The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully

by Joan Chittister

"I am luminous with age," Meridel Le Sueur wrote. Her words give us pause, make us think, call us to the bar of judgment.

The truth is that older people tend to come in two flavors — the sour ones and the serene ones. The sour ones are angry at the world for dismissing them from the rank and file of those who run it and control it and own it and are not old in it. They demand that the rest of the world seek them out, pity them, take their orders, stay captive to their scowls.

The serene ones live with soft smiles on their aging faces, a welcome sign to the world of what it means to grow old gracefully. To have the grace of old age. They require us to go on growing more and more into ourselves as we age. It is of these that Meridel Le Sueur, an American author who lived to be 96, wrote, "I am luminous with age." Luminous. Not painted. Not masked. Luminous!

These serene ones are the women and men who see with wider eyes, hear with tuned ears, speak with a more knowing tongue. These are people with soul.

Fashion and fitness magazines are very clear about what 70 is expected to look like these days. "Seventy" is people on exercise machines and in ballroom dance courses. People in their 70s now are walkers and bowlers, swimmers and bikers. They fish and golf, they join choral groups, and play cards. These are people who are trim and full of life, mentally sharp and healthy. They exude vigor and excitement. They go to all the right places, see all the right people, do all the right things. And they never tire while they’re doing it. They live life with gusto and panache. They defy the years of their lives and go into the sunset singing and dancing.

And that’s true, at least to some degree, for many. Never has a generation before us lived so long or lived so well as in the affluent West. Never has life seemed more eternal than now.

At the same time, there is another physical reality going on. Reading the telephone book without glasses has us squinting now — and we buy reading glasses at the pharmacy. We turn the volume up on the television set higher than we ever did before. We find ourselves noticing hair coloring ads now. And though we do walk a bit every day, we don’t go as far — and definitely not as fast — as we did years ago.

There have been changes in life that came unbidden but decisively. There is no going back now — and we know it. We don’t say it, of course. We hug it to our breasts like a great gray secret. But we do know it. Down deep inside ourselves we know that there is something different going on now. We are being transformed.

But the essential transformation that comes with age is a great deal more than physical well-being, a lot more than being able to play a regular round of golf, an entire way of life different from a Wednesday game of bridge or the weekly round of the clubs.

There is an important part of the aging process that lies in simply getting accustomed to being older. Part of being a vigorous older person demands, first of all, that we learn to accept it for what it is, a new and wonderful — but different — stage of life. We must admit, even in our own minds, to being older in a culture that is so youth-centered that age is something to be hidden, rather than celebrated.

"Me?" we say. "Sixty? Impossible." One can almost hear the tone of shame that goes with it. It burrows into the center of us and an alarm sounds in the heart. How could life be almost over, we worry, when we were just beginning to understand it, to enjoy it, to love it. And with the fear of age, if we succumb to the notion that being older is some kind of obstacle to life, comes the loss of one of life’s most profound periods.

The problem is that preparation for aging in our modern world seems to be concentrated almost entirely on buying anti-wrinkle creams and joining a health club — when the truth is that what must be transformed now is not so much the way we look to other people, as it is the way we look at life. Age is the moment we come to terms with ourselves. We begin to look inside ourselves. We begin to find more strength in the spirit than in the flesh.

The way we view ourselves changes from period to period in life. It is not a steady-state experience, and its most impacting definition comes in middle age. Then, we all get some kind of power, however limited it may be, just by virtue of seniority, if nothing else. We find ourselves in charge somewhere: in charge of the children, in a position of control on the job, in a position of preferment in the family, at a higher social level in the group. We have arrived.

But all of a sudden it seems, as quietly as I arrived, I am now just as quietly dismissed. Power and control cannot be my definition of self anymore. I must now find in myself whatever it is that gives me a personal place in the world around me: I’m fun to be with; I care about other people; I have begun to live for deeper, richer, more important things than I have ever done before. I am caretaker, public watchdog, social advocate, companion now. Then, I begin to see my self differently. I begin to discover that, in many ways, I am far more important now than I have been all my previous life.

I begin to see the world differently, too. It is to be treasured, to be explored, to be enjoyed. An evening on the beach as the sun goes down is worth all the cocktail parties I’ve ever attended.

Other people begin to look different to me, too. They are as transformed as I am. I no longer see them as roles. They are people now, individuals — not problems, not "connections," not a measure of my own value. My value now rests entirely in me, in what kind of person I am with others.

I find, too, that the number of absolutes in my life is precipitously reduced. I’m a lot less dogmatic now about the nature of God. I’m not as sure as I once was about what is gravely damning and what is not. Most important of all, I am happy to put that decision in the hands of the God whose nature seems far more compassionate now — as I have gotten more compassionate myself.

Finally, I now see life newly, too. Once I thought of it as a kind of major league competition for money and status and things. Now I see it as something to value for itself. I begin to realize that it is not about having much — it is about having enough.

I begin to understand that the tragedy of life is that so many have so little, that even just having enough to live on is beyond them. I begin to understand that there’s something wrong with that. I have had more than enough help in life. And what about these others? What is my responsibility to them now?

It is the moment of final and full transformation. I have become the fullness of myself, but only after I was able to put down the cosmetics of the self, like the titles, the privileges, the symbols, and the signs of being something more than I was — and at the same time less than I was.

A burden of these years is the possibility that I might stay more buried in my losses than aware of my gains.

A blessing of these years is the transformation of the self to be, at long last, the self I have been becoming all my life, an oasis of serenity in a world gone sour on age, the very acme of life.

Joan Chittister, O.S.B., is an award-winning author of more than 35 books. She writes and lectures on issues of peace and justice, human rights, women, and spirituality. She is the executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality. Sister Joan will speak at the Women of the ELCA Triennial Gathering in Salt Lake City, Utah, in July. To learn more about the Gathering, go to www.womenoftheelca.org.

This excerpt is adapted from Sister Joan’s newest book, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (BlueBridge). In the book, she writes about how we should celebrate aging. Sister Joan looks at the many facets of aging, from its challenges to its struggles. She asks us to cherish aging as a natural part of life that is active, productive, and deeply rewarding. The book reflects on key issues like the temptation toward isolation, the need to stay involved, the importance of health and well-being, what happens when old relationships end or shift, the fear of tomorrow, and the mystery of forever. The book is available at www.ipgbook.com.