Aging Mindfully

~ patponderslife ~ 2 Comments

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

Imagine . . .

~ patponderslife ~ 1 Comment

From a great distance, there are no physical borders erected to cordon off one piece of land from another on this planet. For example, in this country when you’re driving from one state to another, there’s nothing but a welcoming sign to let you know you’ve crossed an imaginary line. Most of the time the landscape doesn’t even change all that much. I understand that it’s easier to ‘govern’ humans when we are herded and then counted in individual states, but what’s really baffling is how or why we ever began to view people on the other side of an imaginary line as enemies.

How we ended up at odds with certain folks is a mystery to me. Has it always been true? Were pre-historic men hard-wired to want to kill people who looked a little different than they did? If so, was it because those people had more than they did? More food, a better location? More women? Maybe. These are questions for people way smarter than I am. But what I have learned is that governing the planet—everywhere—is in the hands (mostly) of men or man’s ideas handed down.

Masculine thinking involves competition. I could guess and I will that it springs from a place of fear. Or greed. What if they are smarter/stronger/more successful than I am? I can’t let them see that I’m afraid of that; therefore, I’ll make a lot of noise, back it up with a force of fighters, and let’s just see who’s afraid then. And then I’ll take something that’s theirs, and I will have won. Somehow, they have to know who’s winner and who’s the loser. To be the best is the goal. To be on top. It seems to be ingrained in the masculine psyche.

Right from the start, women knew they needed just the opposite. They needed cooperation. They needed help if they were going to bear these helpless babies, feed them, keep them warm and safe, and guide them to maturity. Especially if they had another one before the first one was even walking. So, women formed cooperative groups. Maybe they didn’t even need to talk about it or to make up rules and regulations. Maybe they simply knew what was needed, and they got to it.

No woman at any time ever wanted to send her beautiful baby boy off to fight and die for a piece of land. Or any other material thing. And if the women on that other piece of land had been in charge, they wouldn’t have wanted to send their babies to die trying to keep that piece of land. They’d talk. It’s what we do best. They’d see if they could share resources. That’s called feminine thinking—cooperation vs. competition. If we ever get a chance to run things, we’ll probably try that. Some women don’t meet this standard, granted, but they aren’t the majority and hopefully their voices will be drowned out by the voices of reason.

Fast forward to today. (It’s my father’s would-be birthday. Happy birthday, Dad.)

The longer the earth spins, the more obvious it is (to some) that international cooperation is the only way we will survive. Pulling in and declaring our way is the only way, that our belief system is the only right one, that we are right and you are wrong, and that we’ll go it alone if you don’t agree with us may sound patriotic and noble. It may stir your blood and make your proud, but it’s foolish. We, as a species, are interdependent. We need each other, all of us. We need to cooperate, not compete.

Everyone has something we don’t have and we have something they don’t have. We could share rather than trying to protect what we have and keep it to ourselves. It wouldn’t work with people who don’t want to share, granted, but like I said, if women were in charge everywhere. . .  For example, if women were in charge in Russia, the war would be over tomorrow. What the heck do we want more land for, they would say. Russia is vast and a lot of us are poor. Why would we want to take on more poor people to feed who are also struggling? Nobody’s child had to die; we all know that. Putin doesn’t care.

That, and several other international crises have brought an awareness of the need for cooperation to the consciousness of some men. Migrants fleeing the war in Syria in 2015 showed how countries needed to cooperate to manage national borders. Then Covid showed that political boundaries mean nothing to pandemics. We’ve seen that we have to work together for the common good. At least some of us have.

I’m encouraged by the first ever trilateral summit between Japan and South Korea. Their history of endless conflict is at least being set aside so they can present a united front. Secretary Blinken said that our engagement “is part of our broader efforts to revitalize, to strengthen, to knit together our alliances and partnerships . . . to help realize a shared vision of an Indo-Pacific that is free and open . . .where problems are dealt with openly, where rules are reached transparently and applied fairly. . .” Sounds like cooperation to me. Maybe it will all fall apart and they’ll go back to hating each other again. That’s our history. But it’s news. It’s hopeful. It’s a step away from conflict and competition toward cooperation. And there wasn’t a word in it that pulled you into the Trump drama unfolding and dominating every single news outlet.