Embracing My Sixtyness

Turning sixty only happens to other people. It has literally never happened to me. It is not something I?do.?Every day, I have to wrap my boggled mind around the shocking, totally unforeseeable reality of my sixtyness.

This is how age sneaks up on us: everything that seems to be plodding along speeds up while we’re not looking -so just when we’re finally settling into our own skin, that skin has frankly lost collagen...

Aging means loss after loss after loss—of things that cause us to suffer.

I’ve lost the illusion that happiness depends on circumstances.

There were times I dredged up joy in situations that looked awful, times when I moldered in misery just when it looked like all my dreams were coming true. Conclusion: Happiness comes from an infinitely deep well somewhere inside each of us. I suspect this corresponds with the source of the universe. Stay tuned for updates.

I’ve lost the conviction that I am my body.

Ridiculous! Each of my atoms recycles every seven years; my body is a cloud of molecules congregating around a wisp of consciousness, doing a dance of change so complex it counts as a full-on moment to moment miracle. Actually, it all has very little to do with me.

I’ve lost the idea that love cannot survive permanent separation.

I remember when I thought separation was real. Then I was separated, by misfortune, choice, or death, from many of the people and things I loved most. The love never budged. Here it still is, right now. Every moment of connection left me with treasure I hold in my heart the way you might fill your hands with rubies and diamonds and gold. Love is impervious to space and time. Every moment of love I’ve ever felt is still here, now, mine to keep.

I’ve lost the compulsion to run from pain or sorrow.

I mean, it doesn’t work, so why bother? Why not stay put and watch these wrenching experiences wear away our manic pursuit of a trouble-free existence? I’ve noticed friends changing in one of two ways as they age: either they cling to youth like a suit of armor, which rusts and cracks no matter how hard they try, or they let the armor break under the weight of sorrow, and simply fall away. Peace returns. Joy returns. Without the armor to hide it, these friends are beginning to project a faint, cool light, like the stars. They are shining. It’s worth the cost.

When I begin grappling with the stunning surprise of age, I count these losses, these blessings, and feel a tiny bit more of myself slipping away into time, into gratitude. I don’t rush this process—I know better now than to waste it. I’m so surprised to be old (Am I old? Is sixty the new puberty?) that I have to sit down and pay attention.

Alexander Pope wrote that all living things are?“like bubbles on the sea of matter borne. They rise, they break, and to that sea return.”

Each morning, as I sit still and get older, I feel my mortal self as a bubble rising and falling on the swell of matter. I’m amazed by the immensity of the tide, and by the fact that time once lifted me up, and is now dropping me down, without ever shifting the inner knowledge that in my essence I am something young, something ageless.

Now is your turn: What’s one loss you’ve experienced with age that you’re grateful for? What are some of the things you’re most grateful for that have come with getting older?

Based on text from Martha Beck.