Another Covid winter looms, but this moment of the pandemic feels hopeful. At age 87, I’m becoming reacquainted with the social life I had put on pause for many months. I’m going out to restaurants and museums, attending church and visiting my grandchildren who live in a neighboring town. I’ve always seen myself as a risk-taker and an optimist. But every day as I venture out, there’s a drumbeat in mind, a constant accompaniment: “Is this too risky for me?”

But if the risk of getting sick with Covid-19 is holding me back, there’s something even stronger drawing me out: the fear of not making the most of my remaining time, my “one wild and precious life,” as the poet Mary Oliver described it.

Life expectancy is just six years at my age. I want to spend my remaining time traveling, going to parties with friends and seeing all my far-flung grandchildren. I’m overjoyed that my retirement community has reopened. The dining room serves meals again, and I’ve joined both a dance and a tai chi class. I want to enjoy it all now. Time speeds up as you age. One 90-year-old friend put it this way: “What do I have to lose?” Those of us in our 80s and older are used to having death for a neighbor.