I’m having the most interesting week, it is capturing so perfectly the twin elements of life, joy and sorrow. I am aging, and working to age with grace. Life does not always comply. This weekend,  our Open House, good and loving people heading here and into my town from everywhere to share  our lives, Maria aglow with a chance to swim in a world of art, a celebration of our work, our creativity, our life with animals.

Last week, I injured my back picking up a garbage can, one of those simple things you do a million times but all of a sudden pulls or twists something.  Getting older is much about that, things that used to work so well do not always work.

It is distancing, in a way, is aging. The young don’t care to know much about it and can’t understand what it feels like. The people who do understand too often talk and think of nothing else.

My back hurt  a lot, I walked like Quasimodo, I had the old man shuffle, my muscles were so sore and stiff, and I went to a massage therapist I admire very much, a healer and friend. How are you feeling, she asked?, as she always does, trying to get a sense of me. Well, I said, you know how it is when you get into your 60’s, I’m good but something hurts just about all of the time.

She looked sad, surprised, and she said, “oh  no, don’t say that, don’t talk like that. I don’t want to hear that.” I smiled,  she is much younger than I am, and I said “I’m not complaining, it’s just the truth.” Why can’t I say it? It is the truth. I’m living in my skin, and my skin is different.

Aging with grace is about that for me, truth and acceptance. I am living in my skin, I am okay with who I am and where I am. My right heel is causing me some pain, especially when I go out to work with Fate.

In the pasture, I cannot walk as quickly or easily as I did a few years ago, my legs are not as strong, they tire, they ache. My border race around like a shooting star, I feel a thousand years old around her.

I don’t care to dwell on my age, I don’t care to deny it either.

I am excited about this weekend, the Open Houses are an affirmation of our lives, they are exciting, fulfilling. These openings mark the passage of time, I am aware of the changes inside of me and outside of me. A year ago, I was fresh from open heart surgery, a great teacher of perspective.

What does it mean to age with grace? Sometimes it means being sad, sometimes if feels lonely, sometimes I do want to hide it from people.

Aging with grace means acceptance, not lament. Old age is viewed harshly in our culture, mostly as a costly journey into the nether realms of health care, poor health, memory loss, immobility, and then a long and usually tortuous death. That is really all we see of aging, all we talk about, all we see on television.

Aging with grace means considering how I wish to live, not in a world of retreat and diminishment, of lowered expectations, of fear and confusion. I live in hope, I live in change, I live in great expectation.

Aging with grace means learning how to love, and keeping the channels of love open every minute of every day. Aging with grace means stepping outside of myself. Everyone has a harder life than I do, I do not wish to sink into myself and shrink the boundaries of my work and feeling.

I am learning to respect myself – this is grace, in a way. People who are old are not often respected in our world, they are dismissed and discounted, expected to be invisible, take their pills, fight for their entitlements, go off into assisted care and die obediently. I think not. I am happy to turn away my senior discounts, they belong the young, who have no entitlements and brutal costs.

My week has two elements, sorry and  joy. It began in sorrow. I found myself trapped in a circle of anger and conflict, I could not avoid it, escape it, or join in it. I was not treated with respect, but with contempt and hostility. I felt abused, demeaned, assaulted, called ugly and painful names. It is an awful thing, really, to be treated with contempt, I am old enough to take it and deal with it. But it’s the body that ages, not always the mind.

Perhaps because I have experienced those things in my life,  I felt them all coming back into my world. Those old feelings of the five-year-old boy in the dark. I think they call it Post-Traumatic Stress, one of those cold media words for the echoes of trauma.

How curious a thing, that I could not see this coming, or avoid it, or even behave as I wanted to behave.  It is always a shock and surprise.

An awful feeling of helplessness, vulnerability, the old fear that haunted me for so much of my life, that I have worked so hard to overcome. I struggled with it for days, I thought it would overcome my week, darken it, weaken me for what I needed to do, distract me from the joy of it. And those old thoughts: if this could happen, it must be my fault, I must have done something wrong, feelings of shame and even terror. Did I behave badly? Did I fail to listen? To see? To empathize?

Part of aging with grace is the experience of having lived long enough to learn things, to know things. I don’t want to be smug about it, but I do know things, I can pass things on, share my wisdom, open up to learn more. I’ve seen a lot.

Aging with grace means accepting things. Like my imperfection and broken parts. It means being proud of the work I have done to heal and grow and face myself. To be grateful for the many good things that have flowed and are flowing into my life. Grandma Moses was right. Life is what you make of it, and I am making the most of it. I have never had so many things to be grateful for, not in all of my life.

The old ways of anger and fear were not going to be my life again, not even when I age, especially not then.

Okay, I said, you are on the path. How to get out of it? What have you learned? I went for a long walk with the dogs, I felt wise and strong and experienced, I have walked this walk before, I had the deepening well of life to draw nourishment from.  Pain, like anger, is a great teacher. What have I learned?, I kept asking myself, and I know now that the longer you live, the more you know, even if the world sometimes sees  you as less.

What do I know?

I know to not to waste a single minute of my precious time on fear and hatred.

I am living in my skin, I told myself. I am proud of me. I know I did the best I could, behaved in the best way I knew in life, got as far away from the rage and hurt as I could. On that walk, I felt reborn, in a way like a new bride, eager to present myself to the rest of my life, to be open to the good things that awaited me, to the crisis and mystery of life. To go on to the next thing.

Yes, it is the truth. I hurt every day. I love every day. There are so many more days behind me than ahead of me. There are so many good days ahead of me. How can I cherish every one, and make it meaningful? How can I continue to open the locked doors of love and friendship and trust inside of me?

That is up to me, not them. No one else can tell me who I am.

What have I learned? That this is life, joy and sorrow, crisis and mystery. I am so imperfect, so flawed.

I know that I do not need to know precisely what is happening, or where I am going. What I need to do is recognize the possibilities and challenges of the present moment, and to embrace them with faith, courage and hope. To not be swallowed up by the darkness.

Aging with grace.