Just Talking To Myself
Just Talking To Myself
This has been a vague notion for awhile now, it's been sitting alone, tucked back in an interrupted neuron path unable to find its way out into my conscious mind. But last night something jogged it and it floated up to the surface. The circumstances of my life, at this moment, seem to be opening the opportunity to let this percolate, this concept that there needs to be a place for elders to speak about the things that matter to them. Things that youngers are too busy making their own experiences to listen to.
They have no idea they will be here too one day.
I've been a never-quite-fit person all of my life, as far back as elementary school where I much preferred standing semi hidden by a tall Texas pine tree observing the other kids playing and chasing each other around the school yard at recess. I simply did not see the world as others did and therefore I had no common ground to develop group-think. I didn't care that I seemed to be invisible, in fact, I rather preferred being unseen. It gave me latitude to exercise my overly active imagination.
As I lived my life, though, I found that there were certain benefits to being part of a tribe but I had to create my tribe by marrying and having children, who then grew up and had children who are now starting to produce children of their own. We had an open door policy of friends of friends could bring friends so, over time, our tribe has grown exponentially. Sometimes we need a bigger venue to accommodate our gatherings.
In spite of my innate weirdness, I have lived what most would describe as a very normal, highly blessed life for better than three quarters of a century. I've passed through many thresholds from learning to doing to not being able to do anymore. I get it, this is how life works. I, being acutely intuitive, even noticed the cycle in my elders. I even wrote about this process, giving it oxygen so that it might live on. Though admittedly I don't think I was properly prepared to wake up with more aches and pains than I went to bed with.
When I first began noticing my aging out, I kept thinking I could participate in forums and offer my hard earned wisdom to the youngers. I tried multiple times to 'fit' even in online communities of middle aged folks just beginning to figure out what was happening.
But, as usual, I found it difficult to be a part of the group. When someone posted an experience or expressed a conundrum of the getting older phenomenon, like empty nest syndrome, I thought to myself, 'been there done that, here's what is waiting on the other side', but I didn't post it because I could not risk being patted on the head and summarily dismissed. I could not be one of them because I was way beyond where they were and I knew they could not receive what I could tell them.
So, here I am with this idea that maybe there should be a place for those who have been there done that to be able to say it out loud without feeling like the oldster who can't stop talking about his/her memories.
So, what happened last night that brought this on?
My hubs and I were at a family dinner with our fifty-somethings and I had a rush of memory of being nine years old, standing shoulder up against the rough bark of a pine tree, watching. Just watching. Our dear ones were laughing and being so happy and energetic and debating options for taking a beach trip in January. It was as though Hubs and I weren't there. We were just observers.
And it made me so relieved and happy. Why?
Because I knew this is the way it goes on and on. Life carries on and while we can't leave things tidy. it's most comforting to witness a moment that whispers a promise that it will surely be okay.
This substack is my effort at offering a place to offload what feels like un-shareable life experience, wisdom and warnings with others who have no other place to speak. I have no idea where this will go or if anyone will read it or comment but I am well used to just talking to myself so it is what it is.
