Finding My Inner Elder

This is an excerpt from the weekly News-Loveletter. If you would like it sent to your inbox directly (with all the other juicy bits, including a mini joy practice), you can add yourself to my mailing list here.

What does it mean to be an elder?

I ask the question of you and of me.

I’ll be honest. Despite a full head of silver, it’s something I’m just beginning to wrap my arms around.

I didn’t have it modeled for me much as a child. Kids sat separately at their own table. Children were to be seen and not heard. I watched what my parents watched on TV. Crabby Archie Bunker and supplicating Edith.

I didn’t want to get old.

But we don’t get elder status just by aging. I’m sure of it now. It can happen to the old and sometimes to the young.

We find our way there by encountering things that don’t make sense and coming to accept them. We learn to live life fully by nearly dying. We discover what it means to love by losing what we care for.

Being an elder is a choice, a practice. It’s easy to drift into anger, despair, and powerlessness by watching the headlines. Herd mentality. Your mood, your life chosen for you. Helpless and hopeless.

I’m taking a different path.

Here’s how I live my elderhood.

I care for my body and my mind in ways I wish I’d started sooner. Making this a priority, I send a message to those in the first half of life, “Your body and being is important.” When I care for myself, I care for others. There are fewer messes to clean up that way.

Prioritizing self-care reshapes the culture of rushing and to-go cups. Instead, there’s a point of choice. Freedom and responsibility. That’s big.

I create my elderhood as I go. My greatest work is yet to be done. I will retire between tasks, in gaps where I restore my mind and heart, between cycles of learning.

I share my way, with joy.

Being an elder, I see the beauty in me and reflect back to others the beauty I see in them. It’s a path of goodwill.

I daily polish my lens so that this beauty is apparent. When I’m tired or hungry, I take a break, find what I need, and make my way back.

I do this not only for others, but for myself. Caring for one, we care for all. No one knows what I need like I do.

I commit to this, trusting you will point out when I have fallen. Because I will. I look forward to picking up the pieces and starting over. I will learn to fall and recover better by the day.

As I return to joy, I serve with joy.

I will find my way again and again to seeing the wholeness in all of life.

May my heart be open, and may I ever turn ever toward the light.