Wow, there is a lot of truth in that statement. Of course, I modified Donita Sparks original statement to fit me in current life today. But it rings true. I don’t really feel 54. In fact the only age I think I have ever really felt was 18 and well maybe 13. Since then it has really just been an evolving depth with life and experience, but my mind, my soul and my heart remain young and immature.
I don’t think everyone has this experience. I think some people are just born old. They feel old, they act old and they mature in ways that I have yet to experience. I guess we don’t ever get to really decide how we orient towards age and time, I think it is just something we are given at birth.
For those other young at heart people, do you also spend time recklessly, always seeming to believe there will be more time? And is it only the people who are born older that do not squander time? Or is the squandering just part of what it means to be alive and human?
And it is truly only the intervening 36 years that have provided the backdrop for maturity and growth, and only in limited supply. Most days, I wake feeling exactly like I did at 18, wondering why the hell I have to go to work and how unfair that really is. I still have horrific eating habits that I am only marginally successful at moderating. I spend as if my life will ultimately be judged upon my wardrobe and not my 401k balance. I still live for the moment most of the time. And the future, most especially on the back side of 50 means that I am almost un-aging because I feel the pressure of time and wear and deterioration.
I am still largely immaturely responsible. Being able to hold it together a great deal of the time but prone to temper tantrums and wishful thinking. I spend way too much time daydreaming about selling everything I own and living in a van with my dogs and cats. Traveling from here to there without agenda or tether. These are not 54 year old dreams...they are the dreams of a younger person who still has a lot of life to live.
However, I will tell you, and I mean this very sincerely, that once you pass 50 there is something that happens to you, you see that the front side of life is now over. It isn’t ever coming back. And what you do now, what you have done until now is vitally important to how you live the rest of your days. And for me, I am grateful for this rebellious 18 year old that resides deep within me. And I am also grateful for the 36 years of experience I have that allows me to show up to work everyday and parent and do all the things adults are supposed to do.
I wish I would have known at 18 that being an adult is overrated. I mean, I really don’t enjoy it all that much. I was in such a hurry to grow up. I wanted to be “on my own” and “independent.” Yeah, there are many days that I wonder “what the fuck were you thinking?” Being on my own has been overrated and independent is just how I move through the world.
I guess there is a certain type of comfort that comes from seeing that you actually knew who you were all along. At 18, I knew exactly who I was, I think I lacked courage to be that person and I also had some trauma that needed healing. And I delayed that particular journey for quite some time. So it has been in this 36 years of experience since that I have moved myself forward, and become more of who I always was. I think often, it isn’t about becoming who you are supposed to be, but unlearning all the pretend you heaped on top of who you actually were.
For me, this is a long letting go process. I have led a good, interesting life. I have done a lot. Been a lot of places, taken some good risks. I have loved a lot and I have missed a lot of opportunities for connection because of unhealed trauma that I allowed to take over my life.
So as I approach having almost 37 years of experience, the 18 year old in me is very content. Happy to know more, grow deeper, evoke change but hold fast to the idealized view of life and living that can only be maintained in the mind of someone young and supple.
Adulting is, well, not all that much fun. And one of the best things I know about aging is that the older you get, the more options you have to release all the acquisitioning and accumulating you have done all your life since 18 and reorient life towards supporting the things you truly value: time, nature, intimacy, relationships, experiences. And you gain more access to those things because you become less concerned with the number of your years and more concerned with how well you lived them.
And for me, upon review, I think I have lived them well. Perhaps not from your perspective but my internal 18 year old is somewhat amused but overall pleased with how we turned out. Sure, there are some things in the last 36 years I wish I would have skipped altogether. But then I wouldn’t have the life I have today. And the life I have today is pretty fucking sweet. And I feel grateful and happy to be alive. I am the person my life earned me to be. And that is a pretty cool statement to be able to make and mean.
While there are some things that I would change if I could, I can’t so I have worked hard to find a place of peace with all of it. It is a good day when the 18 year old in you and the 54 year old in you have consensus. That feels an awful like balance and that is something that I usually only get to experience as I am swinging by it moving from one extreme to another. I think they call this progress...I am not really sure. The 18 year old me is already bored with this whole endeavor and wants to go search out concerts instead of working...but thankfully my 36 years of experience will win out today. I will go to work, and do the things and allow that 18 year old me to rebel to her heart’s content just as soon as we finish up the working day...
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