I am 69 and definitely don’t consider that I’m still in the middle of my life. I am active and have survived two bouts of cancer....perhaps that makes me think about the middle and the end differently....I think of myself as joyously old and very happy to be here
Well, I am in my third year of being 60. It’s ok. I preferred being 49, but here we are. My friend put it this way; we are in our go-go years: everything works, we aren’t sick and we can still do things. Our kids are grown and we have a home and some extra cash. We need to take advantage of that. Next comes the slow-go years and the no-go years, but, if we are lucky, we can stay go-go for a very long time. I’m working on that.
Every day when I wake up with all my senses intact, my ability to move easily and freely solid for my age and I am able to be completely functional without pain, it’s a great day. When I’m drinking my morning coffee and reading and looking out at my garden, I realize how blessed I am. This is really the good stuff. Our daughter just graduated from college, my niece just had a baby. Watching new life and the blooming of young adulthood is so fabulous.
Life does go on. I know that this is true even in the middle of my feelings about my age and what's next. I like how you've looked at it, Janice. Here's to the miracle!
Great to discover both of your pieces. I am loving reading the wisdom and life experiences of women just a few steps ahead of me down the track. Thanks for helping make these experiences visible in such a beautiful, relatable and nuanced way ❤
“I must trust she will not fail me as I move on to whatever is next.” She will not. She will not. The honesty in this piece Betsy is really moving. We hope that by a certain age, we will move past things, and yet we struggle in some of the same ways, fight the same demons...but still we learn, grow and trust we will not fail ourselves.
This conversation overlapped with my Hatch writing workshop this week where I was reminded of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
“But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now. Nor any more youth or age than there is now. And will never be any more perfection than there is now.
Wonderful, Mary. Add to this the quote my husband found this morning while drinking his coffee. "The fact is, it seems, that the most you can hope for is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and in the middle." - Samuel Beckett.
That unexpected, hectic chapter in which life is turned upside down is physically and psychologically demanding, but there is still joy, it doesn't need to be terrifying.
Thank you, Paul -- are you talking about midlife, late life, or the whole messy book of life? In any case, I will remember this the next time I feel the grip of terror beginning to pinch.
Elizabeth thank you too. At 69 I'm still just within the boundaries of midlife. I think that is a stage at which we have reserves of resilience on which we draw. I care for my wife 67 with MS and my mother, who at 99 is emphatically late life, with declining mental faculties, but still jokes about wanting to seduce the postman.😅
Huh. Thanks for this. I've been suppressing my anxiety about turning 40 in a few months, and I appreciate the candor of someone who's come out the other side of middle age.
The concept of the last third began bearing down on me as I approached and turned 60 last year. My mom passing from complications of a TBI and Alzheimer's last Christmas Eve did not help. My dad is living with us this summer. He is quite the study in short term memory loss. He deals with it by shifting from a laser focus on present moment to moment- which looks exhausting. But he appears to just roll with the state of his brain as the most positive person I know! I'm just trying to offset the terror of looking ahead 30 years.
I understand. When my dad slid deeper into dementia, I swung between being terrified about what the meant for my last thirty years and taking joy in the odd, wonderful moments of communication we still had. It opened the door to lots of thinking about what I could control, what I couldn't, and what I wanted when and if that condition came for me. That period and his death of Covid a year after bringing him to the memory care unit of an assisted living facility, is still reverberating for me. Thank you for sharing what I think are common and very difficult "rites of passage" if that's what these are.
Seems something is up when you try to edit and save in comments. When I saved my comment it disappeared. To get it back I had to cancel. Then my unedited comment re-appeared. My work around was to copy and paste, edit it in word, then delete my comment and repost...
I am 69 and definitely don’t consider that I’m still in the middle of my life. I am active and have survived two bouts of cancer....perhaps that makes me think about the middle and the end differently....I think of myself as joyously old and very happy to be here
I love this Susan, "joyously old" - perhaps we just need to reclaim the word "old." ❤️
Well, I am in my third year of being 60. It’s ok. I preferred being 49, but here we are. My friend put it this way; we are in our go-go years: everything works, we aren’t sick and we can still do things. Our kids are grown and we have a home and some extra cash. We need to take advantage of that. Next comes the slow-go years and the no-go years, but, if we are lucky, we can stay go-go for a very long time. I’m working on that.
Every day when I wake up with all my senses intact, my ability to move easily and freely solid for my age and I am able to be completely functional without pain, it’s a great day. When I’m drinking my morning coffee and reading and looking out at my garden, I realize how blessed I am. This is really the good stuff. Our daughter just graduated from college, my niece just had a baby. Watching new life and the blooming of young adulthood is so fabulous.
Life goes on and it’s such a miracle.
Life does go on. I know that this is true even in the middle of my feelings about my age and what's next. I like how you've looked at it, Janice. Here's to the miracle!
Love go-go, slow-go, and no-go! Hoping to go-go as long as I can (though on some days I get a whiff of slow-go).
Great to discover both of your pieces. I am loving reading the wisdom and life experiences of women just a few steps ahead of me down the track. Thanks for helping make these experiences visible in such a beautiful, relatable and nuanced way ❤
“I must trust she will not fail me as I move on to whatever is next.” She will not. She will not. The honesty in this piece Betsy is really moving. We hope that by a certain age, we will move past things, and yet we struggle in some of the same ways, fight the same demons...but still we learn, grow and trust we will not fail ourselves.
This conversation overlapped with my Hatch writing workshop this week where I was reminded of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
“But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now. Nor any more youth or age than there is now. And will never be any more perfection than there is now.
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now...”
Wonderful, Mary. Add to this the quote my husband found this morning while drinking his coffee. "The fact is, it seems, that the most you can hope for is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and in the middle." - Samuel Beckett.
Love this, Mary - thanks for sharing! ❤️
Is it just me or is there a book in gestation? Hope so x
That unexpected, hectic chapter in which life is turned upside down is physically and psychologically demanding, but there is still joy, it doesn't need to be terrifying.
Thank you, Paul -- are you talking about midlife, late life, or the whole messy book of life? In any case, I will remember this the next time I feel the grip of terror beginning to pinch.
Elizabeth thank you too. At 69 I'm still just within the boundaries of midlife. I think that is a stage at which we have reserves of resilience on which we draw. I care for my wife 67 with MS and my mother, who at 99 is emphatically late life, with declining mental faculties, but still jokes about wanting to seduce the postman.😅
Huh. Thanks for this. I've been suppressing my anxiety about turning 40 in a few months, and I appreciate the candor of someone who's come out the other side of middle age.
The concept of the last third began bearing down on me as I approached and turned 60 last year. My mom passing from complications of a TBI and Alzheimer's last Christmas Eve did not help. My dad is living with us this summer. He is quite the study in short term memory loss. He deals with it by shifting from a laser focus on present moment to moment- which looks exhausting. But he appears to just roll with the state of his brain as the most positive person I know! I'm just trying to offset the terror of looking ahead 30 years.
I understand. When my dad slid deeper into dementia, I swung between being terrified about what the meant for my last thirty years and taking joy in the odd, wonderful moments of communication we still had. It opened the door to lots of thinking about what I could control, what I couldn't, and what I wanted when and if that condition came for me. That period and his death of Covid a year after bringing him to the memory care unit of an assisted living facility, is still reverberating for me. Thank you for sharing what I think are common and very difficult "rites of passage" if that's what these are.
sorry for your loss and good point on rite of passage! thank you.
Seems something is up when you try to edit and save in comments. When I saved my comment it disappeared. To get it back I had to cancel. Then my unedited comment re-appeared. My work around was to copy and paste, edit it in word, then delete my comment and repost...
The same thing just happened to me. I think Substack is having some issues. LMK if you see this or my previous reply?
Yes, see it!