The challenge of aging

Time stops for no one. It keeps ticking away like a perpetual motion machine erasing our youth. Aging is entropy inevitably moving us into a state of disorder.

We wake up one morning and say, “What happened?” Our friends ask us: “Are you living the dream?” Retirement is supposed to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Except it often doesn’t feel like that.

Suddenly, we are contending with hip and knee replacements, angioplasty or by-pass surgery, chemotherapy and cancer surgery, cataract surgery, emergency visits to the hospital, not to mention cognitive and physical decline associated with degenerative illnesses.

And then there are the numerous medications we are required to take to help us cope with these various medical disorders, all of which have side effects. To counter these side effects, we need to take a different set of medications. We live a life of neverending alarms going off telling us which meds we need to take and when.

According to social scientists, however, old age may be a time of integrity, wisdom, fulfilment and satisfaction. The generativity of our adult years is supposed to pay dividends in helping us cope with the challenges associated with getting older.

Aging becomes a condition to be managed rather than fixed. But with this management comes a challenge related to utility versus identity. Yes, a walker will help us, but what does that say about who we are.

It has been suggested, for example, that older people may not like golf as much as they like riding around a golf course in a golf cart. Riding a golf cart on the golf course makes us somehow comparable to young people.

Staying in our own home is much the same. Maintenance and repairs become dangerous and difficult. When you are in your own home, though, you feel young and can retain the memories associated with home ownership.

We often yearn to be young again. At the same time, however, we recognize that we can’t turn back our biological clocks. But if we are fortunate, we can sometimes we get a glimpse of our youthful selves through our children and grandchildren.

Being a grandparent takes us back to a time when we were younger and raising our own children. Grandparenting is different and special. We get the best of parenting without the stresses and time constraints. We can be in the moment and become absorbed in our grandchildren’s world of play, exploration and wonder.

Mentoring and coaching are additional ways which people reconnect with their youth. We should not underestimate the appeal of being young. It is a time when choices and possibilities flow unimpeded by the challenges of aging.

As we age, we miss that. We are left to recognize that life is finite and that death is inevitable. But we want to dance, live and make love right to the precipice of death.

Ultimately aging is a psychological and physiological process, a coming to terms with our changing identity. We aren’t young any more and we aren’t getting younger. We must grieve for our lost youth and cherish whatever vestiges of that youth are left.

But most importantly, we have to embrace and appreciate the life we have. Our lives have been shaped and fine tuned by the cumulative experiences of our existence.

As we age, we typically become more self-reflective. It is through this process of introspection that we can derive the wisdom we need to move forward positively and with determination.

We are now living longer than ever but we won’t live forever. Our youth has disappeared, paved over by the ravages of time. But we are still able to live our life well with purpose and meaning.

Family, friends, community and a philosophy of life exist in a way that can enrich our lives.

We have choices. They are ours to make.

Mac Horsburgh is a septuagenarian who writes from Winnipeg.