Creeping Up On Old Age

Sometimes it feels as though there is just no way to go through the process of growing older without feeling wildly out of control. Or wildly controlled. Or simply wild. I am beginning to believe that retirement is a glorified way of giving or forcing us to take the time and space to deal with the myriad of feelings that are conveniently covered over by the busyness of our lives when we are young and pressured by the responsibilities, needs, and demands of our outer world.

I used to poo poo the idea of growing old. I didn't believe it would ever happen to me--I would stay young and active and avoid what I saw as the deterioration and demise of "those old" people. I lacked imagination and understanding that growing old is a process, like childhood, adolescence, adulthood and mid-life. In my fear of it, I had underestimated the enormous possibilities of growth old age had to offer.

Growing older draws on the totality of the inner work we have or have not done throughout our lives. The more we know ourselves and the better we understand the journey this life has presented, the better equipped we are to open our arms to welcome old age. It is the soul that begins to emerge more and more as "what is truly important". All else--the body, life's emotional highs and lows, people, activities and things, even the mind--all shift to make way for the soul.

It is this shifting of the importance and necessity of giving attention to these things in a new way that gradually and sometimes suddenly creates the process of old age. I don't know exactly when it starts. It began surfacing into my awareness and trying to get my attention in my early 60's. At first I was aware of tension around letting go of my identity in the world. Inner fights would erupt about things I had wrapped myself up in that had defined me and given me place: psychotherapist, professor, artist, musician, writer, workshop leader, athlete, mother, lover, sister, friend...

There were coos and what felt like terrorists trying to take over large areas of my life.Surprisingly, after a while the rebellions gave way to gladly moving to live in new territories. New worlds began opening up to me that I had not even imagined. New people who also lived in these new places showed up and old friends, colleagues, even family members dropped or slid away with little angst.

With new landscapes and horizons to explore and the time to do it, I began to feel a new curiosity begin to surface. It was similar to the excitement I had experienced in my 20's when the perceptions I had grown up with and never questioned blew up and were replaced with a candy store of new ideas which shaped new ways of thinking. Wider views of spirituality, the world, diversity, sexuality began to show up in the people I met, books and life experiences. Meditation, philosophers, new and old pioneers in thinking, Carl Jung, Rumi, Feminism, the Vietnam War, drugs, sex and pregnancy, all catapulted me into my adulthood. I was never the same. I never wanted to go back.

Growing older is magnifying my curiosity once again. Silver sneakers classes, my changing and sometimes painful body, TaiChi, reading, writing music movies, traveling, volunteering, and exploring classes on things I never thought about before are central in my life now. My grandchildren delight me and provide me with a new point of reference. Releasing, releasing, releasing is my new mantra. Letting go is my new way of living. Becoming a wise elder is my new ambition. Living out my life with grace and authenticity my new pathway. Being  is my dream. Old age is my gift.

I Remember Her

I remember the moment clearly in a hazy kinda way. I was with a large group of girls lingering in a small gas station bathroom. Or was it just Margo Grutzmacker, Karen Bergman and me? The floor was made of concrete. Or was it dark vinyl tile. The track meet was over. Or were we on our way there? Karen was anxiously opening and closing the door, watching in case our Coach showed up. Or was that Linda Labee?

I remember the feeling of being trapped. Peer pressure pushing down, crushing my fragile sense of Self. There was a voice in my head screaming “NO!” but no sound came out. A deer in headlights had more ability to walk out that door than I did. No matter what I thought or felt, I was paralyzed.

I remember glancing at my watch. I looked down at its flat face and it stared back at me blankly. In that moment, I knew I was in this alone. Then the hand moved and I was startled and closed my eyes but I could not get away.

I even remember the name of the town: Wahoo, Nebraska. I knew my name and who I was before that day. She felt as though she was someone I might have known a long time ago. She was seventeen. Or was she sixty? Or sixteen?

I remember her as someone I would recognize in a 1968 high school yearbook. The black and white marbled background gives her a sense of place. Her hair is teased and curled up at the ends and the white crisp collar on her blouse is freshly starched and ironed. The irony between how she looks and how she actually feels is imperceptible at first viewing. But her eyes. Oh, you wouldn’t believe the sadness in her eyes. The grief of growing up wounded stares back at me with hollow emptiness.

I remember the rage behind those eyes. Childhood split in two by adults simultaneously too overly protective and too lax. I was extraordinarily immature and ill equipped for adulthood, which was just around the next unknown corner. I had no skills to deal with Vietnam War protests, street drugs, sexless faces found the next morning in dorm beds and across the room unprotected feelings breaking the heart of whoever I was becoming.

Oh, yes! I remember that girl. She was the one who broke into a run in front of the high school boy’s track team. They were all sitting in the bleachers listening to their coach’s instructions and watching me run. I took one extra lap after I’d put on my sweat pants and all the other girls had gone back to the school. For some reason I was craving attention and feeling powerful. My new leather cleats securely gripped the cinder track and I felt long lean legs under me pounding the ground rhythmically with self-confident strength. Suddenly I was flying. I was suspended, senses heightened yet too far away, as in all accidents when time stops. Feet groundless—accelerating forward movement, unstoppable as my right foot caught the edge of my grey sweat pants and pain seared my hands and pride.

I remember it took my dad a long time to pick the cinders out of my chin, knees and hands when I got home. I don’t remember much other than his annoyance and obligatory irritation with the task, really. Pain had a way, even then to lift me up above the room and stop the tears from flowing.

I distinctly remember Karen saying it would be okay. But, there was nothing in me that believed her. A quick click of a Bic, the tip lit...  I inhaled, and the rancid, repulsive heat filled my mouth. My throat closed quickly in self-defense trying to block the putrid, pungent explosion. I choked—then gagged—then felt shame and was embarrassed in front of the girls who were all older than me.

I remember each year after that trying to stop. Trying to quit. Trying to fight off the nicotine creature that ruled my life.  She lay silently lurking, watching my every move. She was cunning and crafty, a calculating, sly master of illusion. She embodied the trickster and seemed to have no feelings at all—just dangerously corrupt, sneaky deception. She loved to exaggerate and contort every feeling I had with insidious lies and a mischievous smile. She had her devious ways to easily convince me I could not live without another and another and another cigarette to cope and simply to be okay.

It hurts to remember how unconscious I was as a smoker. I didn’t care that I was hurting myself. I didn’t care that I was separating myself from the people I loved most. I painfully and desperately yearned to connect with them. But smoking was more important, more urgent. I did not notice when I threw my butts on the ground or when non-smokers were around me when I smoked. Secondhand smoke was no concern to me. No. I didn’t care about anything... except smoking. I always kept track to make sure I had enough cigarettes. I knew where my lighter was at all times. I lived for and could not wait until I could light up and feel that warm calming sensation being sucked into my lungs—even standing outside in weather 17 degrees below zero. Smoking was always at the back my mind. I knew when I would have my next cigarette. I did whatever I needed to smoke because I loved smoking more that I loved anything or anyone. I loved smoking more than myself.

I remember the last cigarette I smoked. Actually I had many last cigarettes...and honestly, the absolute last one is as vague and obscure in my mind as the first. But five, maybe six years ago, smoking stopped. One day her grip on me loosened and slipped completely away taking the addictive behaviors along with her.

I remember feeling lost without her at first. I had lots of extra time to think. Struggle. Feel. I shouted out for her to come back. I didn’t think I could live without her emotionally abusive, toxic companionship. But when she didn’t show up that day or the next I began to live my life.

I remember one day a year or so after I stopped smoking realizing I was relating to my life as an adult for what seemed like the first time. No longer a scared teenager hiding in a gas station restroom—I had real opinions, thoughts that were my own and lots of ways to express my feelings. I had a voice. I knew myself pretty well or at least I was open to learning.

I remember the struggle that young woman endured because I stayed away, crippled without the skills or support to make the leap from adolescence to adulthood. Her life lost it’s light and was clouded with overshadowing anguish. She masqueraded for years as an adult. Shrouded by hurt, as eclipsed as she was, she fought for survival with anyone or anything she could grasp onto. I am grateful to that tenacious teen for her willingness to persevere and triumph, even when life seemed insurmountable and overwhelming. Could I have made it without her sassy attitude, her tenacious drive, and her will to live? I think not.

Every day now I remember the courage in her reckless abandon, her lousy judgment, and her catastrophic mistakes. I remember the agony that weighed her down, the burdens she shouldered. I remember her potential that would never come to be. I remember how severe she was on herself and the choice she made over and over and over every day to live.

Now I am aware of longing for the essence of her boundless energy, her enthralling imagination and the endless joy she felt when she turned everything in her life into a work of creation. At times, I remember that even though I abandoned her then, now I celebrate us both. And, that makes all the difference.