Growing Older
With the first day of the year 2013 unfolding, I am reminded of a sentence that I have recently read that stated "the older you get, the closer your loves are to the surface". This statement has made me reflect on the fact that as I get closer to leaving 'middle age' behind and approach my seventies, I am pleasantly surprised that the transition, instead of being as difficult as I had envisioned, is becoming far more liberating emotionally.
As I grew older I discovered myself - I found out what I wanted, what I needed, and what I deserved. And I know that although I still don't, and never will, know everything, I do know that as I continue to age, the relationships I have with my partner, my children, my grandchildren, my family and my true friends are vital to my existence.
This is not that distinctive a change from my younger years, but then I was quicker to anger, more defensive, and much more anxious. Now I have developed a greater sense of inner peace and I am no longer feeling the need to prove anything to anyone. I know that I deserve to be in relationships with those I love that make me happy, don't complicate my life, and don't hurt me. I have leaned to realize that I'll never be good enough for some people and that this is their problem, not mine. I have learned that whom and what I love is my life's surface and as I live in the 'now' I am experiencing the silver lining of aging. I see more clearly what's important and do my best to invest in it. And what is important, in the end, are the experiences that are rich with positive emotion.
Every experience that I go through changes me in some way. Every new person I meet changes me. Every moral dilemma and emotional experience I come up against changes me - my job now, at this stage of my life - is to decide how. I have learned that any pain I go through will end - I just have to take a deep breath and think of one happy situation in my life and smile. I can get through another day.
I have learned to stop analyzing the past, to stop analyzing the future, to stop trying to figure out precisely how I feel, and to stop deciding with my mind what I want my heart to feel. Whatever happens - happens! It certainly is not 'pie in the sky' - I do get thrown curve balls, but I try not to dwell on things the way I used to - and so I am better able to move on. I know I will get lost once in a while, sometimes by choice, sometimes due to forces beyond my control. But if I allow my soul the freedom to learn, my path will present itself.
Life has filled my 'baggage' with sad memories, broken promises, lost friendships, and missed opportunities. I know what it is like to believe, to hope, to dream and I also know how it feels when every promise, every feeling, every dream has been broken into pieces, which, when collected and put into the 'trunk' of my experiences are not whole anymore. Because of life and how it has affected me, I can sympathize, and so I am aging with a much more powerful empathy. Sad situations get to me even more so than they used to, but they now motivate me to reach out to others for the give and take of comfort and compassion, as feeling these emotions, with all their richness and subtlety is part of the meaning of my life and the part of what brings the people and things that I love close to the surface.
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