Opinion: The superpower of the elderly: helplessness

Yesterday I woke up without much happening, other than a cold and cough that had lasted two weeks, and of course, the whole world falling apart like a $2 watch. And there was beauty everywhere, with clouds coming down from the ridges and folding into the hills like puffs of light gray smoke swooping down. When I went to wash my face with my glasses on, it felt like I was at a car wash. For a moment, I thought it was a retinal detachment. I have had floaters for 2 years with him and his eye doctor told me to watch for changes in his vision. I sorted things out and took my morning medication, but after 5 minutes I wasn’t sure if I had actually taken it or if I was just going to take it.

I caught all the scary news and then sat on the floor and played with the cat as a counterpoint. Quiet joy and peace. And ring ring ring.

An old friend from childhood called me to say he was hurt by something I had done. He claimed that I had dissed him to an anonymous friend. I told him that this hurt him, that it was a stupid misunderstanding, and how much I loved him, and asked if we could talk it out together, but he said, “No, I’m not ready yet.” I haven’t been able to do it.”

I was surprised. I sat there for a while, trying to figure out how to win him back and get him to forgive me, but I needed a hand or some kind of furniture to get me up from sitting on the floor. Because I couldn’t find it either. I started a low-poly movement that I developed myself. I tried to roll onto my side and push myself up off the ground, but instead I just lay there. The sad old man misunderstood me.

My reflex was to mount a defense. My Jesuit friend Tom Weston once said he never realized he was angry, he just admitted he was right and I was both to his husband. Ta. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said: Then I looked at my role in it and, yes, I understood why his friend felt that way, and I felt a flicker of shame. But I wasn’t wronging him.

At first, a loved one’s anger toward me feels life-threatening. I waited for him to call and make things right, but he didn’t. After a while, I stood up as awkwardly as a ton of bricks, went to the kitchen, and was eating about my body weight in cheese when suddenly something fell on me.

I finally realized that this problem would resolve itself after some time. I almost hit my forehead. Good! I had no idea that. It was supposed to work. I actually smiled. This is one of his superpowers that comes with getting older. Even if you don’t nervously enter the controls, you know that things will probably work out. It may not turn out the way you want it to, and I hate that, but the swirling swamp of misunderstandings and hurt will eventually subside.

As we grow older, we realize how powerless we are. They are not powerless, but they have little control over the outcome of their lives. I don’t like this. You come to a fork in the road and think, “I can’t stand this, I can’t do this, I can’t solve this.” I see no reason to have hope. Furthermore, what happens if Iran gets involved, there is a nuclear exchange, and this is over?

But if you are an older person, you probably remember countless fall-outs and tragic situations with loved ones in which peace was restored. I believe in the resilience of relationships, even if at first I struggle not to break down every time I let someone down.

This is the main advice I give to young people who are worried and stuck. I say, “Yes, that sounds really bad. Do one good thing, then another good thing, and breathe. You’ll be fine.” I’m John Lennon tell them the words. “Everything will work out in the end. If it’s not OK, that’s not the end of the world.”

So I went about my day believing again that, as my husband said, life was tilting in the right direction.

As the rain clouds gathered and the stage left and the wind started to blow, I put on a thick turtleneck sweater and forgot to take off my glasses, which got caught in the fabric and got trapped and stung my eyes. (Come to think of it, I’m fine, maybe the glasses are the problem.)

I have a number of close friends in their 80s who I meet regularly, and some of them are quite frail. On my bad days, I angrily say that getting older sucks. This is part of the package. we are united. Ram Dass said that eventually we all just walk each other home.

The downpour began, and the branches of the great trees bowed and bowed, and the branches of the delicate trees gently moved their arms, Paul de Bras.

I waited a little longer for the friend who called me to either call or text me back. I was getting more and more nervous. Tapping into the big things in life can be too much, so I looked around my little compound where my heart and soul live, and set up a cup of tea and clean sheets for my bed. After decades of bashing, bumping, moaning and moaning, a person becomes too tired to continue this. I was tired.

And it was good.

I released my friend to his own process. When you are young, energetic, and convinced of your power, you have the energy to subjugate problems to your will, which usually makes them worse. When you’re around 60 years old, you’re tired of being part of the Punch and Judy show where you try to get things your way. You learned to surrender. If you don’t do this, you’ll end up feeling irritated and exhausted all the time, which won’t help you survive for many years to come.

By dusk, I no longer felt irritable and tired. The rain had stopped. I haven’t heard anything from my friend, but I think I’ll hear from him in time. But what options did we have? I sat back down on the floor with my home nurse, Cat. The milky white sky hung over the ridges like a theatrical curtain, and the clouds and hillsides seemed to be playing together. There was a sense of stagnation in the weather and the rain seemed to be saying enough is enough. Everyone should be quiet and steady, which was exactly how I felt. Perhaps it was a projection, but in any case, I was like a gymnast, working my way to a standing position with a kind of goofy grace, and once I landed properly, I raised my arms triumphantly. .

Anne Lamott He is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. Her latest book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love, is scheduled for publication in April 2024.

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