Aging Sucks
I have a birthday coming up. I will be eighty and I’m dreading it. I feel like my foot is caught in the railroad tracks with a freight train barreling towards me, its whistle blowing and its headlamp spinning madly as it bears down on me. This is it.
Why should I complain? I’m relatively healthy, even though I have three kinds of cancer and have just finished my fifth round of chemo. I’m able to walk, swim and lift 50-pound boxes when I have to. I still have all my hair. Even though I get up eight times a night to pee, I don’t have to wear Depends. My libido is at zero because of my prostate cancer, but at least I’m alive – my father died of it at 77. I can drive a car, as long at it’s not at night. My concentration has gone, my hearing is going. I’m getting used to the fact that no one looks at me any more. I’m dispensable. I have my share of aches and pains, but who doesn’t?
I could easily feel sorry for myself with all this news, but luckily I have my beautiful wife Susan (who just turned 75 – and has her own health problems), there for me at every moment. Whenever I’m down; whenever I’m feeling lousy from the chemo for my lymphoma, whenever I get scared, she’s there for me. “No nursing homes for you,” she says. “I’m going to look after you and love you for as long as it takes.” I feel so blessed to have her in my life.
I also have my sweet dog Nalu, who comes and comforts me if I’m sad. Nalu is a two-year old Australian Shepherd, who can be described as “energy with fur around it.” Susan and I take him to the beach every day to run him and get in the ocean. What’s good for him is good for us. We also have our families – including six grandchildren between us – who come to visit every year; we have friends who we’ve known for years; it’s a good life.
I have no interest in living to one hundred. I don’t want to be around to see my son die, along with all the people I love; I don’t want to be shuffling around in a walker or hooked up to an oxygen tank; I don’t want to be eating mush for food; I don’t want to be kept alive in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of me so I can squeeze in a few more days out of life. As long as my quality of life is relatively good, I’m willing to stick around, but once that goes, I’m ready to go home anytime. I’m blessed to have had a rich and full life.
Some people want to live forever, no matter what it takes. They are proud of their age and even flaunt it. Good for them. I see them on YouTube videos or Facebook, doing yoga in their eighties, dancing in the street in their nineties, running the 50-yard dash at 103. I see them smiling as they blow out candles in their nursing home as they hit one hundred and five. A few brave souls have even lived to 115 or so, but so far as I know, no one has gotten out of here alive.
Aging sucks, but I’m gradually realizing that if I continue to focus on all the things I don’t like about aging, there will only be suffering.
There is a way out, and that way is in.
One person who has inspired me, along with many others, about aging is the American spiritual teacher Ram Dass, who recently turned eighty-eight. His book Still Here, Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying had a deep impact on me.
I’ve known Ram Dass for years and attended many of his retreats. He now lives on Maui, and I see him from time to time when his devotees bring him to the beach for his weekly swim. I wrote about this fun event in one of my blogs ( https://petermellen.orgoh-buoy-oh-buoy-oh-buoy/). I just talked to him yesterday. He’s been in the hospital for much of the time. Everyone thought he was dying, but now he’s back to his weekly visits. He’s just had his swim (where a group of friends and devotees wheel him down to the ocean, and with a lifejacket on Ram Dass, they swim fifty yards offshore. In a happy ceremony, they scatter beautiful flowers, chant and sing and celebrate life). Now he’s on the beach sitting in a wheelchair with big fat tires, which can roll over the sand. His friends are helping him get out of his wet suit top while we talk. His body is a mess. There are long purple scars on his legs from past leg problems; his belly pours over the edge of his bathing suit; he speaks with some difficulty.
“Ram Dass, my dear friend,” I say, leaning over to get close to him. “I’m so glad to see you! You’re looking great!” He looks up at me and smiles, then raises both hands and waves them to encompass the ocean, the sky, and the people on the beach. “This!” he says, looking out at the ocean. “This . . . beautiful!”
“Yes,” I smile. “Yes it is! Just this!”
For a brief moment I forget about all my self-absorbed worries.
Thank you Ram Dass, and thank you to all the wise beings who encourage us to remember that who we are is timeless.
For me it’s a reminder to meditate more, to not get caught up in my mind stuff, and to focus on that which does not change.
All the great spiritual teaches have made it clear: I have no control over what happens anyway.
It all comes back to my favorite quote: Relax, nothing is under your control!