I’m busy lately, mostly in ways that I enjoy, with so many more things I want to do. And I’m finding it ironic that I’m better at doing things now — more skills, more focus, way more discipline — but the doing takes much more out of me.
The benefit of age for me so far has been expertise and confidence and a stronger sense of myself. And now I need to learn how to gracefully pay the price for all these gifts of age: the fact that I literally cannot read without glasses anymore; that if I get up early and throw myself into work and forget to eat, I will feel bad for hours; that intense work fuels my soul but makes my body tired and shaky for days; and that I can no longer sleep as deeply as I used to, no matter how tired I am. I’m not repairing myself back to my twenty-something baseline anymore. I am, to my surprise, destructible. I’m not talking about death now: I am doing pretty well with accepting that I’ll die. I just hadn’t spent much time thinking about the slowing down that has to be managed before the stopping.
I live with someone whose body has changed in some accelerated ways, whereas I’m pretty much on schedule, and I am not complaining. But my awareness of my own body has increased exponentially because Nicola is so in tune with hers, and because we have had to learn to pay attention to nuances; to learn to distinguish MS from whatever else might be going on. And so I’m noticing, and feeling… not angry, only occasionally sad (although I suspect there’s more of that to come), but mostly just really annoyed right now. There is so much I want to do.
It’s just sympathy between humans. I feel right along with you, and I’m older than you. We are now riding off into the sunset until the sunset burns us up. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I do a little of both. Keep your pecker up, as the British say. It means keep your chin up, but for the longest time I thought it meant…. Well, you can guess what I thought.
Sympatico, my friend. I’ve been ignoring/resisting this for years and finally I’m having to admit that I just can’t do what I used to do. But now that I won’t be working around toxic chemicals on an unpadded concrete floor anymore, maybe I’ll get a bit of a bounce!
About 15 years ago I went to see a doctor because I was feeling, well, not great. Not bad, just borderline exhausted all the time. He asked me to outline my weekly schedule/routine. I hadn’t finished yet when he set his clipboard aside, held up a hand, and asked:
“Mr. Tiedemann, there are men half your age that can’t do all that. What you need is a little perspective. You’re tired all the time because you’re working all the time. Take a rest!”
Perspective. Yeah, that always helps. ; )
We can study life now when before we just lived. We can thrill at the skills we have at our fingertips. We can mind over matter just like zen. We can take deep breaths and just not hold them. We can still sprint if our other needs us.
Things remind us now that they and we are passing.
It is brave of you to bring this up.
For it is now that we begin to think about not wanting to lose each other..