secrecy ~ silence ~ judgement

Secrecy, silence & judgement - - the three things that Brene Brown identifies as the three legs of shame.  Strangely enough, stepping away from those three gets easier for some as they age, especially as they get significantly older.  Is it that they realize how many times they've seen how many people get hurt by how many lives?  I'm not sure, but it has been my personal experience that elderly people can be more open than at any previous time in their lives.

One of their challenges is that younger people might not want to have a more open, willing to feel & be vulnerable. 

When my mother sent e-mails to growing dist list, her three oldest children were NOT happy.  All three, in different ways, tried to shut her down.  All she was doing was being herself. Not sharing family secrets, just being herself.  What she wrote was personal to Katharine Reynolds Lockhart. 

And they freaked. 

My guess is they were afraid she's reveal some hideous family secret.  They beseeched her to be silent, and - when she didn't - they judged her & distanced themselves. 

And still she wrote her e-mails.

At 89, she was done with being shamed.  Done with being silenced.  Done with being judged.  She loved her children, but at 48, 56, 58 & 62, they just weren't the arbiters of her self-worth any more.  As she had the age, space & perspective to appreciate, they had their own paths to follow.  

If only more older people had committed cheerleaders without agenda, with eyes only on what was best for the older friend.  Because it seems to me that it's when we hit the upper reaches of our life that we can look back & make some sense out of the whole crazy patchwork, can see some pattern & seek a balance we're too myopic in our younger years to seek.  To, like my own mother, step away from the shame & into seeing accepting loving.