Aging Disgracefully

Tags

aging, authentic living, expectations, peer pressure, psychology, sociology

Let’s face facts. There is precious little that is good about getting old. We put on a brave front of course, we claim we are just excited as all get out to play golf and lounge on the veranda. We are lying.

Youth is wasted on the young. Every older person knows this. It’s one of the ironies of life. You don’t get how to “do” living until you are near the end of life. One of God’s little jokes.

A very young person, with a very old soul, said something profound today on a piece looking at the effect of being “short” on children’s development. The kid was short, thirteen, and only five foot. His dad was a giant, being nearly 6’8″ but his mom was only five foot. His dad had spent a lot of time infusing him with lots of self-esteem, making height merely a fact, and not a defining one.

The profound statement? He said, “In the end, the only person you have to live with is yourself.” Meaning that he was not pushed to be what others expected of him. He only had to satisfy what he expected of himself. Profound no? True? Yes.

That may be the only thing that’s good about aging. We finally release all that crap about living up to other’s expectations. We, as children try mightily to be who and what our parents express as “good.” We try, some of us try for years, well into adulthood. Others of us, at some point, take the opposite tack, trying to be exactly other than our parents desire. In that we are usually as untrue to ourselves as when we struggled to be as they wished.

We try to be as our peers suggest we should be, and then as our teachers, then the opposite of that, then as our bosses, as our romantic encounters dictate, and, well, you see we seem to always try to be what others expect. Sometimes we impose upon ourselves standards we perceive as good or proper. We become Martha Stewart.

I guess age makes us tired at some point. We no longer can manage to lift the banner of what is expected on a given day, and we start to be authentic. Younger folks call us eccentric. Yeah, eccentric all right. No, I’m just tired of pretending that high heels are a shoe of choice. They are what they are, torture devices, and as an adult finally I see them as they are and discard such violent pain as fashion.

Of course, not all of us have that aha moment. Some of us, for whatever reason stay mired in being what is expected. No doubt financial considerations can apply. Keeping a job can be essential and so meeting workplace expectations may still override our general disgust at putting on the facade each day.

We are like aging entertainers who enter the safety of bedroom and pull off the girdles, the wigs, the eyelashes, and all the other accoutrements that serve to uphold the “image.” We are left a sagging weary body, now encased in an flannel pj’s and ragged robe. We shuffle in our slippers and we rub aching muscles.

Not a pretty picture? No. But some of us remain caught in the illusion that somehow we can stave off the inevitable. Sooner or later we become caricatures of ourselves. We can be found all over Florida and Arizona.

Others of us, well, we see it all for what it is, and we say enough. I’m getting old, I’m into comfort not only in the confines of my room, but out in the big world where all those kids reside. But I’m at peace. I’m me. I’m sagging, and greying, and I’m pudging too much. But I’m not concerned about that. I have better things to do. I’m not out to snag any trophy spouse any more. I am not vying for some top plum job in your corporation.

I, you see, have only to live with me. And, there I will not make any more compromises. I don’t need to. We are fitted in her quite tightly, and there is no room for all the wigs and girdles. I have room for books and yarns and recipes, and walking sticks, and binoculars to see my bird friends up close. I have room for wonder and awe, and peace, and quiet, and music and beauty, and thinking.

I have room for opinions, and I don’t care if you don’t share them, though I am happy to have a civilized discussion on points where we differ. I am unafraid to stand up and be counted. I would have no qualms in telling a Dick Cheney or a Dubya, a few choice remarks should our paths cross.

As I said, youth is wasted on the young. I have all the ideas in the world, but far less time than I used to to execute them. I suffer fools less willingly. I have no truck with stupid at all. I try to be kind, because I know how much it can mean to another, yet I can’t have stupid people wasting what time I have left. So, I may appear from time to time, short, and direct, cold in fact in my laser assessments. That’s what you call eccentric. You smirk, shake your head, and of course never think it will happen to you.

News? It will. You should be so lucky to get to my age. That’s what I say. What brought this forth? Oh, nothing, just in six weeks, a new birthday. . . . and a six figures prominently. Who would have thunk I would be . . .well, I can’t even say it quite yet. But damn, I’m authentic. Just ask me, and I’ll tell you. You bet I will.

To Be or Not to be ME?

Tags

being true to self, maturity, peer pressure, personality, psychology, self-esteem, sociology

We all struggle with the concept. It hits most of us for the first time in our teens–the pressure to conform, to be what others want and expect of us.

Somehow, we dismiss this when we leave our teens, thinking it is all behind us. But for most, I suspect it is not, and worse, for some of us, it started long before our teens.

Luckily for me, it was brought home to me once again, and I must own up to the fact that I have still not completely removed this cancer from my system. My personality is still driven to one degree or another by it.

Maturity knows no age as we all come to realize. Being who we are, being “comfortable in our own skin” is something to be striven for, and as I said, I suspect most think they are, until someone criticizes  us, and we realize that we are still held all to tight by the tendrils of wanting to be what is expected of us.

As I said, mostly we encounter this in our teen years in the form of  peer pressure. We want to be part of the crowd, and that means liking what the “crowd” likes and disliking what it doesn’t. Sometimes it causes us to do really shameful things, things we know to be wrong, merely to be accepted.

For some of us, it’s far worse than the general stupid behavior that our parents used to complain about, ending in the often heard phrase, “well would you jump off a cliff just because your friends did?” Some of it is generated by our parents themselves.

I’m not just talking about the parents who assault their kids and thus create children and later adults, who through fear, are willing to do anything to curry favor. More to the point, curry love. No, the parent who denigrates the kid, calling him stupid, ugly, fat–these esteem killing sentiments result in adults with low self esteem and they too are willing to conform to others expectations and desires in an attempt to feel wanted and, yes, loved.

I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, and I deeply felt the pain of not being the ideal. Though I was above average in intelligence, nobody cared much about that. Beauty was still the key to success for girls. Girls were wives and mothers in the making, college was just a means to that end, hopefully nudging up the scale of income.

I was chubby and wore glasses. Not ugly, but not “cute” either. Kids made fun of me, dating was a painful and not often met hope. I was willing to do a good deal to be part of some group, and be accepted. And even there, I suspected I was thoroughly disposable, the one who if  late, would not be waited for. (I was never late as a result, and still am not).

Added to that I had dysfunctional parents, who both were good at ridicule. My brains were no big thing, expected as it were. So I was often taunted as being clumsy, stupid (in anything of importance- of which school work was not), fat, etc. My mother once exclaimed regarding my slightly buck and crooked teeth, “why you seem to have inherited all the worst qualities of both me and your dad.” (the teeth were straighted by orthodontics of course)

As a young adult, I latched on to anyone who was kind and supportive, and tried my best to be to their liking. This certainly included men, and I suspect a whole slue of women would agree with me on this. I became that which they desired. I became an enthusiast of football, or prize fighting, or interested in science fiction. I learned about muscle cars, I learned to love hiking or X-Files. It didn’t matter.  If he liked it, I liked it.

Worse for me, was always to be criticized by someone. Not just any criticism of course. If I was learning something and the criticism was clearly intended to improve my work, so much the better. But if it was of the kind, that suggested  that the person just plain didn’t like ME, well then I was deeply hurt.

Not just hurt, I was devastated. I would relate the circumstances to others–had I done anything wrong by their estimation? Was the other person being unreasonable? In most cases, I went to the person and restated my case, sure they had misunderstood. Usually they misunderstood nothing, they still reiterated the same complaint.

I couldn’t let it rest, I would grouse, replay, rethink, re-discuss, all in an attempt to rectify the situation. I couldn’t handle not being liked by someone. Usually of course, I was forced to, and often, in my younger years, this took the form of getting all my “friends” to agree with me and to avoid this person. After all, if they were my friends, they should, right?

Maturity comes of course, in realizing that we are all put together a bit differently. We don’t all like apples, we don’t all like Johnny Depp. The world would be a bore if we did. A person may need a certain type of friend. I may not be able to fulfill that need. That doesn’t mean I’m lacking, it means what it means.

For indeed, no friendship or relationship lives or dies by whether I truly like football or Mozart. Sure, we can have casual acquaitances whom we get together because we share some hobby or sport, but those who care for us, ultimately care for who we are in the deeper part of our psyche.

It’s whether we are kind, warm, loving, compassionate, empathetic, and so forth. If we are fudging on those factors to retain someone’s love, then we are but putting off the inevitable break, when they discover the truth.

Being true to self, means being who you are, even when you know it will bump up hard against the beliefs of someone you care about, or don’t care about. It in fact can’t respond to that at all. It means we are simply in all things true to who we are, letting the chips fall.

In my recent experience of feeling rejected unfairly, I started down the same path of justification and explanation. But I stopped, thanks as usual to the wise man I married. I can’t be and am not what someone else expected or wanted. So be it. I am who I am, like me or don’t.

I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m feeling pretty liberated by that. I’ve grown a bit, and I’m walking a little taller. To thine own self be true. Shakespeare would be proud! Are you  really being you?