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.
