Birthday

“For those of us brave enough to walk through the gate to old age with eyes wide open, eventually we get to see not only the wrinkles and unsteady gait, we can gain second sight. Call it character.”   Carol Orsborn, PH.D. Older, Wiser, Fiercer, The Wisdom Collection

I had my 70th birthday this month. Being 70 years old feels like a real milestone or rite of passage. The number 70 is finally helping me to embrace what up until now I have not, being called a senior citizen.  Of course, I can tell by the deep lines in my arms, sagging skin, age spots as well as gray hair roots that I continue to color auburn. I could go on.

I’m in pretty good physical shape (for my age) due to exercising most of my life which I still do. Yet, now it’s not about challenging myself to see how far or fast I can run, and more about how I can keep faithful to routines that hopefully will help prevent debilitating arthritis or heart disease or dementia. My body has been my best friend through the years and has been how I am here at all. I feel sadness at seventy experiencing it slipping, trying to perform but not having the capability to do so anymore.   

Having lived seven decades, I have lost more people that I love, including both of my parents, my husband, my beloved dog, and more of my friends. I know more people battling cancer and other maladies. There is much more traffic and noise now, homeless, mental illness, crowds, technological scams and hacks, and symptoms of environmental degradation. Quality of life feels like it is more challenging to carve out and sustain.  It’s clear that our world needs wise elders more than ever.  There is still so much to do! Red Alert!  But to be honest, I don’t have the big drive like I used to.  I do what I can and what I can do is enough.

At seventy I feel a shift in pace, one that is not fueled by ambition, but by desiring meaningful connection in more intimate ways. I engage in acts of caring for the planet and people in service to the moments in front of me and all around me.  I listen to friends and family with genuine interest letting them know they are not alone, letting them know that they are loved. I plant milk weed to help monarch butterflies survive. I laugh and play with my grandchildren. I nourish myself more with things I enjoy like painting, playing piano, travel, and facials.

When I was young, I needed billowing sails because I had so many miles to go. I don’t need as much wind now, just as much as necessary.  The slightest breeze can be more welcomed and appreciated in older age than the great blasts of energy I previously enjoyed. But this comes about only once I avail myself to drifting through the sweet joy of life, no longer worrying about where I must get to.  Where I was once hard-charging, certain of the need of extraordinary effort, I can now be tender and receptive.

Before her death, my elderly mother used to tell me how much joy and satisfaction she experienced quietly lying in her bed reliving the memories of her life. I’m finding that to be truer for me now of how I can spend my time and how time is spending me.

I have been the innocent child growing through adolescence into adulthood with ample time to try on various personas, to adapt and behave according to what others need and expect of me. What a relief to discover with age, introspection, and spiritual awakening that I am bolder. I am now more alive than ever! Growing older feels like a paradox in which one has the potential to be at one moment stumbling along on shaky ground and at the next leaping upwards on fire with life.  I’m enjoying the freedom of knowing anew that all I have to do to justify my existence is simply to be.