It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. -© Oriah Mountain Dreamer
How many mornings have we drug ourselves out of our bed to do what needed to be done? I am sure we cannot count the times. Once it was midnight forays making us tired. Once it was stumbling to a bassinette or a child's bad dream. Later it was, for some, stumbling from our beds because we have to go to work early. Then, now, we stumble out of bed because everything hurts in the mornings. But, nonetheless, we get up to face the day and make it worthwhile being here at all.
As we age, we wish to remain independent, whatever independence means to each of us. We learn we do not have the same balance as when we were younger. We know life expectancy has changed for baby boomers. What we hope, though, is that we can stay mobile and continue do things for ourselves and others. We should always have a goal set the night before, so we know we will get something done. Anything above and beyond that is a bonus. Celebrate. Save time in the day to check on a friend, go for a walk with the dog, go on a nature walking path, do something that gets you out and about. Yes, say hello to a neighbor, make a treat to take over, check on them. It is way too easy to get trapped in the pitiful place of hurt that many of us are caught in. Do it anyway...somebody needs you.
Just when you get tired doing dishes and tidying up, you can find time to sit down at the computer and research interesting topics to you. Keep a good collection of novels to read for some quiet intellectual time. A friend, who was studying social work and geriatrics, did a research on how bingo keeps the mind sharp by finding those bingo numbers in a few seconds of time you are allotted before they call another. Her findings were absolutely positive... bonus is the socialization. I am a hungry mind and I spend hours reading and writing and developing brain skills. I love solving the problem of a paintings lights and darks and shapes and shadows. I give away most of my paintings... the joy it gave me is passed forward as gifts from my very soul. Every night I may do a quick sketch to get shapes and the next morning I work all day off and on it. It helps to fill the day and I can share my techniques, successes and failures in hopes to inspire others to try painting. Keep yourself intellectually sharp.
Emotionally, be aware that emotions can be hard work as well. It can wear you down because women are problem solvers and our brains can go a hundred miles a minute, until it doesn't. I am not sure that women manage their emotions better than men. I think we are more expressive about our emotions. Our emotions can wobble all through the day and keeping up to guarding our emotions is labor we go through every day. This does not consider those who have emotional problem-solving difficulties. They work even hard because it is really difficult to manage roaring emotions. There can be emotional blockades as we meet something that is not so easy to manage. Our minds still go a mile a minute and we can either find a way to conquer that or we will sink into more emotional problem solving than living a more peaceful, joyful, life. Don't say, I cannot, I am afraid...that stunts your ability to feel joy and gratitude. Don't say you cannot change, that you do not need too; unless you are living a sedate calm life already, you will need to change every moment. That is a cop-out.. grab life by the neck and hang on because it can be a wild ride if you are trying to skid your feet about changing. We all know things we need to change. We have patterns in our life, we have replay of incidents and emotions that do not make us happy. Those are the things to focus on. As we age, we have more time and more time means we can think and feel and consider emotions and those things that create chaos or comfort. Choose comfort because we come to a time where emotional chaos can keep us from ever having a graceful and dignified lie at the end of our years.
Spiritually, we need to keep feeding our soul with the best of things. Life will give us rough patches and our body will betray us more and more as we get older. We need something to hope for, something to dream for, something to wish for, that are attainable...yes, attainable.
As we age, we need social interaction, we need to be able to make choices, we need to be able to feel safe and secure in the fact that we know what we want and how appropriate that it might be. It is easy, before we get there, to think, well, I can do this or that or the other, but once day we lose our driver's licnense, and then we start burning food on our stove, and then we fall and break something, and then we are cooped up in little rooms to bide our time until we move into more care and less personal options. It comes, unless we die before we get to that stage. It comes and we have to be settled with our life before it does. I know that I have made plans, thinking I might go before my partner. I know where, in the house, everything that is mine is kept. I have mentally packed things up and I have a do-not-forget list in my head. It is my way of being prepared for something that may come to visit me again - death of a partner and the move out of the home and into wherever I can poke myself into a place I choose, until I lose more ability to choose where to be.
So, as anyone else, we know we will have rough days and rough decisions. It is a good idea to clear the debris, the past things we hang on to for dear life because we think that is our story. It is time for us to gather the harvest of what we have done in our life, pack up our negative memories and burn them in th fire, and get on with getting on and being prepared for the next step of aging. Rise every morning grateful we are still here and able.
This is going to be a test to see if we truly were ready. Let's be ready. No denial, no clichés, just be prepared for what comes nest; fluff up your hair, brush your teeth, throw some make-up on, get dressed , make a plan to go do something nice for someone else, and greet the waning days.
Make your world a better place by making other's world a little brighter.
©Carol Desjarlais 6.28.19
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