spin cycle

One of the many blessings of getting up there in years is accumulated experiences & experiencing people.  Being able to look back & notice which experiences seemed rewarding, which made me uneasy;  which people seemed to click, to earn my respect & admiration.  Acquiring years means acquiring intelligence about those moments & memories.

Sadly, there are people who go through life not accumulating much enlightened awareness, holding onto life-long beliefs that seemed deeply etched on their spirit, obscuring the ability to see things in a fresh light, to gain a new perspective on an old situation person relationship. 

Perhaps one of thing that hold such people back from gaining from their invaluable life experience is a fear of giving up the familiar, of stepping away from what is apparently known to give a new spin to an old view. 

That can be a major benefit of great age - greater distance from the white hot energy of the moment, greater perspective drawn from a lifetime of getting more & more aware, greater aha moments where different pieces fit together in unexpected & enlightening ways.  Even people who apparently went through their earlier life with eyes wide shut can, as year after year rolls by, become more comfortable with what is rather than ignoring it or trying to transform it into something more personally palatable - more in sync with the familiar, even the uncomfortable familiar.

It's my pleasure to have known folks who took until their 80s to come around to new ways of seeing things, of responding.  The grannie client who finally felt freed to be able to confide long-held thoughts that reached back to her teens.  Another who took that long to take a personal stand on her own behalf.  The elderly man who seemed a lad of twenty as he shared stories about the young woman he loved & won, who wrote to him throughout the war years, who was by his side throughout their long life together.  Several oldsters who came to accept that a child's foolish choices were not indictments of them or their parenting, who accepted it was possible that they'd given good life lessons & modeled fine examples, but children ultimately take their own road.  It seems they were more at ease accepting that in their 80s than earlier. 

My dear old Mom said that life shifted in her early 80s, when she started seeing the humor in things.  Maybe what she was describing was finally - with the accumulated experience of the years - being able to step away from direct involvement, look at things with less judgement & more curiosity, be interested without being overly invested. 

Looking back at dear friends & cherished clients, it strikes me that the #1 quality that kept them interesting, engaged, fun to be around was their sense of curiosity.  They never lost interest in what might be around the corner - a new experience, new person, new idea, new way of being.  The older friends & loved ones that seemed the most vibrant, however worn & frail their bodies, were the ones eager to step away from the tried true familiar, to ponder a different possibility, to trot it out, give it a spin, see if it worked or needed to be released to make room for the next great whatever.