I felt it happen gradually over the last few weeks. A change in momentum, a pause at a precipice. I noticed during the fading of summer into autumn, I slipped past the adolescence of my senescence and began to enter a home stretch, a third act.
This merits a halt to contemplate, to mark the passage of time that now measures in losses rather than gains, to evaluate this rite of passage and what it signifies. I want the secrets, to crib the answers to the quiz, a personal counsel. When I was ten, I was dying to learn the birds and the bees of boys and baby-making. At seventy I want to learn how to age gratefully, how to die gracefully.
I break open my brand-new journal to set goals. I pledge to observe my elders—my involuntary mentors in this unpredictable improvisation called aging—comparing, evaluating, observing, inquiring without asking them aloud: When should I give myself a break from grit? How do I learn the lesson of lessening, unclench my grip on relevance without regret, forget my fear of being forgotten? Do I retire from a fading acting career or let it fade out from under me? Should I still go on location, do age-appropriate stunts? Is my ambition outrunning my body, my possibilities? Am I on the incline, or peaking, teetering, tipping toward decline? Could becoming a writer make for a smoother fade-out? Do I have the energy to invent one more iteration? Who can I trust to tell me my cut-off date? Should I be blunt and tell myself?
I have a comforting lunch with my friend Diane. She is in a different generation of concerns. She’s in her nineties, a lifelong actress who knows she could go at any time.
“I wonder where I’ll be,” she muses, still wearing her same old smile lip-sticked beyond her lip-line whenever we meet. “I plan on it being a surprise.”
Eating off the pink with her daily cheeseburger and white wine, she confesses that she’s a festival of cholesterol, but sees no point in changing her diet now.
“Preventive medicine? Hah!”
I love her spunk, her lust for life, her defiance of the odds. We reminisce about friends who’ve passed, then shake off the sad with remedial gossip, giggling about the living friends. If you’re still alive, it’s no holds barred, she says.
She’ll email me the link to her one-woman show on YouTube, her most recent bid for immortality. “An artist never takes off the training wheels,” she lectures. “An artist never retires.”
I’ll write that down. I thereby appoint her my role model for maturity, and she demurs, insisting that she aims to be immature till she drops. Her humors life-affirming, I let her lip print linger pink on my cheek all day—a reminder of her affection for me, an emblem of her aim to leave her mark on every moment she lives. I will follow her lead and stay upbeat while it all goes down.
The next day I coast toward a hospital’s discharge door, awaiting the wheelchair containing another older friend, Sarah, weakened from tests, currently in position three for take-off. At this distance, in this line-up of new mothers and the sports injured, Sarah looks otherworldly, like she’s already half left her life. As it’s my turn at the handicapped ramp, I rush out of my car and throw open the passenger door, efficiency camouflaging my concern. I downshift to slow-motion to help the male nurse transfer her tenderness into my car, belt her in to drive her safely home. Although her little body is at low ebb, her mind is ever sharp.
“They told me I need an operation but that I wouldn’t live through it.” She intends to insist on the procedure, commit suicide-by-surgery, to control her end point.
“Look at me,” she says. “How could anybody turn me down?”
We drive in noisy silence—her at an awkward in-between stage and me in pre-bereavement grief.
There’s lots to journal about that night. My worries for Sarah, my selfish worries for myself. With calm, I itemize the early warning signs of my waning. I’m sleeping more guiltfree, reading, feeding my head for no purpose other than my own pleasure, relaxing without fear I’m missing anything, without fear of being left behind. Exhaustion obliterates my workaholism. Exhaustion may be how ending begins, naturally prioritizing what’s urgent over what’s expendable.
Puberty was so predictable by comparison—tomboy nipples budding into breasts, rusty bleeding, getting hot for goofy boys’ bodies, seeing silly ones now sexy. Puberty was minor, five years at most in length, in turmoil, compared to this prolonged period that constitutes getting older in this century with all its alternatives, its medical miracles, its shocks when friends of any age leave too soon. For aging there’ll be countless maps and menus to choose from, but schedules over which we have no control. I admire Sarah’s courage in demanding her right to die with dignity. Will I have the guts?
My home mirror in which I measure myself the next morning has been kind. I write that down. Today I’m sure I look cute and stain my lips a little extra. I take my car in for service, power down the window to smile at the middle-aged manager, milking my charm for a faster turnaround. He gives me a broad smile.
“Well, what can I do for you today, young lady?”
Ow! Kiss of death, overcompensating for the fact that he sees me as old with this curse of a compliment. His veiled judgment of my effort makes me feel foolish.
And then my facial bewilderment kicks in. It’s oxymoronic to feel so young while looking so old. That’s the price one pays for watching reruns showing a me frozen in an idealized time of youth, while the flesh me, the real me, ages in real time. The contrast jars. Oh, I know full well I must let go of vanity for my sanity’s sake, stop looking outside myself for validation as the limelight dims, as the lenses look away. I write that down.
Two weeks later, I sit by my ninety-eight-year-old mother’s side watching the classic movies she’s always loved as she softly snores. She’s lost interest in the actors, the outfits, her life and mine. Recently her bladder’s gone bad, and, knowing I might inherit it, I kegel constantly in her company. Aides bring her meals. and come in the night to change her like a baby from wets to dries, but she has outlived her anxiety about such small things—this bodes well for me outgrowing mine, unless heredity from my late father’s side trumps my will to live well. She eats minimal amounts now. She has too few teeth to enjoy our shared supper. Every visit is possibly our last, but shorn of sentiment, she is unable to raise her arms to my hungry hug.
“It won’t be long now.”
She’s been saying that for several years, but who knows—this time it might be true. I breathe deep to detach as I go out her door shoving down love with the lump in my throat as I fly from her, ashamed of my apprehension at my own deterioration.
I settle myself into middle seat 24-B, like it’s some form of lap, while strangers’ elbows and a seatbelt hold me tight. Passive, mothered by a good woman’s e-book and my own journal, I jet three thousand miles in six hours. Wasn’t it my mother who said, “the faster you move, the longer you’ll live,” decades ago when we used to move together, in walks, dances, in yoga? Does flying fast while inert count? I’ve had this one mother all my life. Where will I find a surrogate to look at my photos, listen to my stories, criticize my hair style, remind me of my age at the most awkward moments? Social media can’t replace a parent. As the main support beams of my scaffolding sag, I must find new ways to hold myself up. Daily journaling to expose myself to myself will help.
I’m in good company visiting a long-time friend my exact age. We laugh a lot. We lounge in the shade of her trees watching a butterfly show off in a sunbeam. It doesn’t need us to tell it how beautiful it is. We commiserate about our latest little ailments and medications, her left knee, my right shoulder, but her twelve-year-old retriever puts us to shame. He recently had a leg amputated, and as he digs joyfully three-legged to find bones he buried in my friend’s yard when they both were pups, we cheer. How we wish we knew less about loss, like he does. In wonderment at how unaware nature is of time barreling on and on, we decide to stop sharing beauty trick articles. We seem to forget a lot of what we read now anyway. We vow to be more like her dog, digging with less care about finding. We pledge to learn less about aging as we age.
Deep in thought, I leave the Chinese Acupuncture office after routine maintenance, and make a stop at the restroom before hitting the road. I head into my safe place, the second stall. I always assume that the first is overused, but wait, maybe all women think that and overuse this same second stall. Too late. I’ve settled in. Another woman strolls into the first stall, and I spy white medical shoes with familiar white slacks dropping to the floor.
It’s my acupuncturist. My sphincter gets shy and clenches. There’s a turgid pause. This is silly. We both know why we’re here. I plug my ears with my fingers to squelch my self-consciousness at hearing how my pee might sound to her or hers might sound to me. And once I finally let go, I speed pee to make up for lost time. But through finger-plugged ears, I think I hear my neighbor hiss at me.
“Stop!”
Stunned, I stop midstream and listen. Is she talking to me?
“Slow! Don’t be Type A! Don’t push like a man hose. Be a woman, gentle.” She hisses again. “Slow. You just had tummy treatment on the table. So, now relax and just let go. No pressure. It’s like meditation. Concentrate and you let it fall out when it wants to, like this —Aahhhh.”
Didactically she demonstrates, stops, and restarts with impressive control. She does this twice.
“See? Good for the lady muscles to stop then go, then stop. Then they live a long time.”
After what we’ve both heard behind closed doors, I’m embarrassed to face her in the mirrors at the sinks.
“I know you’re right, Dr. Ho,” I say to deflect, and she smiles benevolently, pats my shoulder, and goes. I mist up in the mirror, a sucker for even her stern style of kindness today.
And as I leave the building, I look up to the sky and say, “thank you” —a completely preposterous move as I don’t believe in any heavens or in any gods up in any skies. I realize I am thanking the expanse of upwards for all the insights on aging I trust I’ll get by osmosis, thanking upwards for how life will equip me with my unique instructions for letting go of it as I go.
