From Start to Finish
I think of every part of life as a developmental stage. We learn to walk and talk. We develop attachments and a conscience. We are attracted to others, try new things, do work that we love and hope to be recognized. It all goes according to some unspoken schedule and with every stage we can say ‘I’ve never been here before.’
When I was a teenager, I yearned, for a boy, to be loved, for something special to happen. I sought out the saddest songs of the day to play over and over on my record player. The best ones were the ones that could make cry. I never thought of my yearning as a bad thing. It was time I took to myself, a route to the deepest part of myself, a sweetly sad paradox that I knew was part of my humanity and my soul.
Now, as an older person, I feel the same way about grief. I find myself gently grieving from so much leaving, my childhood, my hometown, my youthful beauty, my mothering, my loved ones who have died and the realization that I too will leave this world. It’s a sweetly dark grieving that is rich with meaning because it comes with honoring.
Eldering is a lot like adolescence. We’re sensitive and awkward. Our bodies are changing. We question who we are and sleep more. And crying is not something to dread. We cry when we are moved, whether by some joy or some sadness. Good love-making can sometimes make us cry, or cause us to make frowning faces, as if we are in pain when we’re not. It’s about the depth, being touched, a breaking down of defenses.
I don’t buy the reports that being older is the best time of life. It’s bittersweet, which can be an acquired taste. Things are given and things are taken away. But it’s a time of harvest, and the work up to this point pays off when the fruit is ripe for picking.
I think the best work an older person can do is inner work, to review, to grieve and to honor. We put to rest parts of our life. We see the puzzle that has taken form. We can add some pieces, but we can’t take others away. It’s an emotional journey, in preparation for leaving this world, which starts long before we actually die, like when my teenage sons left home incrementally before they physically left.
I have immersed myself in exploring these life changes, just as I immersed myself in the shattering grief I experienced when two of my brothers died a month apart in 2001, as a way to get through it. I approach getting older with a curiosity and as a practice of being where one is. I don’t struggle to be better or more. I’m not a leader or a follower. I value direct experience and questioning what I thought I knew. Slowly, I allow myself be touched and changed. To accept. I wait for the smallest sparks of interest and follow them. Sometimes it’s that simple.
Note: I’ve recently completed a manuscript of poetry, a spark of interest that I followed. It’s titled Objects are Closer Than They Appear and it’s sort of a sequel to my first book of poetry, Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, published in 2018 by Finishing Line Press. Both are a distillation through poetic memoir, an inner life adventure that delves into some of the above thoughts. -More on Objects are Closer Than They Appear coming soon… / Poets and Storytellers United
July 14th, 2020 4:27 pm
Colleen, I’m going through what you’ve written so precisely, which I didn’t know I was until I read what you wrote. Ha! I’m glad I came by today. Your insight gives me more courage to get through this difficult, but brief, project I’m working on. Thanks.
July 14th, 2020 4:32 pm
Thank you, Susieee! We’re in good company.
July 16th, 2020 10:26 am
Beautiful! beautiful! i needed this.
July 17th, 2020 2:52 pm
I feel this deeply Colleen! Thank you for sharing these bittersweet thoughts.
Love,
Susan(from TX)
July 19th, 2020 1:01 am
It’s bittersweet, which can be an acquired taste – beautifully written. Good luck with your new book!
July 19th, 2020 3:54 am
So much wisdom and inner work in these words. I am yet to reach that sort of being or understand how to not run and follow the little sparks. Thank you for this
July 19th, 2020 5:00 am
I love this philosophising piece. Yes I think to that we go through different stages of learning. I even believe that the main reason we are here is to learn, mainly to love. I didn’t know you are in the autumn of live as I thought because of the photo that you were very young. I don’t mind getting older as long as you can keep a reasonably healthy.
Anyway congratulations with the completion of your manuscript
July 19th, 2020 5:00 am
What an excellent way to think of life, every part of it as a developmental stage, it means everything is fresh, and it never really comes to an end. I like the way you link teenage angst to ‘sweetly dark grieving that is rich with meaning’, and what you write about crying and life changes. Congratulations on completing your manuscript, Colleen!
July 19th, 2020 5:02 am
Colleen, this is beautiful in its raw honesty.Life and getting older should come with a manual. We learn on our own to swim and not drown through grief and troubles. And yet, there is awe all around us. Thank you for sharing this.
July 19th, 2020 5:18 am
This is incredibly deep and moving, Colleen ? Congratulations on completing your manuscript, I wish you the best!
July 19th, 2020 8:58 am
So beautifully written and so deeply honest! I agree that it ix time for our inner work when we get elderly – which can be a pleasure when it comes to the more beautiful recollections. I love that you immerse yourself in the emotional experiences; it is what I choose to do too. Likewise for the practice of being where one is. It is as if you have written it on my behalf – yet with so much more eloquence and awareness than I might have done. I suspect others reading this would feel you had expressed them to themselves, too.
Will look out for more details of the new book.
July 19th, 2020 9:35 am
i think this post is important to some of us. your discussions on grief and on the elderly age are essential. great post.
July 19th, 2020 11:22 am
Following sparks is not a bad way to journey, you know? (Of course you do!)
July 21st, 2020 11:44 am
Loved the way this made me slow down and think. I’ve imbibed way too much gamification lately (hit this level! do this thing! oh, you missed! loser!) and the knowledge that there are other ways to experience life (you mention as a practice, above) shakes me out of what can be a destructive mindset (and just out of my head, in general). 🙂
July 21st, 2020 1:31 pm
I am also going what you so beautifully expressed. With aging I feel I no longer have to hold onto explaining myself, spending energy on what others might think. I have often talked to my daughters that grief comes in many stages, and many differing patterns, yet it is all grief. Thank you for writing this.