I often try to find humor in the whole aging process, and I imagine that’s still the best way to deal with all its challenges. Yet I must admit I sometimes find myself waxing philosophical about what this getting-old stuff truly means. It does take a bit of remembering on my part about the past. And an attempt to find some humor or irony in today’s reality.
I find it interesting that when you’re young you have so many plans. The years ahead seem to spread out like an endless tree-lined, sunny, winding road. Filled with possibilities and dreams that excite and delight you.
Summer seems light years away and school vacations can’t come soon enough. The time seems to drag on endlessly until your dreams are realized. And our dreams constantly changed. They went from a new bike or roller skates to a car, then college and grew into more lofty achievements.
And on it went. Agendas filled with adventures to explore, people to love, babies to have, trips to take, strangers to meet and goals to realize.
Each new day brought the possibility of another exciting wish to be achieved. Mornings were shiny, new and fresh with wonder.
Oh sure perhaps I’m remembering through rose colored glasses, but if that isn’t how we saw life, sadly we should have.
It’s so easy to look backward and say I didn’t know then, I never realized, I was so foolish.
And I imagine we all are when young. For that’s the caveat to life isn’t it? Wisdom can only be achieved through living and aging. Yet what happens when we age? When all that valuable wisdom becomes part of who and what we are?
I shall present an analogy I believe most will understand. Aging is like selling your house.
You don’t immediately put it up for sale, but most people go through a period of should we or shouldn’t we move. Sometimes it is a fast decision like a job transfer or health reasons. But when you begin to think about leaving your home something changes within your brain. You are no longer considering redoing the kitchen or adding that new deck. Perhaps it would be better to buy that new sofa for my next living room?
Your sense of permanence is gone and you are now in transit.
Between two worlds if you will.
Your goals change as well as your plans and so it is with aging.
In your sixties you still feel a sense of youth. After all you’re not in your seventies so although you are a bit older, you are content to believe sixty is the new fifty.
Nothing old about fifty. You still have time to do so many of those things you planned.
You continue to move forward organizing your life with a zest and determination to get things done.
Then suddenly you’re seventy and there is a shift. You tell yourself seventy is the new sixty and there is still plenty of time to travel, take up that hobby and remain active and busy. Optimism reigns supreme and you set out to move a bit more quickly toward realizing your dreams. After all people are living well into their nineties now.
And if physically you’re slowing down a bit, you don’t notice because mentally you are still young enough to keep going. You plow through determined to make it all work and enjoy every day.
Taking advantage of every minute becomes your new mantra and you are using each moment to the fullest.
Just before you enter your eighties you notice a slight shift. Your energy level is just a bit lower than it was when you began this trip through your seventies.
Still, you refuse to slow down and ignore any complaining from parts of your body that won’t get on board. Mentally you are still enthusiastic and refusing to admit to any slowdown in your ability to make the most of each day. There is a contentment in accepting things as they are.
Yet something is changing and you are feeling the pain of losing loved ones whose time is up. Family members, friends, acquaintances leave the party. You tell yourself that emptiness they left behind isn’t going to slow you down, but make you more determined to live every second to the fullest.
But every loss exacts a price and weighs on you whether you are aware of it or not.
Now you’ve reached eighty and suddenly you face a harsh reality. There is no way to sugar coat this age. You are simply not young anymore. But you keep moving forward. Now your goals have changed and you’ve shifted into a new phase. Suddenly those things you were so determined to accomplish don’t seem quite so urgent.
You play golf, though not as often. Feel a need to nap more often yet still plan trips, but now perhaps cruising would be a better idea.
You change your mind about buying new furniture for the living room and decide to put the money toward more travel. You really didn’t need that new living room chair. You’ve reached the point where you realize yes, you are moving and that new deck is no longer necessary. You ignore the fact you don’t make long-range plans. You refuse to stop but keep going despite that bad knee acting up regularly.
Your limitations come flooding over you like a broken pipe in a basement, and now fully understand the expression, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
You talk with your friends a great deal about memories and constantly ask, where did the time go?
The world seems a much unfriendlier place and you see and hear things and people you never could’ve imagined would exist.
And although you are old, the world seems all new and different somehow.
So you embrace it and use your computer and cell phone, you jump into life with a renewed wonder of all that is now suddenly possible.
And you begin to realize it isn’t bad to grow old, even with its challenges you still feel lucky.
You live in a new state of gratitude at being able to enjoy your grandchildren and watch them grow.
Growing old becomes a good thing, a blessing and a gift. Sure we all wish we could stay young and vital, but would you really want to live it all over again? And no, we wouldn’t know then what we know now. That’s the cosmic joke played on us all.
But it’s okay because as long as we’re around to laugh at it, all is good!
Carpe Diem my friends, take a deep breath and soak in all the joy. There is still much more to come and many dreams to achieve.
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