Contemplation at 57

I’m 57 years old now, just a few years shy of my mother’s age when she died at 62. My father, 17 years older than my mother, died when he was 86. As a child, I spent a lot of time around multiple generations of ‘old’ people; a great-aunt, a grandfather, cousins, and my oldest brother, who is 12 years older than I. Since I started 'growing up' all over again in the Shambhala community 33 years ago, people have appeared different to me than when I was a child. I enjoy the friendship of those who are at least 10 years older and some that are 30 years younger than me, with others in between. How did this happen? I see some  of my contemporaries, friends and relatives associating mostly with people of their own age. Are they practicing ageism? I don’t know.

I do know that when my mind is drawn toward settling on an idea of how I’m supposed to look, dress, move, feel, behave, or think at this stage of life, I become trapped by hope or fear. Hope that I’ll have enough money to live with some degree of material comfort and fear that I’ll end up in a terrible nursing home. Hope that I’ll remember how to meditate and fear of being alone. Hope that I’m appropriate to continue teaching and fear that I’m out-dated.

I’m not in the greatest of physical shape, yet I still love to dance. I’m not on Facebook, yet I email every day. Sometimes I behave sillier than I ever saw my parents and sometimes I have a conservative attitude similar to theirs. I stopped coloring my hair a few years ago, yet enjoy 'decorating space' (per the Vidyadhara) with a touch of makeup. I used to think by this age I would know more. Instead, I find myself frequently saying, “I don’t get it”.

Little of how aging is occurring for me fits the model or example of my familial predecessors. My primary reference point for going forward is being sandwiched between my teachers and the teachings. I’m grateful for sometimes visualizing myself as a “16 year old in the full bloom of youth” and at other times “with shiny black moustache and eyebrows, wearing golden armor”. I’m grateful for the Elixir of Life sadhana that reminds me of what’s truly important.

I don’t know when the right time will be to call me “old”, a “senior citizen” or an “elder”. According to department stores, hotels and AARP, I’m already there. I do know that this precious human lifetime is so full of opportunities for wakefulness and temporary amnesia that I continually need to come back to the unconditional life force that sustains me; that life force in which we “possess wisdom without words and freedom from doubt”.  We can call that basic goodness.

In the meantime, you can call me anything you like.

--Marita McLaughlin
25March2009