All The Things We Are Not Taught

One of the things I was most angry about in the years before my grandmother died was her getting old. Her memory had always been spectacular and I depended on her to hold the stories of our family, to know all the things that happened before I was born and all the things that happened after. She had a wide range of knowledge (which she could actually pull up in discussions and coherently use) that I envied. What she read seemed to stick. What she’d experienced made an impression.  

She also had a gift for conversation, for making a person feel heard, important, listened to, and remembered. As she aged and that sharpness of her mind dulled, I got off phone calls with her or finished up visits annoyed because she’d lapsed in her duty of drawing me out of myself, of asking questions, of carrying the weight of the conversation, of being interested in the most minute details of my life.

I know, I could have just opened up and told her all I’d been up to, done my part, stepped up, grown up, adapted, but something grasping inside me needed her to not change, for our relationship to stay on the same level, for her to remain an unmoving point that I could orbit at my leisure and at my pleasure.

We’re not taught how to be reasonable.

We’re not taught how to age.

Instead, we’re bombarded with ways to stay young. To look young. To prize being, looking, and staying young.

We’re led down narrow, treacherous pathways and directed to drink from the correct Holy Grail in order to become immortal. “Only the penitent man shall pass. The penitent man, the penitent man,” we whisper before we kneel and dive under slashing blades in our best impression of Indiana Jones. And, if we’re lucky, we end up at the point, having already drunk from a plain, wooden chalice, where the Knight Templar says, “You have chosen wisely. But we’re not taught how to age.

I recently turned 46. I don’t exactly know what that means or how it’s supposed to feel. Even as I type this out, I have this urge to say, “This is not old.” To say other things like, “Sixty is the new thirty.” Or, “You’re only as old as you feel.” Or “You’re only as old as you act.” But 46 is, in fact, the oldest I’ve ever been. It’s also a fact that my body is less resilient than it was twenty, ten, or even two years ago. It’s also a fact, that my 46-year-old body is doing unfamiliar things and acting and reacting in strange, new ways.

Due to the passing of time, my own specific circumstances, and the inevitability of age, I’m having to acknowledge some limitations. In a world where we’re encouraged to optimize, to exceed, to go beyond, to push forward, to keep going no matter what, this is difficult for me. I mean, who wants limits anyway? But, whether I like it or not, I’m having to adjust my vision of myself ever so slightly and still love who I am. It’s an ongoing process. It’s very much an ongoing process.

One of the things that made me angry when my dad was dying was his inability to see the present situation for what it was. The final chapter. The path to his ending. But, again, who wants to see that? Then, after all, none of us knew for sure that he’d die so soon. I didn’t want him to. But I also didn’t want him to be in excruciating pain as the cancer ate at his bones. Yet, as that happened, I felt like I could see the cause and effect, and he, the scientist, was turning a blind eye to it.

“You’re dying,” I wanted to yell in my worst moments. “Just accept it.” Because what I wanted most was for him to be this example of something extra human. Selfishly, I wanted my dad to approach death with his shoulders back and a spring in his step. With a phrase like, “I laugh in the face of death, ha ha,” on his lips.  

But we’re not taught how to approach death.

We’re not taught how to die.

As my dad got closer to his dying day, I didn’t want him to fear the unknown. I didn’t want him to be angry at the unfairness of having done so many healthy things and still have gotten a silent and aggressive cancer. I didn’t want him to be angry about dying. Even as I was so angry at him dying. At him for dying. I wanted him to accept reality. But that wasn’t his personality. He, like me, needed that next big goal, that objective to overcome, that belief that if one works hard enough then one will get the right payoff (because the alternatives to that thought can be depressing), and the relentless drive to get, have, want what was just out of reach. He, like me, also believed that reality had more than one facet.

Whether I want to be or not, in so many ways, I am very much like my dad. He’d dealt with anger for a long time. Not just about death. He’d felt anger often. As life continues for me, I, too, am feeling anger as a recurrent emotion.

We’re not taught how to be angry.

We’re not taught how to use anger.

We’re not taught so many useful things. But we, and more to the point, I can learn. I can learn from my own experience, I can learn from what I read, I can learn from what I see others deal with. I can learn from my emotions. After all, I love to learn and grow. I got that from my dad too. Maybe we both got that from my grandmother.

Now at 46, older and wiser (let’s hope) than I was as my grandmother was aging so noticeably before my eyes, I have to transform my anger at myself for aging. For changing, for not being who I was yesterday or in a further back, different, former part of my life. I have to learn to love aging (not everyone gets the chance at it) because it is a gift. It is part of the human process and experience.  

Now, older and hopefully wiser, while I can work to stay healthy and optimize what I have, I can also accept where I am, how I am, what I am. At least, I can try to.

I can try because we’re really not taught how to live and we’re not taught how to die. But, like my grandmother, like my dad, I’m doing my best with the knowledge and resources I have. And as consciously as possible, I can live in the moment where I am.