Posted by floatingbridge on August 19, 2011, at 18:39:36
In reply to Re: aging issues in and out of therapy » pegasus, posted by sigismund on August 19, 2011, at 14:11:33
Pegasus,
I'll be 52. I think about this myself, alot, especially because in the last two years I have developed severe fatigue and have sleep isssues that are worsening. So I have lost so much vitality. Which means ability to me.
Just yesterday, I was looking down at my hands and thought, crap, I don't really mind them anymore. And I don't mind how the skin has gotten thin and bony on my chest, oddly enough.
Some things I am not crazy about. When I see pics of myself, I am especially shocked by my fallen jaw line. There is something very touching about beauty. I have never felt beautiful, but I have had spirit, and a great love of beauty.Ageism is what disrespect and disregard for the aging is, and
my country, the US, disrespects it's older citizens in countless ways. It's systemic, this disregard, and shows in our actions.I don't resonate with being an elder or connecting with my grandmothers who were batshit crazy. So I have had to find
other ways of staying sane while aging. One story I find
comforting, well two, derive from the animal world. Whatever that may say about me, oh well.In Canada, maybe in the 70's, 'they' were trying to control the caribou population. There were too many. The solution was
to kill the eldest. What happened was that the young adults began to lose their way. They began to fight, starve, die off. The forestry dept was confronted by the idea that these old caribou did something they could not see. They decided the elder caribou were a necessity to the survival of the group.
But how?The other reminder is elephants. It has been documented that when there are no elder bull elephants, the young males act like vandals. There is some painful footage of some hoodlum elephants crushing a young hippo at a watering hole for no reason.
I think about this a lot. I haven't been very squeamish about aging, and have always been fascinated by life stories of those older than myself, but I didn't really think this aging process would really happen to me! I never realized, until a few years back, how much attention was given to me because of my appearance until I stopped
getting it. Like people disregarding me. It's something I have seen others do. I broke up with a boyfriend back when I was twenty because he thought his mother's flaccid upper arms were revolting. Now it happens to me. Like I never was young, was always old, never had a thought and couldn't
possibly have a relevant one now :-/On the other side of things, f'd up as I am, I sometimes experience someone younger finding value in me. It's really
odd to experience this, and I am not phrasing it right. But it's like it's my core civility and morality that I work so continually at matters. Somehow.People experience aging differently. I'd be lying if I said i didn't experince aging as a deep loss. However, I am more generous because I see everything as so temporary now.
Your post is very timely for me. I hope I have managed to say something coherent....
I dig a pony.
poster:floatingbridge
thread:994306
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110706/msgs/994323.html