Recently, I moved into a wonderful historic building which has been converted into affordable apartments for older people. It has been a pleasure meeting other residents – our ages spanning five decades.
One day I shared the elevator with a petite octogenarian who was holding onto a walker and sporting wispy purple hair, her piercing blue eyes looking back at me. She introduced herself as Grace, but added she wasn’t always called by that name. For most of her life she preferred her middle name because, she explained, her given name felt like a rebuke of how awkward, inadequate and ungraceful she had always felt herself to be. “But since I’ve gotten old, I took the name again”, she continued. “When I look back, I wasn’t all those things I thought I was, just insecure and young.”
The profound authenticity of that encounter with Grace touched me. It led me to reflect on the ways aging can let us see ourselves from a different perspective, with the eyes of compassion.
Now I become myself. Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it.May Sarton
The conventional attitude towards aging is to compare our older selves to our younger selves unfavorably. The message that ‘young is always better’ is reinforced in myriad ways. Seeing older people as other than ourselves is a hallmark of ageism. Is it any wonder that many of us fear and deny our own aging? How often do we hear someone say (or perhaps we’ve said something similar ourselves) “I’m not old, I still feel 25 inside”? Yet do we really wish to stay frozen in time at an age when we are still in the process of becoming?
Certainly we have many fond and meaningful memories of earlier times in life, but there were also doubts, insecurities, necessary life lessons. Our memories are selective, and confirmed by the story we have told ourselves repeatedly about our lives. With awareness, we can expand to include a bigger story, and from that place self compassion grows. If we carry within us all the ages we have ever been, if we are a continuing evolving self, what a rich well we have available to us at this life stage.
In conversations with my neighbors and friends, we often say this is the best time of our lives. Despite, or perhaps because of, the changes we inevitably experience, we feel more true to ourselves. Younger is not more and older is not less – life simply is. And in that realization, as my new friend so beautifully reminded me, lies the grace.
Evalina Everidge is a retired hospice RN, educator and holistic consultant, who now facilitates the IONS Conscious Aging Workshop and explores her gifts as a jazz singer.
Join Evalina and co-facilitator Marc Blesoff for Conscious Aging, our live, online workshop for older people seeking guidance, meaning, and connection. Workshop begins Thursday, May 2nd at 11am PST.
Learn More and Register for the Online Workshop!