Change is so difficult. Yes, we have hard it a million times, but this is striking me, now, personally, in a huge way. I used to multitask, used to be able to have a whole string of lists and thoughts n my head all at once. Not any more. I am being, somehow, whittled down, pared down to the core, and I cannot seem to string thoughts any more. Any bit of change seems dramatic and full of “what ifs” and uncertainties.
In our 20s, 30s, 40s, even 50s, we do not imagine what we are going to be needing to deal with in our 70s, 80s and 90s. We never seem to give a thought to what kind of ‘courages’ we are going to need. Yes, we have been warned about wrinkles, but we did not consider whole-body issues. Physically; an unsteady gait, for instance; and aches in places we were not even aware of, and loss of fine motor controls and more loss of most important body organs: intellectually; the real issue of “I can’t find where I put my_______” memory lapses: Emotionally; we lose our whole-body ability to adapt, to change, to accept surrender to all that our aging body demands; more people, in our life, die in their 60s and more in their 70s and we are rushing through our late 70s filled with negative wonder and loss of self-esteem and identity and, even, purpose: Spiritually; if we are, in deep reality, afraid of death because it has so many unknown, for sure, really, that, when it draws near the international lifespan age, we begin to want to KNOW, more assuredly, the what, when, where, how of it all because, suddenly, trite words and religiosity does not really comfort us. In all of this, it takes courage to accept what is and find a way to deal with it. Courage, I say, is what it takes as coming closer to it seems to accelerate and our ability to control the quadrants of our life extinguishes more and more every day.
We lose the ability to go out and window shop, never mind we are less able to go out for lunch with friends. Either we or someone in our group cannot go because… because... they find it easier to just stay home. We begin to become less mobile; we become less clear about even what danged day it is because every day begins to be the same; we cannot even have a normal conversation because our ‘normal’ (and everyone else’s) is all about our changes in being. We spent way too much time thinking rather than doing.
In our late 70s, it seems to me, that we are identified as “survivors” even as we walk in a more hunched over being, shuffling forward into more unknown every day. That we have survived indicates that we have been resilient enough to go through life’s ever hard times and we, actually, need to be admired for such. We are’ Recoverers’.
Life, itself, is recovering from so many things in all four quadrants: physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We have navigated through our own personal ’dark nights of the soul’. Life can offer up so many difficulties but so much joy. We begin to define JOY in many ways. One friends, on saying “good morning” instead says, “well, I woke up this morning, so I’m doing pretty good.” We never thought that that would be a sense of joy.
We never thought of how much we have to be more rigid in our patterns of iving so that, with short term memory starting to slip, we have to put things where we will find them. The Bee Man has a table near him with all the things he might need throughout the day. He asks me to keep his morning pills on the table where he eats breakfast. We start to focus on keeping things ‘in their place’ and stricter routines.
I need to keep some adventure in all of this. I refuse to eat the same thing day after day or when going out for dinner. I vary things I do during the day. I begin to chat to strangers, to catch their eyes and smile, to listen to more people. I do activities that nourish my brain and spirit with new and different activities. I work on problem-solving because there can be a whole lot of necessity to solve problems that come up during a day.
We stop competing with others and set up little competitions for ourselves. We have to find a way to surrender to adaptability, to be as competent as we possibly can be. We need to find ways to be of use to others. We need to be seekers of adventures, no matter how small, in order to build our sense of self and identity and sense of esteem. We re al here, right now, because we are supposed to be. No matter the ‘frailing’ of our body, mind, heart and soul, we are exactly where we are meant to be. We have made decisions and now we live with the consequences. Finding joy in our ‘consequence; is huge. It takes courage, dear hearts. It takes courage!
Let us, every morning, wake up, and take a big breath, give credit where credit is due, for being kept safe during the night, and focus on being our best and worth keeping us for this new day.
©Carol Desjarlais1.23.25
No comments:
Post a Comment