Aging Mindfully

I’m doing what everyone is doing every day all day, all week, all year long every year. I’m getting older. To anyone with a complaint about a failure of their body to cooperate with signs of pain or lack of movement, I say, “It doesn’t get any better.” Worried about the lines on your face, your thinning hair, liver spots? It doesn’t get any better. The problem is that nobody really believes me. It’s not that they don’t know, at some level, that I’m telling a truth, it’s just that who wants to think that way? I get it. Denial is what it’s called in certain circles. We’re all in denial, aren’t we? Who could not rise each day in total despair if you weren’t able to “forget” that you’re getting older and . . . less . . . each day.

My husband, bless his heart, sill thinks that men look at me and see me as attractive. In other words, the way he remembers me. I’m well aware that it’s not just men–my age or any age–who don’t really see me, it’s everyone. And it’s not because I stopped dying my hair. It’s because I made it past a certain age and became invisible. And I don’t care about that at all. Really. I don’t need to be noticed–unless I’m next in line somewhere and hoping to have a turn. I just want to go where I need to go (and I’m still able to do that!) and do what I need to do there, and then make it back home to take my bra off.

But I degress. I read that you can make your life more meaningful if you think about death five times a day. Who comes up with this stuff? But you know what? I think it works. Not the five times a day part–it can be three or ten–just to actually think about not being here. It does make everything more precious. It sharpens colors and makes me hang onto things a little more tightly. The, “I love you’s” from my grandkids sound sweeter when I think that someday I will be a memory for them. Talking about things that might happen ten, twenty, fifty years from now bring it home to me that I won’t be a part of it. I won’t even witness it. I’ll be gone. I’m not being morbid, really.

Young people–I was one, so I have some credentials–are busy with careers and/or children. They are doing life, most of them to the best of their ability at a rather furious pace it seems to me from this vantage point. I’m still working and there are people depending on me to do what I do, but it’s not the same as what my youngish kids are doing. They’re in the thick of it. Looking at them and realizing that they will talk about me in the past tense someday makes my interactions with them more poignant. Knowing they will someday say, “I wish I’d asked her . . .” and being unable to anticipate what it is they will wonder about makes me want to write everything down–like I wish my parents had done. Lots to read, though, I have to say. And it won’t be what they wanted to know, anyway. Time is relentless, isn’t it?

“There’s a sniper in the trees,” a friend said recently, “picking us off one by one.” Us meaning us old folks born in the same year or within a year or two of each other who are in our early eighties now. Somebody said, “If you can get past your sixties, you’ve got it made.” Not true. We are losing acquaintances and classmates and even in some cases dear friends our age–not in the mall–to death. The first time it happens we’re scared as well as sad. Wow, if it could happen to them–fill in the blank. Then, I think I”m ready for the next one, but I’m not. It doesn’t stop because we’re not ready.

There are a small circle of us who make a group chat call once a month to catch up, complain bitterly about the state of affairs, share news, and just make sure everyone is still alive, and cognizant. It’s great. Covid, for all its destruction, left us with some methods of checking in on one another that we didn’t have before. Google chat is great for our monthy meetings. We get to have visual proof, too, and we all look great.

I have another classmate buddy, Jim, who is sharp and knowledgeable and complains about all the ones who are dying off. He’s not doing great himself and says he’s down to two people he can call with enough brain power to talk to. I’m honored, but honestly, he does 99 per cent of the talking. So many people our age seem to dull, I’m glad I have these “girlfriends” and Jimmy to commiserate with.

So, I’m doing it. Thinking about death to make life more vibrant. It works. Each day is a gift. That’s my only message for my kids–and for you, dear reader–if anyone is still reading after all this rambling.

Best wishes,

Pat