the old woman I want to be

First of all, given the title to this blog, I want to clarify something. I do NOT see being old as a negative thing. I don't see it as about feebleness or senility. I do see it as a stage of life involving change which we can either embrace or work to deny. So onto the topic--


Our United States mid-term elections are finally past. It's a new year for those who follow nature religions. Although I don't celebrate any religion as such, this really does feel like the end of a growing cycle with the leaves mostly fallen from the trees, the plants on their way to dormancy (although this was one of the warmest early Novembers I ever remember and the plants must be wondering what is this about when the daytime temps were in the low 70s???).

Nevertheless, it has seemed like a good time to assess myself for where I am and where I want to be-- better than the start of a new calendar year where life sometimes seems too hectic to stop and look at anything.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about myself right now. It's not just the superficial aspects of aging but something deeper, something that has me wondering who is that woman standing in her garden in September? She looks satisfied and well she should be given she's 67, in apparently pretty good health. But something doesn't feel fulfilled. I had this imaginary vision of what I'd be like when I got really old; and while I am on the road to really old. when I sit down to consider it, I have not been hitting the mark.

There's a bottom-line although I am vague about where it is. I think my dissatisfaction comes from a mix of emotions which would take me different directions. One side of me that wants to be an old woman like I once upon a time imagined I'd be. Another side of me wants to be the person I was even five years ago.

On the one hand be old and fully experience it <-----> on the other hand... well the other hand can't get what it might want as we cannot go backward. I don't think it's unusual though to feel this way. I suspect many elders at one time or another think of what it was like say ten years ago and wish they still had some of that, the stamina, the looks, the lack of aches and pains; but it gets us nowhere. Neither does denying where we are.

When I am around my granddaughter, who is just entering puberty, it makes me even more aware of this whole, actually rather exciting, process of aging. She is at the beginning of something I am at the end of-- not life but hormones. Hormones are turning her into a woman and I see it more every time I am with her. Lack of hormones is turning me into an old lady. She and I are not actually at the beginning and end of life but the beginning and end of hormonal life.

When I was turning sixty, I knew things were going to change ahead. That was my hardest birthday since around twenty-six when I became aware I was leaving youth behind. Before sixty (and I realize we all feel these things at different points), it all seemed middle age stuff and slid along without my noticing big differences in agility, looks, weight, balance, or even ambition. Then it began to change. It happens at some point to almost everyone as they age-- whether they choose to admit it or not.

Clearly it would be foolish to want to go backward as that's impossible. Some people do have face lifts to try and fool themselves that they are still youths. Fine, they can do that, but they won't be. Whether you change your face or work out constantly, your body is the age it is. Faces plasticized only look like faces plasticized. Surgical nips and tucks cause people to lose their individuality. Those lines some would remove mark what we have done in life. It's really a shame we cannot see the beauty of the aged face, but that's the bulk of our society with its superficial emphasis.

What I have to do is let go of that once-upon-a-time woman and look toward the one she is yet to be. Part of that involves looking at which elements of my life should or could change to make this coming period of life better. What don't I yet 'get'?

I have to admit part of me is thrilled to get to old. So many do not. Those of us who did get to this point should feel gratitude. I like the whole idea of being at the other end of all these experiences in life, a part of my life is probably (I take nothing in life for granted) coming that will be different than anything that has gone before-- as will be true with my granddaughter as she leaves childhood for adulthood. She is like me-- partly excited about the potential and partly looking at what it has been and hating to release it.

This change that I want is not so much materially. I have had many material benefits. It's something inside me. Maybe as we do get to real old age, we think more about what is inside as the outside is deteriorating. Life, at any age, is about more than the material even though pretending the material doesn't matter would be silly.

So... despite my not liking to think much beyond where I am, preferring to live in the moment, I am seriously looking at whether where I am right now is where I should be or where I want to be in ten years. Without some planning for what is not working, it's not likely I will fix it.

I don't write a lot of poetry but a little over ten years ago now, I did write something that fits how I still feel today. After I began doing digital painting, I went looking for an image that I could use as background to the words and found a photo of myself when I was 26 holding my son. You'll have to click on the image to read the words.


More coming on this topic.