When I was younger, I was too occupied with myself, as most young people are and should be, to pay much attention to myself or who I wished to be. That seemed a lifetime away.
But as I grew older (old to be honest), and finally paid serious attention to myself, aging was my sudden work and obligation. In fact, the rest of my life depended on it.
To me, the great task of learning to accept being old was not just finding some meaning, but learning who I was, and who I want to be in my remaining years, apart from the isolation, abandonment, and the exploitation our culture puts on the elderly.
The psychologist Carl Jung awakened those who were paying attention to the idea that life develops in distinct stages, some centered on the outer world, some turned inward on a great period of reflection (hopefully).
The end stage of life, he argued, was about making sense of everything that went before that, and figuring out everything I wanted to come after that.
Just a few years ago, as I stepped away from my book-writing career and my publisher stepped away from me, I learned the hard way that self-awareness was easier said than done.
To grasp what getting old meant to me, I had to fours muster the courage and integrity to look inward and face the truth of myself – what happened to me, and what I wanted to happen to me.
I was a big deal in many ways and had a full and often delusional idea of myself. I had been in chaos, and that is the worst way to plunge inward and face up to the truth about yourself.
This business of getting old was a time of isolation, to get to the center of my soul with all the honesty I could muster.
This could only, in my mind, be done when I was alone, in solitude. This wasn’t the time to beat my chest about my good points or considerable achievements, or to whine about hurting. I bought a cabin in the hills of upstate New York and lived there almost entirely alone for a year with two Labrador Retrievers named Julius and Stanley.
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I felt I had to learn not just who I was, but who I had come to be. I didn’t realize at the time that this excursion would blow up my family and cause great harm, and a spectacular breakdown played out on my new blog and in my life.
But I got just what I wanted – a brutally honest look inside of me – and I didn’t like it one bit. It was not who I wanted to be or what I wanted to be. A tough therapist gave me no quarter and guided me to some truth.
So did Maria.
No matter where we are living or who with, aging brings a sting and a deep sense of isolation, at least for me. Aloneness, wrote Joan Chittister and Thomas Merton, is the new monastery of the elderly.
There are a lot of choices to make in aging, but isolation is inevitable in almost every way. The elderly are entering a dark and mysterious – and final – end to their lives. The elderly are the only ones who know what that feels like, and sadly, very few of them want to talk about, think about it, or be it. Or many talk too much about the wrong things – what hurts, what it costs.
In an off new and superficial way, the elderly can retreat to communities that will help care for them. I know it makes some happy, and others feel lonely. “It’s where your family sends you,” said one friend, “when they are sick of caring for you.”
More and more are choosing to live alone. Many like the sudden freedom of being alone, especially if they had to care for ill spouses for years. Some find jobs that fit. Or they live in a kind of limbo, between one stage of life and another.
I wanted to be a better, healthier, and wiser me. I wanted to create my own life, not the one that was forced on me.
But I understood right away that there is an unavoidable isolation from being old – it’s as if the rest of the culture all around decided to just forget about you and look the other way. I know very few people who want to talk or think seriously about what it means to be old. Our stories have vanished from the culture of the country.
For me, I didn’t want to be in assisted living or buy a condo in Florida. I wanted to find love and do good, the simplest, easiert and cheapist kind of work. I could learn to help others, feel better about myself, and find that this work never wanes and is forever needed. Merton, Christ, Chittister, and others gave me some tips.
I finally find the home I wanted all my life, and I mean to stay there, hopefully to the end of my life. I don’t intend to die anywhere else. Home is sacred to me.
My idea of isolation grew and flowered as I carved out a new and final life for myself. But I think I realized I was confusing isolation and solitude. That was a big mistake.
The thing about solitude is that people often confuse it with aloneness or just isolation. Isolation means no one wants to be with us or near us, to be cut off from the world. Solitude is a choice. It is the act of being more alone with myself for the sake of my soul. I am happily married, and I appreciate that more than I can say.
But she concedes – she is younger – that she can only imagine what it is like to be approaching 79 years of age; she can’t know what it feels like.
Most of my old friends are dead or missing, and when one cherishes a life of solitude, they don’t go to parties or to watch football games. In solitue I feel I am finally coming to know myself and love myself. I have a few good friends, but they are important to me.
Solitude opens us to the wonders of the spirit and a world with less chaos, cutter and noise in my life. It gives me the time and determination to simply be, and that is a wonderful gift for me. Doing some good doesn’t hurt either, but I rarely need help; I just offer it. My time will come.
But one thing to mention: I used to dread being old; I feared it. I am proud of it now and grateful for much of it.
There is no shortage of people who need help; they are everywhere, and the richest and greediest country in the world. Having meaning in my life keeps me strong and aware.
The outside world, with its noise and greed and anger and politics and hatred and social whirl and expectation, has little appeal for me.
In the outside world, I never accepted the gift of solitude; I was too busy being frustrated, angry, or frightened.
Solitude is not something I fear; it’s something I cherish.
It is my natural state; it gives me the gift of reflection that makes the present a beautiful place to be.
