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Updated 11:31pm - Mar 18, 2010
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Opinion Gopher Gulch: Old lady lessons
Gopher Gulch: Old lady lessons
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A local reporter whose only crime is youth is taking an awful lot of ribbing for calling a woman in her 50s “elderly.” Everybody wants to share their reaction, including me. Some in their 50s are indignant and most people over 70 think it’s funny.
Having put my politically incorrect foot in my published mouth a few dozen times over the last couple decades, mine was a newspaper person’s reaction. I cringed in painful empathy. But I needed to read that now, and maybe a few others need it as well. We all know that change is the only thing we can count on, and somehow change shifts into warp speed during the latter half of life. Cling to denial if you wish, but it won’t help in the long run.
We don’t have as much energy as we did a decade ago so we
have to make choices about what to do and what to neglect. Usually what
gets neglected is us. We quit exercising, we start to gain a little
weight, we develop a fatalistic attitude as friends keep popping up in
the obituaries.
The blurb about the “elderly” woman in her 50s caused me to think back, and I realize that each decade of my life can be summed up in a single word or short phrase. And just as the 1950s didn’t really end until November of 1963, some decades of my adult life were longer than others. My 20s were for joyful parenting and the time sped by. My 30s were for tragedy, and that’s a slow, painful process. My 40s were a glorious time of spiritual awakening and intellectual growth. My 50s were a time of conscious transition from youth to elder. I was taking care of elders and right in the middle of one of the most productive periods of my life. Roberta laughed when I told her I was taking “old lady lessons” from her. But I was consciously choosing the kind of person I wanted to be as I aged. Ordinarily you can’t see the theme of a decade except through hindsight, but a young reporter gave me the gift of his perspective and led me to pay attention to what is happening in my life right now. Thanks to him, I’ve noticed the theme of my 60s early enough to have more voice in the process. My 60s are about taking care of me and honoring my status as elder. About monthly massages and a new, comfortable bed. About throwing out the killer recliners and replacing them with light-weight, outdoor lounges that cradle me. About creating an office space where I can work on a laptop in a lounge. It’s about the freedom of not having a schedule. I can play piano or play in the yard whenever I want. I can write at 3 a.m. and nap at 3 p.m. Yee-haw! My 60s are wonderful, and I thank the young catalyst who led me to think about aging. |
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