Aging

“I’ve protested all my life

 that I didn’t exist for anyone else’s sake,

 not to fight your wars,

 to make your filthy lucre,

 or to give meaning to your existence,

 and suddenly,

 I want to exist for the sake of future generations,

 to make things better,

 to give living an on-going chance.”

I wasn’t looking, and suddenly I turned 61. I am aging. I can’t deny it. I’m turning into a geezer. For me this is momentous. Everything is changing. The game is about to go on without me. It isn’t over yet, and I still want to play, I have some ideas coalesced from my experience, I could help the game improve. I need to do what elders have been doing for millennia, figure out how to change the game from the sidelines. But, how is that done today, what does modern eldering look like?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m determined to find out, and I’m on a trajectory that is going to lead me there. I don’t want to go down the “old” hole that has awaited those who have gone before me. Why not? After all, I’ve had a full life, my share of the adventures of human existence. Why object? Well, for one thing I’m still alive, still chomping at the bit, still wanting to make a difference. And I could. Old age isn’t what it used to be. It is changing. There could be room for something new. We Baby Boomers are entering the scene. It could be a good time to be a senior, by that I mean dynamic, unusual, different, lively in ways unlike the past.

The past. All the good ideas about eldering come from the past, yet, now we need something new, some blend of what an elder was, and a new elder for our times. This seems to me to be a propitious time for a curious and rebellious generation to be coming on the scene. Old age, to be relevant, needs an infusion of imaginative energy. And, it needs a special kind of reverence too.  To make eldering good, valued, timely, the spiritual dimension must inform. Are we up to that level of challenge? Am I?

We are about to find out. 79 million of us are entering our sixties. I am one of the people who will make up 26% of the population. Are we going to do old age the old way, or our way? I know what my answer is. I’m going to find a way to do it that reflects the values that have made my life meaningful. Some of that is old, very old, and some of it is still forming, it is new, innovative, and intended to be good for all. I am excited. Who knew old age could be an adventure, a dynamic time of change, a way to make a difference?

I am excited and I am extremely sober. I don’t think the old notions of old age are going to go a way without some difficulty, nor do I think new ideas of later life are just going to materialize, so I am expecting a time fraught with experimentation and uncertainty. This suits the one in me that isn’t ready for obsolescence. But, it challenges the one in me who is growing ready for simpler connections. I’m not looking for free love, but I am interested in open hearts.

Aging seems to offer a lot of possibilities.  I can imagine the possibility that caring, mutual aid and interdependence could be the coin of the realm. I am thrilled by the sense that it could be acceptable, even fashionable, to need and rely upon the help of others. As a generation, we have known about community, but never before had we the pressure of mortality-awareness, and the encroaching infirmities of aging, to aid us in turning toward each other. I am awed by the prospect that the final scene could be simultaneously difficult and rich.

l/d