SEASONED VOICES - THE WINTER OF MY LIFE

Last month, I introduced a group of women bloggers I belong to – Seasoned Voices. We meet monthly to talk about the stage of life we’re in, how we’re navigating it, what concerns us, what brings us joy, along with common and diverging ideas and themes. The conversations are always stimulating and thought-provoking. For our winter blogging discussion, we decided to each respond to this quote: “With age, I am able to savor the winter of my life – the quiet, the depth, the slow-burning light of my own company” – May Sarton.

Our conversation inevitably took a downward turn when we talked about how our bodies change with age, imperceptibly at first, then speeded up, and how the medical field has ignored women’s bodies and symptoms for years. Medical attention to women’s bodies, including how menopause affects us, may be improving now, but we were the generation (and the ones before us) who got short shrift. We hope the younger generations (Millennials, Gen Z) are paying closer attention, although it might not feel so urgent to them. As one of the women in our group said: Even women’s heart attacks are described as having ‘different symptoms’. But different from what? From men’s, of course, because that has always been the standard upon which medicine has been based. Women’s heart attack symptoms are not ‘different’, they are symptoms of heart attacks!

Our conversation was NOT all doom and gloom, though. We talked about the clarity and confidence that comes with entering the winter of our lives, the letting go of the impossible standards we once set.

Below is my response to the May Sarton quote. Then you can navigate to each of their blogs to see theirs (as I write this, I don’t know how they responded, so it will be interesting for me to find out as well).

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“With age, I am able to savor the winter of my life – the quiet, the depth, the slow-burning light of my own company” – May Sarton.

When you’re 18, 25, 35, 40, you never picture yourself in your 60’s. That is an impossibly distant future. And then one day you find yourself crossing that threshold into ‘the winter of your life’. You’ve arrived at the unthinkable destination, although the milestones of 70 and 80 still seem preposterous, but not that far away now.

But here’s the thing – you realize you like being this age! Not every day, and not all the facets of it. Certainly not the achy joints or doctor visits to ensure you keep on top of deteriorating body parts. Not the physical indignities of aging or crouching down on the floor. But the other parts are really quite wonderful. It’s as if this has always been who you were meant to be. You’ve arrived at who you always were.

I may have always had a ‘winter of life’ streak in me. I enjoy solitude, cocooning, my own company. But in my younger years (the spring and summer of my life), there was the pressure to conform to society’s expectations, the pressure to be ‘on’ and want the things a young, upwardly mobile woman is supposed to want. Those years had plenty of gifts too, the greatest of all being motherhood. And those years had plenty of stresses as well– working, performing, rushing from one task to the next, parenting, all the choreographies of relationships and juggling many balls, valiantly trying not to let them thud to the floor and scatter beyond your reach.

Now that’s all behind me and I am simply the culmination of that prior life. I focus (mostly) on what I want to do, habits and routines that bring me joy and define me – reading, writing, painting, walking, good conversations and connections with friends and family amidst laughter and teasing, good food, travel, racquet sports, coffee.

The silent dark hovering part of aging is of course health, and the desire and drive to remain healthy, mobile, active. But some things are not within one’s control and news of friends’ health issues – including the dreaded C word – these lurk in the shadows of your mind and all you can do is do your best to be kind and gentle to your body, nourish it, exercise it, book those doctor appointments.

I’ve heard Suleika Jouad say in an interview that “Live every day as if it’s your last” is bad advice. And she should know, she’s been dealing with leukemia for years. It’s bad advice she says because then you are pressured into feeling as if you MUST make every moment count. I imagine you would abandon caution, be reckless, focus on the moment without concern for the consequences, gulp greedily on everything. Instead, she says, you should live each day as if it’s your first. Because then you will approach everything with curiosity and wonder.

My interpretation of this ‘live every day as if it’s your first’ philosophy would be: You will be amazed at the circle of family and friends you have built, the strength and resilience of your body, at how delicious your morning coffee tastes, a luscious slice of lemon cake, the drama of a morning sunrise, a fresh snowfall. You will look at the art you produce and plan to create more, try new colour combinations the next day. You will write as if tomorrow you will come back to it and write more; this story, on the page and in your real world, goes on, becomes deeper and better. You will be present to nurture and nourish it.

This wintering of life is my chance to go deeper, slow down, fan the embers of latent desires of my youth that I didn’t have time for while rushing from train to office desk to school pick-up to grocery store to kitchen.

I may have been born with a winter streak in my soul and now I can embrace it.

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Now go here to read how other Seasoned Voices have responded to the quote.

    Tracy of Travel Bug Tonic

                                                                    

Linda of The Precious Days

  Helen of Ageless Possibilities

                                                        

Joan of W.I.S.E.R. Woman