I'll be seventy in two months. Seventy! Such a surprise. When I was in my late fifties my partner and I hit a very icy patch. We'd built a house that was too ambitious. We were both self-employed - I'm a psychotherapist and he's carpenter. He'd been hoodwinked by a sleazy developer and lost a significant chunk of money. My father died. My stepson was being a turkey. My son had left his wife and three kids. Misery abounded. Aging is scary and life is a struggle. But impermanence is the surprise. The colours in the sunrise fade revealing the subtle hues of the late blooming sweetpeas. The money shit does or doesn't get resolved but still you keep going. The stepson turns pleasant. The dog dies. Your friends show up for you and you show up for them. You find wee pockets of bliss - the merlins raise their three offspring in a pine tree on your property; a publisher wants to publish your book. Your partner doesn't want to get up on roofs anymore. Your kids come by and help you plant your garden. An asshole is elected to government. The price of gas goes up. Your newish dog is so funny and sweet. Your friend develops memory issues. Your heart breaks and falls in love a million times a day.
And I love that teacher. What a gift to have a teacher that cracks like that!
When I was an anxious young mother and my older daughter was about 2 years old, I was at a playdate watching her from a distance. The other mothers were talking about kindergarten and I said, "I can't imagine sending her to kindergarten!" She was so small and innocent. One of the mothers said, "Well, she won't be 2 when you send her." I couldn't understand how I would be or how she would be in the future. Just no comprehension of it whatsoever. It was impossible to feel what that would feel like.
That mother was exactly right. By the time she went to kindergarten, my daughter and I were both ready and it was as natural as can be. So you can't know how it will feel to be in your late 50s (which I am now). You live into it gradually. It's just normal life.
Many older people are not dealing with catastrophic circumstances. But too many are, because of injustice and disadvantages, addiction, ill health, and many other reasons mostly not their fault. Perhaps we should be wondering how we can be more helpful to those people. My father, after he got sober, visited a lot of elderly people with limited physical and financial resources. It gave him and them great pleasure. He struggled with depression, but I don't think he felt depressed when he was helping others. I think that's the way to do it, but what am I doing? Exactly what was described here: I am the friend who runs away from heaviness and I feel terrible about that. This is a wake-up call for me. Thank you.
<3 I have selections from this one cut and pasted on my "read this when you're sad" google doc! lol.
I hope this isn't a trite example, but about 10 months after I got my first job (still living in the apt I lived in during my senior year of college), we got a bed bug infestation. I was kind of a hoarder, of books especially. My blankets/pillows/comfortable things had always been SO important to me, and my bed practically sacred.
So having bed bugs was truly traumatic for me. None of my comfortable things were safe: my beloved blankets, my nostalgic stuffed animals, my entire bed. I ended up getting rid of SO much, things I thought I'd never part with. And the very special things (like a blanket my godmother had made for me), I had to seal in vacuum bags and leave them in my mom's basement for 18 months (which is how long bed bugs can live without feeding, fyi!!). I was surprised by how quick the letting go happened.
Anyway, since then, I've noticed my attachment to objects is less intense. I still love certain things (books...), but that sort of scarcity-compulsive need to *keep* isn't as present anymore. I notice that my things are good, and I love them, but if they were gone it would be OK. I know now that losing things doesn't lead directly to inevitable devastation.
I wrote this question in 2014! God I sound gloomy here... it was a pretty hard time. I was so incredibly surprised and delighted you wrote back to me (and later included the letter in your book). It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I have been given. You'll be happy to know my friend is doing really well. His parents are also doing much better -- they eventually split up but are on good terms, and the whole family got a lot closer as a result of this experience.
I really took your advice here to heart. I turned out OK too :). Thanks for your wonderful column.
Widowed person here, and I can absolutely attest that the joy finds its way in the darkest times - kind of like [insert name of the most invasive weed in your agricultural zone here] ends up in your garden despite your very best attempts to do otherwise.
The good news is that the Joy Bar is pretty low, and we probably don’t spend enough time telling others because we are afraid of sounding like … I don’t know. For me personally, my day starts with joy when I can order coffee and a breakfast sandwich on my phone (!) so I can pop in on my way to work and say hi to the nice people who made it. Just. For. Me.
Also - that teacher is something. Full of self loathing at the moment, perhaps?
I for one love to hear about your mom, Heather. This time especially because she sounds like my mom before she started to get really sick toward the end and stopped caring about most everything except trying to stay alive, which was maybe the worst part of all of it. She died last year, and I miss her like mad. I miss her worrying over whether her bird feeders were full, the cats were fed on time, her newest library book was finally in, and how on earth she was going to use all 5 pounds of swiss chard the local farm box had delivered that month. I miss her annoying habit of cutting out news articles to save for my next visit so that I could read them. I miss her sending me two cards at Christmas & my birthday (one from her, one from both her & my cats). I miss sharing our "wee pockets of bliss." (thanks, Jan.Morrison -- what a good phrase)
I am 65, and it feels weird. There have been some surprises. Some not pleasant, some delightful. Things that keep me going are teaching tai chi--even if I'm grumpy or depressed and don't want to do it, my students are waiting. And I ALWAYS feel better after class. I feel lucky I get to share it with them. I feel fortunate that I've done it long enough to benefit in a bunch of ways I never dreamed about. It both calms and energizes me. It reminds me that whatever tempest in a teapot currently has me distressed is not so big a deal. I live in TN, surrounded by a lot of people who embrace politics and values that are very different from my own. And yet. And yet there are wonderful, loving, tolerant, inclusive people here. Thistle Farms is based here. I follow them, buy their products, and every year I go to graduation to see the incredibly strong and joyful women graduate from their program. This makes me weep for joy, that there is so much good and hope, right here. And at this time of year, I occasionally see a leaf or 30 that have turned the brightest, most intense, fiery shades of red and orange, and they make my soul sing. Sometimes as I walk in the park I pick up five or six from the ground, line them up and take a picture, because they are so beautiful. And I read Ask Polly, because H.H.'s writing always brings a reminder that there is hope, right here, right now.
Poems poems poems! They can hold so much humanity and beauty and insight and texture, don't they? When we can keep company with nuance and mystery and realness and good questions we don't have the same (frustrating) need for answers. Thank you for including Brooks in your post today. I was my first visit to your page.
I am reading this for the first time on Thanksgiving day. I just turned 59 and I am living with my 87 year old dad. (Not very Sex in the City right?! LOL) Despite the fact he has high blood pressure and recently threw one of his meds in the trash ("the doctors are just after my money") I accept the fact that I cannot control him and I am enjoying the twinklings and twinges of our everyday life.
Polly, thank you for this pearl of wisdom... I like to think that my friend Alberto who got recently diagnosed with cancer and whom I reconnected with today feels also grateful..
I'll be seventy in two months. Seventy! Such a surprise. When I was in my late fifties my partner and I hit a very icy patch. We'd built a house that was too ambitious. We were both self-employed - I'm a psychotherapist and he's carpenter. He'd been hoodwinked by a sleazy developer and lost a significant chunk of money. My father died. My stepson was being a turkey. My son had left his wife and three kids. Misery abounded. Aging is scary and life is a struggle. But impermanence is the surprise. The colours in the sunrise fade revealing the subtle hues of the late blooming sweetpeas. The money shit does or doesn't get resolved but still you keep going. The stepson turns pleasant. The dog dies. Your friends show up for you and you show up for them. You find wee pockets of bliss - the merlins raise their three offspring in a pine tree on your property; a publisher wants to publish your book. Your partner doesn't want to get up on roofs anymore. Your kids come by and help you plant your garden. An asshole is elected to government. The price of gas goes up. Your newish dog is so funny and sweet. Your friend develops memory issues. Your heart breaks and falls in love a million times a day.
And I love that teacher. What a gift to have a teacher that cracks like that!
When I was an anxious young mother and my older daughter was about 2 years old, I was at a playdate watching her from a distance. The other mothers were talking about kindergarten and I said, "I can't imagine sending her to kindergarten!" She was so small and innocent. One of the mothers said, "Well, she won't be 2 when you send her." I couldn't understand how I would be or how she would be in the future. Just no comprehension of it whatsoever. It was impossible to feel what that would feel like.
That mother was exactly right. By the time she went to kindergarten, my daughter and I were both ready and it was as natural as can be. So you can't know how it will feel to be in your late 50s (which I am now). You live into it gradually. It's just normal life.
Many older people are not dealing with catastrophic circumstances. But too many are, because of injustice and disadvantages, addiction, ill health, and many other reasons mostly not their fault. Perhaps we should be wondering how we can be more helpful to those people. My father, after he got sober, visited a lot of elderly people with limited physical and financial resources. It gave him and them great pleasure. He struggled with depression, but I don't think he felt depressed when he was helping others. I think that's the way to do it, but what am I doing? Exactly what was described here: I am the friend who runs away from heaviness and I feel terrible about that. This is a wake-up call for me. Thank you.
<3 I have selections from this one cut and pasted on my "read this when you're sad" google doc! lol.
I hope this isn't a trite example, but about 10 months after I got my first job (still living in the apt I lived in during my senior year of college), we got a bed bug infestation. I was kind of a hoarder, of books especially. My blankets/pillows/comfortable things had always been SO important to me, and my bed practically sacred.
So having bed bugs was truly traumatic for me. None of my comfortable things were safe: my beloved blankets, my nostalgic stuffed animals, my entire bed. I ended up getting rid of SO much, things I thought I'd never part with. And the very special things (like a blanket my godmother had made for me), I had to seal in vacuum bags and leave them in my mom's basement for 18 months (which is how long bed bugs can live without feeding, fyi!!). I was surprised by how quick the letting go happened.
Anyway, since then, I've noticed my attachment to objects is less intense. I still love certain things (books...), but that sort of scarcity-compulsive need to *keep* isn't as present anymore. I notice that my things are good, and I love them, but if they were gone it would be OK. I know now that losing things doesn't lead directly to inevitable devastation.
I wrote this question in 2014! God I sound gloomy here... it was a pretty hard time. I was so incredibly surprised and delighted you wrote back to me (and later included the letter in your book). It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I have been given. You'll be happy to know my friend is doing really well. His parents are also doing much better -- they eventually split up but are on good terms, and the whole family got a lot closer as a result of this experience.
I really took your advice here to heart. I turned out OK too :). Thanks for your wonderful column.
Widowed person here, and I can absolutely attest that the joy finds its way in the darkest times - kind of like [insert name of the most invasive weed in your agricultural zone here] ends up in your garden despite your very best attempts to do otherwise.
The good news is that the Joy Bar is pretty low, and we probably don’t spend enough time telling others because we are afraid of sounding like … I don’t know. For me personally, my day starts with joy when I can order coffee and a breakfast sandwich on my phone (!) so I can pop in on my way to work and say hi to the nice people who made it. Just. For. Me.
Also - that teacher is something. Full of self loathing at the moment, perhaps?
I for one love to hear about your mom, Heather. This time especially because she sounds like my mom before she started to get really sick toward the end and stopped caring about most everything except trying to stay alive, which was maybe the worst part of all of it. She died last year, and I miss her like mad. I miss her worrying over whether her bird feeders were full, the cats were fed on time, her newest library book was finally in, and how on earth she was going to use all 5 pounds of swiss chard the local farm box had delivered that month. I miss her annoying habit of cutting out news articles to save for my next visit so that I could read them. I miss her sending me two cards at Christmas & my birthday (one from her, one from both her & my cats). I miss sharing our "wee pockets of bliss." (thanks, Jan.Morrison -- what a good phrase)
I think about this one all the time :)
I am 65, and it feels weird. There have been some surprises. Some not pleasant, some delightful. Things that keep me going are teaching tai chi--even if I'm grumpy or depressed and don't want to do it, my students are waiting. And I ALWAYS feel better after class. I feel lucky I get to share it with them. I feel fortunate that I've done it long enough to benefit in a bunch of ways I never dreamed about. It both calms and energizes me. It reminds me that whatever tempest in a teapot currently has me distressed is not so big a deal. I live in TN, surrounded by a lot of people who embrace politics and values that are very different from my own. And yet. And yet there are wonderful, loving, tolerant, inclusive people here. Thistle Farms is based here. I follow them, buy their products, and every year I go to graduation to see the incredibly strong and joyful women graduate from their program. This makes me weep for joy, that there is so much good and hope, right here. And at this time of year, I occasionally see a leaf or 30 that have turned the brightest, most intense, fiery shades of red and orange, and they make my soul sing. Sometimes as I walk in the park I pick up five or six from the ground, line them up and take a picture, because they are so beautiful. And I read Ask Polly, because H.H.'s writing always brings a reminder that there is hope, right here, right now.
Wow, googled the eastern towhee and it DOES sound like "drink your tea." Amazing! I will, little bird, I will.
Poems poems poems! They can hold so much humanity and beauty and insight and texture, don't they? When we can keep company with nuance and mystery and realness and good questions we don't have the same (frustrating) need for answers. Thank you for including Brooks in your post today. I was my first visit to your page.
I am reading this for the first time on Thanksgiving day. I just turned 59 and I am living with my 87 year old dad. (Not very Sex in the City right?! LOL) Despite the fact he has high blood pressure and recently threw one of his meds in the trash ("the doctors are just after my money") I accept the fact that I cannot control him and I am enjoying the twinklings and twinges of our everyday life.
Polly, thank you for this pearl of wisdom... I like to think that my friend Alberto who got recently diagnosed with cancer and whom I reconnected with today feels also grateful..