On Not Going Gently
It's easy to say "age is just a number" when you're 25...35...or even 45.
By your late sixties, reality is harsher.
Let's talk about the realities of life's back nine...or should I say back three (I hate golf anyway).
Moving Onto Life's Frontlines
I am now what they call "young old," which is, I suppose, better than being old old.
According to someone who determines these things, it encompasses ages 65-74, meaning I am even still on the younger side of young-old.
I won't lie: the thought of being old-old holds no appeal for me, and I'm hoping I kick it even before I hit old-old (there is, apparently, no "medium-old," which seems rather mean to me--it just goes straight to old-old and then oldest-old).
All the icons of my youth are dead or impaired. I grant you, many performers did heavy doses of drugs back in the '60s and '70s, and that shit isn't good for you--short or long-term. But regardless, when people hit that "oldest old" phase after 85, they start dying like flies.
A disease, a heart attack, a stroke, a fall...there are so many options for how life will take you out. We all want to go in our sleep, if that's even a thing: I have my doubts.
The challenge at this stage is to keep on producing until you no longer can. Some days, just not being depressed as hell is a full-time job. So many people have crushed your spirit by this life stage, so many dreams haven't been realized. And you start to suspect they may never be.
So, allow me to take stock of my life's major accomplishments so far.
I've worked as a commercial actress, as a singer, a news anchor, a producer, a news editor, and now--in the past six years--as an author/novelist. I've cared for eleven rescue dogs--some more challenging than others--and given them the best care I could. I've moved some nine times in my adult life, and lived in a variety of states across America.
One of my proudest accomplishments has been learning to shoot and shoot well-- I had to overcome a lot of fears to get here and it was well worth the journey.
On the accomplishment front, I think I can die feeling pretty proud of what I've done. Relationships have been much harder, and while I certainly understand why--given a problematic and ever-changing landscape growing up--it makes me feel cheated, to be quite honest.
That being said, life isn't fair, and there is no reason I should be exempt from that simple reality.
So, wish me luck as I move to the front lines of existence: the infantry, or perhaps we should call it the oldfantry.
None of us will make it out alive from this particular battlefield.
On Accepting Our Limitations
We have been sold a bill of goods.
According to talk shows, self-help books, and about 400,000 shrinks of every variety, we are all malleable clay that can be reshaped, reformed and reinvented.
Bullshit.
At 68, I am finally tossing this bill of goods into the circular file.
The common wisdom is that you attract what you believe, blah blah blah. Maybe you don't--maybe people are just incredibly disappointing. And after many decades of on and off shrinkdom, I'm throwing in the towel on trying to fix the broken pieces of my mind.
That's not to say I don't think I have any: I am as war-torn and brokenhearted as can be. I'm just tired of the illusion that if I journal, or make a list, or change my thoughts, it will all be different. I see no evidence that this is a reality, to be perfectly honest. And I'm weary of feeling like I've failed not just at relationships. but also at being able to manifest a man who isn't ultimately going to make me feel bad in some way.
Look, I know men, even tough men, go through heartbreak too. I'm not sure what the powers that be had in mind when they made Adam and Eve, but the whole concept is extremely imperfect. Add to that all of our individual quirks and mental bruises, and it's rare as hell to find men and women who can survive the test of time and still feel passion, genuinely like each other, and want more of the same.
No, I haven't given up on men. I'm not that bright and I'm still way too alive to let the wonder of the right man's touch disappear into oblivion. I'm just giving up on trying to figure out how to meet the right one, or make sure it all unfolds flawlessly.
I definitely didn't win the 'How to Form Strong Emotional Bonds' sweepstakes in my family. My mother was sick and died young, my father was devastated and emotionally distant. I was left to be raised by a rotating door of nannies--in what I refer to as very expensive foster care.
They arrived unannounced and left on a dime, the same way. It's hard to form bonds with people who are paid to take care of you.
I don't know what lays ahead. But I'm tired of trying to "fix" myself, whatever that even means. If I was physically crippled, no one would expect me to think my way to being able to walk again, but for some reason, we think this is a thing in the insanely complex human brain.
I don't believe it is. And there is a certain freedom in just letting go. Maybe I will float on the wind and maybe I will crash into a million pieces. I'm just done trying to hold on and climb back onto a mountain I've never walked.