Aging In America — Beginning of the Journey
I don’t know if I qualify for this — I am 62 years old. But, considering I’ve already far outlived what most people who knew me in my first 29 years expected — including myself — I’ll consider myself qualified. That said, I’m now shooting for 100.
When I was turning 50, I felt like I was letting myself turn into an old man, and I set out to do something about that. I began working out in earnest, I took a yoga class, I joined a competitive men’s softball team, and I started to work on lowering my cholesterol. Throughout my 50’s, I remained very active, some years playing up to 120 games of softball, on top of my full-time job, in which I moved up the ladder considerably during my 50’s.
The year I turned 60, I became beset with a series of health issues, beginning with hearing loss. As they explored what was causing my hearing loss, they discovered a very rare tumor, a facial nerve schwannoma, on my 7th cranial nerve, technically a brain tumor. I began to experience severe vertigo attacks every ten days, which went on for four months. The tumor eventually went away, and I got the vertigo under control with medication, but this forced me to retire playing softball. To compensate, I took up walking with earnest. I try to walk four miles a day. I average about three and a half, but keep trying to get up to four.
Another thing I rediscovered during my 50’s was my writing. I have written about my journey through aging, and this has helped more than I can express. Knowing that I am not on this journey alone makes a big difference.
Another thing that helps me is the fact that I am the 6th of 7 children — I have 5 older siblings, and 1 younger. No matter how old I become, five of my six siblings will always be older, so I always feel young, in comparison. Every one of them, from my 70 year old oldest brother on down, remains active and engaged, even as they retire from their careers.
I guess my biggest, secret fear is becoming irrelevant. I have a lot of impact in my life today. I am in an executive leadership position at work, the highest level that one can achieve in the government, and I have an impact on many people, each day.
I write and post my stories on line, and many people read and appreciate my work, and my insights. I try to write meaningful things. A secret fear is that I will run out of things to write about. It hasn’t happened in five years of writing daily, but it is a fear, nonetheless. The other fear I have is that I will lose my mind. I have already begun to notice how my memory is not as sharp as it was, even just a few years ago. It’s losing its edge. I’ve always prided myself on my memory for details, so that is concerning.
Other than that, I live by the philosophy that it is a good day to die. If I were to go today, I have nothing that I’ve left undone that I would regret never having gotten around to. I have done everything I really wanted to accomplish in life. At this point, it is all gravy. Keep pouring it on. It tastes great.
I am currently going through an exercise, one that I went through in parts of 2012 and 2013, that was suggested in Stephen Levine’s book, “A Year to Live” — I am living this year like it was my last. There are a number of things suggested to do in this exercise, including facing death, and the idea of death, squarely, exploring any fears we have around it, and learning to look through them, lean into them, and eventually embrace the idea of death. I have done this, and will do it again.
I feel like I have the unique advantage, in this, in having observed, and walked beside, two quite remarkable individuals during their final days of this life — both of my parents. Their deaths occurred 16 years apart, so I was in a much different place for each of their deaths.
I had grown very close to each of them during the years leading up to their final days, so I was in a position to be intimately engaged with each of their journeys. Both were much different, but each gave me one of the greatest gifts I believe I have received in this life.
They helped me to overcome any fear of death, and dying, that I had before they died. They both faced death with such courage, and such engagement, that I learned that death can actually be a beautiful, though painful, experience. The key is to embrace the whole process, not resist it, and share it with others as you do.
Other than the fears previously mentioned, I look forward to, and embrace, aging. My intention is to age gracefully, but to remain as engaged in life as I possibly can as I age.
In a way, my 50’s were about holding the aging process off as long as I could. In my 60’s, I feel like the name of the game has become to learn to accept aging as a part of life, and to act my age.
I strive to learn to live within the physical limitations that are beginning to make themselves known. I respect them, but I won’t feel restricted by them. I choose to live within them, because I choose longevity. I want to go long. I feel I have a better shot at that if I pace myself, by taking good care of this body and this mind, by nurturing this spirit, so together, we might maximize and enjoy the gloaming period of this life.
I plan to enjoy it as much as I possibly can. I do not want to dwell on the downside of it. I don’t regretfully look upon youth and wish I had it back. I lived that already — I did the best I could with it. I had my turn. Now, I get to be a wise old man. This is what I want to be. I enjoy the wisdom that comes with age. I never thought it would come to me, but it seems that it has.
When I am able, I pass along the things of life that I have learned, to those who are in a position and a desire to hear it. I don’t expect them to get it all — only that which they find useful to them. I consider it a privilege to have the opportunity to do this.
When I was much younger, I was very involved in 12 Step programs. This involvement surely saved my life, as I was without a doubt and alcoholic, one who continued to demonstrate an addiction problem when I put down the drink. I took my last drink at age 22, and smoked my last joint at age 25. I never could have done this on my own — the 12 Step programs were a big help. AA helped me a lot with the drinking, NA was instrumental in teaching me total abstinence.
I eventually stumbled into an interesting combination of an N.A. group that used the AA Big Book to take newcomers through the 12 Steps. After 4 years clean and sober, I went through the 12 Steps, and my life became infinitely more livable. That group eventually became Addicts Anonymous, when the N.A. program began to have a problem with their use of the AA Big Book. I stayed involved with that group for 7 more years, then drifted away from all 12 Step program involvement.
I still maintained my daily devotion to the principles of the 12 Steps, continuing to apply them to my life, because they had proved to work in my life. In recent years, my desire to be involved in a 12 Step program became apparent, so I began a search for where I belonged.
I knew that N.A. still didn’t want me, because my recovery experience will always include going through the 12 Steps as outlined in the AA Big Book. They, organizationally, have a strong pride of their own literature and Basic Text (which I had a hand in writing and getting published, ironically), and so I know that’s not where I belong. I have gone to a few of their meetings, and I find a lot of the activity that goes on in a meeting there to be quite annoying. I think it may be geared towards a younger crowd of people, and I simply don’t feel like I have a lot to offer, there.
I did learn, though, that I feel most comfortable and welcomed in AA, even though a big part of my experience includes drug use. This has changed over the years in AA, and it is now generally accepted as part of one’s story, and they don’t frown on people sharing this part of their story.
They remain primarily about helping people to find recovery from alcoholism, but since I certainly was, and am, an alcoholic, I belong. There, I have the opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope with others who are looking for help with their condition. I’ve become a regular at meetings in this area, and I attend them wherever I travel.
It’s a true delight for me to be a part of a 12 Step fellowship again, after all these years, and fills a spot inside that nothing else could. It makes my life so much richer. I have 37 years of continuous sobriety, which includes abstinence from all mind and mood altering substances. I have actually gone close to 40 years since I last drank alcohol.
There’s nothing more fulfilling for me than to have the opportunity to work with someone who is just starting out on their recovery journey. I don’t consider myself any better than them, for all of my “time” — just considerably more fortunate, and willing to help them find what I found through the 12 Step journey. This keeps me young.
My parents were both involved with helping others. My father took a call from a young man struggling with finding acceptance from a family that couldn’t understand his sexual identity, that of being gay. Dad was dying when he took that call. The young man on the other end of the line never knew that. Dad spoke with him for well over an hour, helping him to find some light in his dark place.
I want to be like that on my death bed. I want to still be in a position to be a force for light in this world, even as I begin to embrace the light in the next.
