My Waning “Young-Old” Years
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The holidays are behind us for yet another year. We’ve welcomed in 2026 in a variety of ways, many of us hoping against hope it’s not another dumpster fire. I am not one for resolutions, not at this age anyway. When I was an educator, September heralded a new year, and January seemed anticlimactic. It was men that decided January 1 should mark a brand new year, Julius Caesar and then Pope Gregory XIII affirmed it, after a few corrections. As a woman, I prefer to see my own birthday as the start of a new year. It’s personal.
As I twirl around the sun at what now seems like the speed of light, this year I decided to slow the year down as much as possible as I move out of the final years of my sixties. Each morning in my Morning Pages, I chronicle which day I am on in my birthday year…. 50/365, 100/365, 135/365 — you get the picture. And I try to use those 3 journal pages to take stock. Well, I am over halfway through, and today, the beginning of the conventional new year, seemed like a good day to return to the original piece of writing that reflects on the significance of this birthday year.
I am grateful that I continue to heal from old wounds. I have found compassion for the person I used to be. And most importantly, I choose conscious joy for the person I continue to become every day.
The Summer I Turned 68
Towards the end of a summery August that made up for a brutal July, I turned 68. Since becoming Medicare-eligible at age 65, birthdays have lost some of their zing. This year, it hit hard that I only have two more years left in my sixties. Only two more years to be “young old.” As I age sometimes the numbers sound like they must belong to someone else. But here I am at 68.
Sitting here at my writing desk, I make up an exercise where I go back decades in search of a glimpse of myself to loosen memories, to gain insight. I shut my eyes ready to examine my old wounds. There I am at age 10, living in the Farrar Street house for a year, sitting on my bed, listening to the Beatles tell me that “all you need is love,” looking at my Roberto Clemente poster, and thinking about how I no longer get picked last in baseball— the one perk of being a powerhitting fat girl. Then, I’m in my room again, my teenage bedroom this time, stretched out on my stomach, scribbling line after line of grievances against my mother in my hot pink notebook, stereo blasting in the background. Blink again, and I am a hung over mess, trying to muster the energy to untangle my 25 year old self from crumpled bed sheets and get to work on time at my summer job. Then I exhale as I see myself in my thirties, scars barely visible, sitting at a table in a coffee shop, newly purchased stack of books in front of me along with a steaming cappuccino dusted with cinnamon, shyly smiling at the bearded hipster headed toward me, hoping he’s my blind date.
I cannot close my eyes to examine 40-something me. Too painful. That decade practically gutted me. Huge change in jobs, hysterectomy, divorce, uncertainty, errors in judgment, well, I could go on and on…just lots of loss. I shut my eyes one more time, and I'm in my 50’s. And there, finally, is my husband, the love of my life, along with what felt like plenty of time to begin again.
At 68, time is fading like the summer flowers. But among the spent blooms of summer birthdays past, I fully embrace the potential for new growth. I am barely into this final new beginning of my life, my retirement years…my elder woman years. Beginnings come in with the burst of life, like a speedboat to adventure land. But beginnings also come courtesy of an ending. Just as the beginning markets itself as a brand new start, endings announce that something has come to a close, and then elbow in a reminder that closed doesn’t always mean finished. All of my past lives, my past selves trail along behind me, sometimes moving beside me. Sometimes they whisper “Forget about us, THIS is your time.” Sometimes they plead with me to remember the pain, the doubt, the shame…those things helped me find a new path that led me to the present.
In all those past decades, I believed I had an open pass to get the life that I wanted. I thought I had a lifetime of “it’ll take as long as it takes.” What is it I thought I wanted anyway? Looking back I don’t know if I was ever sure. I think I just wanted to be important to someone, to make a life that meant something, to have security, to be defined on my own terms, to have self-respect, integrity, to matter, to be a genuinely good person. But oh how I struggled, my own worst enemy often bringing a cast of bigger enemies into my life.
Decades later and here I am with only two more years before I begin yet another decade. There are some things I have learned about myself. Like a travel guide, I will bring this knowledge into these last two years of my sixties, to both soak in the pleasures of ordinary and memorable moments and to navigate toward my seventies in the calmest of waters. I need a horizon’s distance from the pain carried by my past selves. It’s a necessary distance, measured not by indictments of my former selves, but by a vindication that I am not permanently inked by my past mistakes. Those bruises and scars heal and will continue to fade. I’m no longer entrenched in the patterns of the past those selves endured, yet I have tremendous empathy for their struggle. It’s time to be kind to who I was before I finally became myself. Aging did that. Aging is not deteriorating my sense of self. It's finally making me whole.
So these last two years of my sixties will be measured by moving from entrenchment to exploration; a desire to explore who I was, who I am , and who I will grow to be – eagerly spelunking into my own depths. And despite my struggle with transitions, I continue to love change. At this time of my life I can mete it out in small doses of novelty – like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. It’s time to stroll rather than sprint and finally move away from my years of manic achievement to the leisurely home stretch of peaceful gratitude. I’m ready to make my choices from a place of curiosity rather than confusion. In this new and final stretch of life, I am ready to move from worry and regret to acceptance and enjoyment. And I will decide what defines me.
What was it again I thought I wanted in all those decades past? The summer I turned 68 I decided to begin again and find out. And whatever it was I was looking for, whatever it was I thought I wanted, I’m pretty sure I have now. And if not, I’ll find what remains of longing right here in this new stretch of my life.
What are you longing for in this new year, in this new stretch of your life? Share in the Comments.
ANNOUNCEMENT: This week I sent the inaugural NEWSLETTER to announce the blog. If you did not receive it, please check your spam folder, and mark the address “not spam.” I have a few kinks to work out!
