The sky is pink, the landscape a silhouette, with a few other pontoons coasting by, offering a beep of their horn. If Cape Cod was the elementary school of my life, this lake is freshman year of old age high school. I do not want to be old, just like I did not want to be in high school, saying farewell to childhood and realizing there is no more Santa Claus, no more kiddie birthday parties with pinatas, no more dreamy hope tinged with yellow.

My high school has a Facebook page now. It is mostly reunion photos, the class of 1965 dancing in a circle, white headed, hunchback seniors doing the Mashed Potato, the class of 1985 smiling arm in arm, tattooed, balding, bloated, unrecognizable from their senior photos of perms and mullets. And then the obituaries, doom scrolling the dead from 1978, 1986, 1969. Names that sound familiar, black and white yearbook photos, and forgotten classmates posting RIP and Thoughts and Prayers as if that is enough to acknowledge a life lived.

A few years ago, I sat at a George Michael revue in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The sun had set, and my sister, a group of gay men, and I watched a man prance around the stage singing Wham and George Michael songs. We sang at the top of our lungs, danced, and cheered.

Across from me sat two teenage girls, Taylor Swift look alikes, giggling and laughing at me, mocking my dancing. Their skin was smooth and glistening, their teeth bright white, their bodies limber and toned. It felt like this 1980s flashback had been infiltrated by mean girls. Who allowed girls who were forty years away from their own life reckoning into this nice, dark space of memories, fun, vodka tonics, and pink Prada shirts?

Was I once a smug know-it-all twenty something? Maybe old age high school is better without Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. No one to remind us of our age. If only we could boycott the generations who lack any appreciation for vinyl records, rotary phones, and playing outside until dusk.

The sun has set and the lake is dark. House lights lead us back to the boathouse. My husband tells me, “I am running hot,” as I easily dock the boat. We tie it off and walk up to the house.

For now, there is tomorrow, another sunrise, to do lists, and a Missouri sunset to enjoy.