Risking Growing Older

…And the truth is for many, many, many folks, I’m not that old.  You know, it’s funny:  in the detective books I read (Baldacci, Palmer, de Mille) when there’s “an old sage, weathered detective” in the office they always say, `she is in her fifties…’

At 52 and now on the other side of an 8 week illness, and for feeling pretty awful for a long time like that (which is not my usual way of being in the world), I am aware of how intentional, how down-right risky it is to grow older.  Things do start to fall apart.  Throughout this time I’ve been at least weekly to doctors: my GP, my pulmonologist, my allergist – and all of them have said along the way, “As you get older, you will need to adjust to…” and I’ve been resistant – and a bit cranky that 1) they would say this and 2) that that would be my lot in life.

I’ve had a pretty healthy life – and for others who have not, I apologize for my elitist attitude.  As one who has worked for years in HIV and now is working with a hospice, I know that each day is a gift.  Period.  And I also know that what we chose to do with each day is how we daily define life.  Period.

But / and, I am aware that in growing older, more failings of the body will come.  The life lesson will be how to have these “growing older body” changes not impact my “growing older spirit” changes.  The truth is we were, each one of us, fearfully and wonderfully made.  And our living is responding to what is and to what is changing in us as well as around us as we live each day.  And our living is being grateful for all that we can still do with this precious life . It seems to me that we are to embrace that fully (whether it’s the Wii or our daily walks or a Y membership).  It’s our choice, our risk, our life’s work.  

So when I have trouble walking or hearing or even breathing as well as I have in the past, I will lean into the wisdom of the universe and give thanks for what is given me this day, and for what is here for me to be a part of.  And with grace, I will even begin to believe it myself.

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Lesley Brogan is tethered to her village. The middle daughter of a middle daughter, she and her partner co-parent two boys (11 and 8) with their two dads. Life rarely seems easy, but in it, there is energy and wisdom -- and, it seems -- just enough humor to get the village through their days.
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