On Aging

I think a bit about aging these days and the things I dreamt of doing someday.  The amount of time I had to experience these dreams stretched out in front of me, the end date not on the horizon.

At 44, the end date is in sight. I'm realizing that many of these dreams will likely not be realized and accepting that this is okay.  What I have and what I will experience is enough. My life has been meaningful just as it is.

I had a visit from my childhood best friend last week, her husband, and her 17 year old son. We sat outside a burger joint, a perfect Seattle summer evening. It was warm enough for shorts, not so hot that it made you sweat and the daylight lasted till 9 p.m..

Like a scene from The Big Chill, we sat reminiscing, sharing stories and laughing like we did as kids, unrestrained and worry free. Her son politely tolerated what I can imagine was boring old people talk. He sat mostly silently looking around at the passerbyes. Eventually he excused himself to browse a record store. In him I felt my own eagerness at his age to break free, to make my mark, to live my own life. I felt the excitement and wonder of what may lie ahead for him, so many possibilities still available.

I wonder, how did it happen this change from youth to middle age? I look at my friend sitting across the table from me. Her hair is now long and silver but I still see her as I did when we were ten. I watch us as her husband tells a story. I see that we are the older people of my youth , having grown up conversations. I am awed and proud of who we have become. We are full people, richened by our life experiences. We are clay which has been molded, painted and put in the kiln. We are pieces of art, valuable, each with its own story worthy of appreciation.

At 17, her son is still softly formed clay. I wonder what he will become, what detailing life will etch into him, and what he will display after being put through the fire. I am content, then, to be where I am in life. I am enjoying my life just as it is and I'm ready to be enjoyed and valued just as I am.

On Satisfaction

I learned a new youngster term this week,  YOLO. My 14 year old son, Ben, kept saying,  "YOLO, Mom.  YOLO!" Then he'd take a running start and go  sliding on one of the mounds of icy snow in our path. 

Ben and I went on a camping trip in Washington's Central Cascades this past week.  The fourth of July crowds were bumper to bumper on Sunday afternoon heading West back into the Seattle area on a meandering two lane highway.  We however,  were heading east,  away from town and away from crowds. It never crossed our minds that soon we'd be standing on snow in our shorts.

As many of you may know,  I'm not big on thrill seeking.  I was the one child at slumber parties who wanted to actually sleep.  I didn't ride a coaster until I was an adult and I don't go down escalators without one hand free to hold onto the rail.  No amount of coaxing with, "You only live once,  Mom!" was going to get me to go sliding out of control down a mound of melting ice even if we weren't three miles from our car on a mountain ridge.  Ben, however, found making fun of my aged sensibilities thoroughly satisfying.

On our descent we came across the last of the snow mounds, not far from the trail head.  Like he'd done so many times before,  he took a running start.  Perhaps the terrain had a greater slope or perhaps the invincibility of the age got the better of him, but this time Ben lost his balance. His arms went windmill style.  A flexed foot lifted off the ground in front of him, his torso leaned sideways and to the rear. Somehow he managed to remain right footed, if not humbled.  I said. "YOLO, Ben. Is this how you want to die? YOLO!"

I guess you could say that the hike was mutually satisfying.

On hubris

It strikes me how nice the younger generation of doctors are that I come into contact with at work. They treat me with respect, as a peer.  That has not historically been the norm in the doctor nurse relationship. Of course still there are outliers, many of which you'll find in cardiology.

This brings to mind an image of an open chest cavity, lights shining down upon it and a gloved hand reaching under the beating heart. I can see how that could lead to hubris. Then again when I imagine that the gloved hand is mine, a sense of my own insignificance, of humility surrounds me.  What an honor to be in that position, to be entrusted with someone's life, to be holding God's handiwork, a miracle of nature, this thing we call the heart.

I guess it makes sense. It makes sense that some people, when faced with their own insignificance, respond with hubris.

On now

Liquid runs warm inside my abdomen, a tingle in my right toes. A bare perceptible pulsating in my left lower back reminds me to sit up straight, but still I do not.  The quiet in this darkened break room makes me linger.

I'm knitting a sleeve for a sweater, the first of my own design.  It waits in a plastic bag, on the shelf to my right. I do not look in it's direction. There is no time to take it out to play right now, not right now.

On Parenting

"As a parent it is our job to protect our children."  We've all heard this before, haven't we? But do we agree?  For many of us this was the parenting style we go up with, but does that make it a universal truth?  I think it is a well-meaning, but misguided belief. I believe that when we tell ourselves that our actions are for the protection of our children or for the protection of anyone else, we are fooling ourselves. The person we are protecting is ourself.

There is a line from a song which says, "your strength makes me feel less strong". Indeed. My role as a parent is not to protect my children, it is to prepare them to protect themselves, to handle their own lives, to equip them with the tools to make self respecting choices when faced with life's stressful moments and disappointments.

How do we do this? I suggest we look to the practice of medicine for ideas. We have discovered that protection from certain illnesses comes from exposure.  We need only reflect on polio or pertussis to name only a few of the many examples to know this is true. To provide protection, we must be exposed to that which we want protection from. We protect by not protecting.

A primary role of my parenting then, is to inoculate my children to difficulty by allowing for their exposure to the setbacks, disappointments and grief which occur naturally as a consequence of their own choices and actions. I must not hinder their experience of hardship, in situation or in emotion. Instead of meeting these experiences with grimacing, I can choose to greet them with grateful anticipation for the learning and growth they may bestow.

On shortcomings

It's a funny thing how the compulsion to argue with someone who is hurling insults at you is transformed once you have become aware and accepting of your shortcomings.  Then it is like they are telling you that the sky is blue, but angrily.  It's kinda comical.  Only, I recommend you don't laugh at someone who its angrily criticizing you.  Yeah, that doesn't go over too well.

On Love

I used to think I'd never loved or been loved.  Now I see things differently.  I see that there is love and loving action.  For instance, there is no question.  I love my children, but I do not always take loving action.  Part of this is because I had not known what loving action was.  I'd simply behaved as was modeled for me in the home of my childhood.  However, as is typical in an alcoholic home, the behaviors I learned to associate with love were just the opposite and what I learned to associate with helping was actually harming.  No wonder I have been confused.

When my thinking began to untwist, my perception of love became more confused.  I could identify loving action, but as I reflected on the people in my life who had said that they had loved me, few loving actions were displayed by them or me.  I concluded that none of us had known love.

Today I see that both are true.  I see love as a paradox.  I can love someone and simultaneously act unloving towards them.  The unloving action stems from childhood learning, the behaviors modeled and the defense mechanisms I'd learned to employ for self-protection.  Perhaps the key to finding a satisfactory love relationship is in finding a partner with the insight to recognize and the humility to admit to their unloving actions when they arise, as they will.

Since coming to view love in this manner, I feel some relief - relief of sadness, relief from resentment and the removal of obstacles to accepting others, others I had hardened myself to.  I can trust that their love is or was true, even if our unloving actions made a close relationship untenable.  I can simultaneously love them and accept the depth or shallowness our unloving actions allow.  I have come to see the act of loving as the act of accepting another exactly as they are right now while maintaining the boundary appropriate for self-respect.