ILLUSIONS

I remember when life was so full of demands and expectations that I needed another pair of hands and a few more hours in each day. You are so immersed in the process that you simply do what you can, swept along through time and space with all the other, civilized flotsam. But that was then; if you have health and a shred of wealth, if you have people you trust and care about, if they care back, retirement is a sweet spot in an otherwise frantic scramble. The down side is that you’ve grown old in the meantime. The invincibility of youth is necessary for survival; you plunge ahead because the alternative is to die on the vine. You don’t look down, you don’t slow down, nothing is going to stop you because if you fail today you can get up and try again. When you get the message, “It’s time for you to step aside and let someone else push the stone up the hill,” you’re not invincible any more. If you lack any of those four assets; health, wealth, respect and affection, what's left of joy ebbs away on every breath. 

Old men's laments are as cliche as young lover’s, “I love you.” In either case they move on, like it or not, to the next circumstance. This is not a lament. I just understand that it is my time to remember, to remember the preoccupation and sense of urgency that drives people. It never occurred to me that my grandparents saw themselves in me; it was their time to remember. The illusion that there is plenty of time is ignorance in disguise but it feels natural and normal. When I was 12, I couldn’t imagine being 16. When I was 35, becoming a grandparent never crossed my mind. It never crossed my mind that old lives are as important to the old as young lives are to the young. They had their turn and it's not about them anymore. Like our pets, I remembered when they ran and played, barked at strangers but now all they do is lay on the porch hoping for a benevolent pat on the head. 

The stereotype that 70 is the new 50 takes too much for granted. Many of us do live longer, healthier, better than our predecessors but many do not. Out of sight in senior citizen warehouses or wheelchair bound in a caregiver’s back bedroom, they melt away anonymously. I have lived a charmed life; good fortune is my friend. Every time I fell, it was in a soft place. When doors closed, windows opened. For me to grumble now would be unforgivably narrow and selfish. But my eyes don’t see and my ears don’t hear like they should and when I try to run it comes off as a crude shuffle. I don’t like it but I do understand, it is my time to remember. If I want consolation I can turn to others like myself or to Buddha who said that suffering is life’s common denominator. It implies that if you are passed over in your youth, don’t be surprised when it comes back around. Joseph Campbell, ‘Hero With A Thousand Faces’ said, “We cannot cure the sorrows of the world but we can choose to live in joy.” That’s what I’m trying to do, choose joy over the illusions that cluttered my bumbling, stumbling youth. Khalil Gibran said, “Children live in the world of tomorrow and we can not go there with them. All we can do is peer through their window." So I’ll hang on the sill and watch for as long as there’s light to see by.