Recently, I was reading a novel in which the protagonist, a man in his mid to late thirties, met the parents of a friend. As they approached, he described them as an “elderly couple around 60.” I was surprised at this. I’ll be 67 this year. Elderly? I don’t think so.
Today, I did a search for “who is elderly”? I really like this NPR article I came across. https://www.npr.org/…/an-age-old-problem-who-is-elderly
Here’s what’s happening to me. A lot of people who are 67 are having mobility and health issues. And I know quite a few of them. Others, at much later ages, are still moving and still participating in the world actively. I know what I want to be. And at the same time, as the months and years pass, I struggle sometimes against the effects most people take for granted about aging.
Recently, in our Five Invitations class at Fountain Street Church, Meredith Bradley presented a video with a distinctly Native American flavor that I found quite helpful and healing. (https://youtu.be/0J4qbnuuUYE) In it, the narrator told of things that happened in her life, and after each she said, “And then I went on.” The scenery was of high mesas and forests, and other natural settings where geology does not measure time. Only we do. And I took comfort in the phrase, “and then I went on”. I am starting to see that all of the wild changes I weathered in my youth and adolescence have not stopped, that I have the opportunity to experience the changes yet to come with more grace because of the earlier events and passages.
I like who I am now. I like the balance of strength and ability with wisdom and experience. And when we like something, we want it to stay. Anyone who has lived this long, however, knows that change is constant and inevitable.
Now, I want to add that you will not hear me saying, “I guess I’m just getting old”. This is not part of my thought process or vocabulary. You may, however, find me less stridently objectionable about new changes and passages that occur in my life or yours. Peace.