The Summer Diaries: August
Unsplash
Some Thoughts on Engaging with Aging, Life Stories, and Longevity
As unsettling as July was, the month of August was just, well, comfortable. Like an old friend who comes for an annual visit, you want to make every day just a little special, a bit more than ordinary without too much show — that’s how it’s been with August and me this summer.
August is also my birthday month. This year, I was keenly aware of the fleeting years I have left as a sexagenarian (that term still makes me laugh). I have been thinking a lot about how I am “engaging with aging.” With my last years of my sixties, I want to focus not so much on “the plot” as I age, but more on what I am carrying through the years as a personal thesis or a central life question. All our lives are a series of stories, and I am trying to understand the themes that hold my stories together. My central question continues to be “How do I build a life worth living?” There have been subtle variations over the decades. In this phase of my life it’s shifted more to “How do I want to live each day?” My narrative arc has been propelled by a cycle of searching and discovery, fueled by the tension of questioning and becoming.
As I continue to fully engage, to go “all in” with the process of aging, that narrative arc feels more complicated, but in an exciting way. It’s as if the foundations I believed I’d built were for an entirely different set of life stories. As I prepared to retire, in earnest, and through these first retirement years, it’s become clear to me that a new foundation is under construction. Perhaps the rising and falling action will all come in my seventies, or maybe even my eighties. The climax, is obvious, isn’t it?
All my life stories are important. But sometimes I think my past stories are actually shielding me from being as engaged as I would like to be with the present. I used to be this or that kind of person. I used to do things this way or that. I used to love to…. In the present, I want to be focused on what I truly love about life, the things that make “a life” …and yes, that has changed. I have changed. And I don’t want my past stories to keep me from facing an uncertain future — rolling up my sleeves and really living the fears, the joys, the disappointments, the celebrations, and most importantly, the tomorrows (as limited as they might turn out to be, who knows?).
Engaging with my own aging means confronting that I might outlive my current good health. So as August takes me into these last years of my sixties for a little while longer, while I still feel “young old,” I am thinking of things I would like to do more of. Things that will make me stronger, happier, and healthier. Just thinking, making some loose plans. I know I need to step up my workouts while I can, take my supplements more regularly, and be more consistent about healthy eating. Perhaps I’d like to do more volunteering, more board service, expand my participation in online creative communities, be a better friend, and just enjoy my cozy, small world with my husband, a cat and a dog, more intentionally, more consciously. More consciously…. I heard someone on YouTube, a very young influencer, ask herself what her future self, maybe even her 80 year old self, would wish she would do right now, while she was still young and strong. That really hit home as I was thinking about spending the final few years of my sixties decade in active gratitude for my own “elder-youth.” So I have been walking more, moving more, getting out and going places more, relishing that I have errands to run, and chores I can still do, living in my own home.
I’m getting ready for another round of writing life stories with my Women Rowing North Alumni Writing Group. So I guess the end of August has had me reflecting on these kinds of things more — how I am engaging with aging and possibly my next life stories. I heard a radio program on NPR or CBC, I can’t remember, but the guest was urging his audience to think more about longevity than aging. One seems very active (longevity), making choices that will expand your lifetime, while the other, (aging) seems really passive - getting old. I couldn’t listen to the whole show, but it definitely got me thinking about another perspective. Does engaging with aging include shifting to a focus on longevity? Eschewing the societal trappings of “aging” might actually help me focus on actually living, and maybe even living longer. I am going to do some research on this.
Well, that’s what August has left me reflecting on. August is the righthand margin of summer, drawn too thinly with a ruler that relentlessly measures time in The Precious Days. I, too, am in the right hand margin, not of a month, but of a lifetime — and I intend to make that side of the ledger as big and expansive and fulfilling as possible.
POST SCRIPT
Now, as we ease into September, the flowers are fading, the morning and evening light have changed, and both times of day are noticeably cooler. Summer went too fast. When hasn’t it? But the months ahead are some of my absolute favorites. Let the “ber-ing” begin!
What I am looking forward to in September…
Finally making it to the last month of a local Farmer’s Market
Walking out in nature on the nature trail with a friend
Frequenting coffee shops with a book, my writing, and a friend or two
Reading at a lake on a sunny, crisp afternoon
Lunches or dinners out in the Islands
One more evening bluegrass concert
Returning to more regular writing
Infusing some new creativity into my Morning Pages with Suleka Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy — A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life.
