Boyle McCauley News

Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

Donate

Ages of Changes

The twilight years are waiting for most of us. This is a frightening thought in this culture that worships youth and vitality. The idea of the changes that the body inevitably goes through can be terrifying. These notions dismiss the concept that aging is a very natural process of life. If you aren’t getting older, then you’re dead. Comparatively, old age isn’t that scary.

I don’t believe that aging is well understood in our society. It’s something most of us fear so we don’t look closely at it. That’s a shame, as the late part of life can hold as many wonders as that of adolescence. The late stage of life is a time of great creative energy that results from the changes the body is undergoing. Unfortunately, this creativity is often brushed off as senility. I don’t consider the random flow of ideas as senility. I have that all day. I simply don’t articulate all of them, much to the great loss of the world.

The faculties do dull through time. However, the loss of power in the external sensors just allows for more concentration internally. Quite frankly, after sixty plus years of listening to other people’s jibber jabber it must come as a relief to tune the noise out and actually have a moment to listen to your own thoughts. The eyesight may weaken but memory and affection fill the gaps. One would hope, anyway. We see the world through our belief systems, so if you’re a bitter, old person the world is likely looking kind of ugly no matter how strong your vision. Through age, perhaps one is able to see more clearly.

I simply can’t believe that all the time in our lives leads solely to decline. I believe that there’s greater meaning in old age than physical dysfunction. My dear mom passed at sixty-five years of age. It seemed to me that she really came into herself in the last few years of her life. She exhibited a carefree and ironic sense of humour and dropped the cares of societal opinion. She didn’t just age: she blossomed. I believe that she truly came to value herself as a person and I would have loved to have been right there by her side cheering her as she slid into her seventies and eighties.

I don’t fear senior citizenship. So many have gone before me and made their way through that it can’t possibly be that bad. I, in fact, look forward to running down some random woman with my walker as I make my grand way to the bus stop – then cackling at her outrage. What will I care at that point? I’d have seen it all by then.

Keri lives and is getting older in Boyle Street.

Subscribe to our newsletter

News from the neighbourhood delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up and stay in touch!