Lessons of Aging

For the first time in my life, I feel old. My body sighs with chronic aches, I am blind without my reading glasses, and the last time I shopped, the clerk asked if I was eligible for the senior discount. Ouch!  

My naturopath swears by a yeast-free diet and a topical slave as the anti-aging miracle and next time I see her, I shall order it. Or not. The curiosity-seeker in me is intrigued by this next stage of life and wants the ravages of age to play across the landscape of my face. What time-worn continents will appear? What networks of rivers and hollow places will unfold? How will time sculpt this leathery terrain wrought by sun and wind and 30 years of mountain living?

There is a part of me, too, that’s done with following the “good girl” rules. I want to have my coffee and martinis and be damned with the consequences. Could this way of approaching age be a better tonic? Could our beliefs about what we put in our bodies be the greatest predictor of health and ageless skin? It appears to be so with her.

So much of the first half of my life was spent in angst and efforting. But as I age, and the body falters, I have no choice but to approach the “doing” of my life in an entirely different way. I must be the strategic planner and let the Universe do the heavy lifting.

That is when I see, in a new light, the value of intention-setting, of dream work and meditations, of art-making and journaling, not only to envision my life but also to work through core issues that prevent those dreams from manifesting. The inner creates the outer, many spiritual traditions espouse. And when I couple that hocus-pocus with direct, strategic, and efficient action as directed by my intuition—a place I touch repeatedly when in that hocus-pocus—the dreams take shape on a physical level.

Perhaps this is the greatest lesson of aging: Tired of body and heavy-hearted with past hurts, we have no recourse but to face and banish them, once and for all. And when we do, a bigger magic and deeper mystery steps in and physically creates what we design.

Your Story: How do you feel about your body as it ages? What lessons is it teaching you here and now and how can you act on them?