Getting older forces you to face some facts. The thing is, it's a natural process. All of the things that you are confronted with as you grow older are simply nature taking its course. Another part of it is that you have learned things through experience, which in most cases I think we can rightly call "trial and error".
Among the things I have been confronted with recently are the following:
1. Getting older comes with a reality check. I was made to consider the possibility that I am no longer so young as I once was. I can't do heavy work anymore. If I do, I will pay for it in pain and perhaps some immobility. If I persist in it, I will have consequences, for example, I could worsen the arthritis in my back or find myself in pain every day for the rest of my life, even when I am forced to stop working. It's not a nice prospect, and it makes my heart go out to all of the people who labored in life and ended it crippled or disabled or in pain. This was life for many, many people throughout the ages. It's why we've invented so many devices to do the heavy work for us and spare the bodies of the people who labor for a living.
2. I can no longer reclaim the potential I have lost. In many ways it is too late. Yes, there are inspirational stories of people getting degrees after 80, but it's largely symbolic of effort. They will never work in their field and they will not live long enough to profit from their work. I think they know it, too. I have come to accept that I will probably not have a long and illustrious career in something late in life. I have come a long way notwithstanding, but that is an accomplishment that is beyond my reach at this stage. I'm going to focus simply on being happy, and that for me is success enough. In that sense, I'm trying to redefine "success" in more personal terms.
3. I have to accept that I am no longer as young and attractive as I was. I have to think about what I eat or I gain weight, and dress my age, or else it looks stupid. I have to accept becoming invisible and blending in with all of the other older ladies. I've seen what it looks like when you try to resist it. None of it is convincing. Cutting your hair short and dying it red is a bit cliché, in my opinion. Besides, there are advantages to being invisible sometimes. On the inside, I'm still a proud weirdo. If I choose, I can go in a Maude of Harold and Maude direction with it.
4. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything. I have been made to face up to the specter of long-term disability or chronic illness. These things come for you after middle age. You have to be careful how you eat and what you do. I don't run for buses anymore because I know that I will spend the next three days after that in pain. I don't eat certain things because now they give me indigestion. I make sure to get my exercise and my fiber, because these things can help to avoid disability and being stuck depending on other people or limited in what you can do. You also learn to pace yourself instead of trying to do everything all at once.
It's a painful process in places, especially mourning the loss of youth and wishing you'd made more of it or that it could have lasted long enough for you to do something with the experience or wisdom you've gained. Instead, you've got gallstones and you never amounted to much. Maybe that's okay. Maybe mediocrity isn't so bad and this is the best you can hope for. I can live with that. It beats the alternatives. I'd rather grow old than stop growing old, that is to say.
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