Being Tender To Aging Self By Stalking The Gaps

“Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Oh, we can blather on about aging and being all insulted over ageism jokes, but, when it comes right down to it.. aging does suck...the only glimmer of justice is that most will age soon after us.  We do not need to be younger and more vibrant, we need to just wait it out, which most of us are doing.  We DO, in fact, wan and decline in body, mind, emotions and spirit.  We would celebrate but we are too tired, can't blow up balloons, and can't blow out candles, never mind.  We'd dance, but it hurts or will hurt later.  There is no escape.  The best we can do is age with some kind of dignity while dignity is able. 

Women lost their dignity with the first internal check with a cold wedge of stainless steel.  We have thrown away more anti-everything than city dumps can hold.  We have dieted and crashed and I am pretty sure that cells have fat memory.  I have come to a place where I am this.. this is what I am and all the blather about gathering memories is punk because not all memories are that awesome. 

Yes, we know more... and most of us wish we did not.  Yes, the journey is what it has all been about but some of us wore out at the first mountain.  Oh, there are some revered memories, to be sure, and most of us cling to those.  And some of us honor our journey and some of us spend the last years of our lives regretting everything we can think of.  Somehow, some are learning that we need to really keep a close watch on how much we forget and that we do not chuck important things out with the stuff that simply does not matter anymore.  

What we have left of things of import (you know; health, resilience, vigor, contentment, hope, optimism.. that stuff) we should try to hang on to as long as we can.  But, I have discovered, it can all run faster than we can.  We have issues.  Truly, we do.  We are one fall away from being in a nursing home, a wheel chair or a walker.  No glossing over it, some age better than others.  Don't look! And, don't think attitude is going to save us.  Many of us have lived unrealistic lives and why change now?

There will come a time that all of us struggle with having a shower, going to the bathroom, dressing with our shirts on right side round, making food that is barely passable, clean when we notice something instead of cleaning before any one else does.  We will all come to a place where we have fought our last 'youthful' fight.  Our emotions are all over the map, even more so, if they have been on frantic runs and detours all their lives.  Suddenly, we begin to define ourselves according to days of appointments, times of days to take what pill, and we struggle to not sit like a lump on a bump and try not to be negative or depressed about it all.  We exist.  We decide how 'existing' affects us.  In a way, it is merely giving in to it and trying to not think about it every moment of every day.  We laugh when we can find something new about our aging that laughter is the only relief for.  We take our meds when we are supposed to or pay the cost.  We try to find interesting things to entertain ourselves with.  We go for a walk around the block and wish for back lanes to cut off half the block.  We do not work anymore.. well, seriously, we do not... but we do what we want when we want it, for the most part... and that which we cannot do, we act like we didn't want to in the first place.  I figure if we are clean, it is a good day.

Aging is merely a decaying and a breaking down of old parts.  Bet we can do is not notice a new rust spot on our arms, face, or legs that we cannot cover up.  Just when we are free to do, we can't do it.  

So, I guess what I am saying is.. we can do this the hard way or the least hard way.  Enjoy the moments we can.  Live in the present because we have rehashed the past to pieces and we know we do not have much of a future.  All we have is this moment, right now, and are not promised another breath... might as well make it worth our while.  Get out of our own heads and try to get out and meet and greet with others, who are in the same boat as we are.  Figure out how they are coping, or not, and then hang with the ones who still have some positivity happening in their lives ( not perfectionism)  positivity...and share a laugh or two.  Let it be as good as it gets...'Stalk the gaps'.

©Carol Desjarlais 11.24.19