Aging like a kid

What I want to tell you about are things I know, but never learned. What I want to tell you is that some things cannot be learned, only experienced. Some things are not supposed to make any sense, or be entirely acceptable but they remain a part of our reality. I want to tell you what I know how mean people can be, and how mean I can be. I want to tell you that sometimes I make no sense, but I know who I am and that’s ultimately all that matters. There was a time when I didn’t know who I was, but thought I did. I could see myself only through the expectations of other people, of systems and institutions. I thought I knew who I was but I only knew who I thought I was supposed to be. In that picture frame I was never centered, never focused, the light always judged me harshly and highlighted my flaws and imperfections. I thought I knew who I was but ultimately gave up on myself because I never fit inside the frame. 

There was a time when I could not bear to see a reflection of myself in a mirror or any reflective surface, and I am not sure that is not now still happening. Now is still a time when I’m not entirely sure I’m good at anything, when I know that I have screwed up so many things, when I still grade myself on each step I take and wonder how I am seen by others. Now is still a time when I want my mommy to be proud of me but hate that I have disappointed her so deeply. I want to say I’m sorry but I don’t really mean that. The feeling is sincere regret that she felt badly, but to accept blame for that I would have to regret that I was ever born…although sometimes I feel that way.

I am the prodigal daughter, but I cannot go home. I just sold the house where everything fell apart – was that really home? What is home? I am not sure I know anymore. Home is supposed to be a base of operations, a familiar place, a place that is yours. I have no such place. I live in an apartment where they pride themselves on calling this home, but it belongs to them. If I bought property, a house of my own, unless I am off the grid entirely I am still answerable to someone for the space – the municipality, the state, the power company. Home usually means where my material possessions are kept. When I die, someone will dispose of it alol and I will be an ever fading mark on the landscape. What is it all for?

Yesterday was my birthday, and many people wished me glad tidings on social media, which I truly appreciated. Some I have never met in person, but in today’s world that really doesn’t matter. Today on social media I saw that one of my high school classmates died. She was not one of my best friends, but she was never particularly mean to me. She was a professional photographer, very talented, very complicated. I remember with fondness that she was bow legged. We are all now of that age where the bright and expectant young faces in our graduation picture begin to disappear one by one. We are of that age where our mortality seems real and is getting very close. We are of that age where we’re called on to cut the nonsense and discern what is truly important.

I never wanted to be old, but then again I never thought I would be here long enough for that to become a reality. In many ways, I still move through the world like a much younger person, shaking my fist at authority and cursing the rules. I still eat cake for breakfast, have no lunch, and order pasta with heavy cream sauce for dinner. Then I have more dessert. Unfortunately, my aging body no longer tolerates a regime that is only manageable with a higher level of activity and joints that work as they did 30 years ago. Living as though I’m 30 when my body is 63 isn’t working. 

When I purged a lot of the junk in my apartment recently, I was struck by how easy it was to part with some of the items that, even 5 years ago, I would have fought to keep. Somethings were momentous of events I couldn’t remember attending, or that had unpleasant memories. Other things, like clothes that I couldn’t wear now if my life depended on it (too small, too dated, tattered) caused me to just shake my head. What in the world could I ever have gotten from kleeping any of that? It was an exercise in letting go, in realizing that I cannot return to that reality, when I weighed much less and had knees that worked.

Something tells me I don’t need to fear my aging body as much as I should fear letting my spirit wither. I thought fighting meant that I cared, but I think all it meant was that I wasn’t in the right place, that I needed to hammer myself into someplace that did not fit me. That did not work, and was very painful. There is still pain, but I’m no longer forcing myself into small places that are wrong for me. I am no longer something to be hammered. It seems I always thought fighting proved that my spirit was alive, but I don’t believe that any longer. I know that my spirit is alive when I am living in a way that affirms it, that says I feed it rather than starving it. Every time I choose to allow others to walk on me, and don’t assuage my own wants and needs, I am starving the spirit within. Let’s not do that any more.

I see the world differently from most people do. I see words and hear music. Sound is healing, vibration, words are highways from head to heart. When I sold the house I grew up in, I had never felt so lost and untethered before. I stood outside my father’s tomb and sobbed out loud, asking him what the FUCK I was supposed to do after this. I got an answer – a breeze blew into the mausoleum, and it said to look for the open door. So I will do that, although I don’t believe I should be in search. I should, however, recognize when a door is closed and not continue to bang my head against it. Have faith that I will happen upon a door that is open, and that’s the one I should choose.

There are so many questions, and so many answers. Some of the answers I cannot comprehend with a human mind, or at least with MY human mind. I don’t know if the answers are important any longer, maybe only the questions are meaningful at this point. Perhaps it is up to me to explore the questions and provide the answers I want to have. I understand that I cannot revise the past, but I can change the energy with which I remember it, accept it for what it is and create new ways to answer. Without the past I would not be here, so it behooves me to make peace with it. If I can reframe my past, maybe I will see myself more inside my own picture frame.

Mortality is a clear and present danger at this point in my life, and I fully admit that I am afraid to die. Afraid that when I do, all of my secrets will be revealed, and I will be summarily dismissed as a fraud. Afraid of what judgement may await – the small Catholic girl inside me lives on! Afraid of the unknown. Even in realtime, there is always the fear that I will be discovered to be not what I present, that I only talk a good game. I suppose when I am dead I won’t care what anybody thinks, but I’m alive currently and my ego is still impaled on that point. I’m trying to live a better life, and if that means I live completely alone for what is left of it then so be it. If that keeps me from causing damage to other people, causing pain, then it’s a small price to pay. Fighting reality isn’t passion, or faith, or even desire. It’s just fighting, and I don’t have that much energy any longer. I’m just looking for the open doors.