Aging - Vulnerability... Connect the Dots

“I’m taking life more slowly”, he said, as we sat on a wrought iron park bench, in the Memorial Garden looking across Lake Shore Drive to Lake Michigan. I’d been the one to suggest sitting after a long walk from the River and Michigan Avenue, through Millenium Park and across into this park. “My back is tender and I could lose a few, but that’s not what I mean. I’m aware I feel more vulnerable at this point in my life.

“What’s does vulnerable mean to you?” Like moving the brick in a wall that opened to a secret room, he said a word that opened a vault of stashed feelings.

“I don’t know if I could do the things I did, like backpack around Europe by myself for six months. I’d be afraid of what came up. I’d be afraid I’d be too lonely.”

“But you have friends everywhere, probably on every continent now. It’s hard to think you’d be lonely”

“But what would I do if I got sick?” When he unpacked for his three day stay with me the day before, he showed me two one-gallon ZipLock bags of prescription drugs, vitamins, salves, and just-in-case remedies he’d brought along for his trip to India that followed his visit to Chicago. “What would I do if my back went out?”

 His vulnerability revealed, I have my own set of questions about my next steps in life. Mine seem to be more about security and money. Will I have enough cash to live on? Will prices rise so much that I’ll be a bag lady? Will Medicare cost so much, I wont be able to get care? My vulnerability surfaced. I wonder what I need to do now to be solvent then. My health is excellent now, well, I could lose a few, but I see my peers dealing with knees, hips, shoulders, ankles, cataracts, hearing loss, falls, gastro issues. They’ve added, canes, hearing aids and heat patches to their wardrobes. They’ve included water therapy, yoga, and weekly physical therapy to their calendars.  

I see them and know it will be me… I know I can’t escape it. I see them, my good friends who no longer open conversations with news or gripes about their careers and kids, but start out with the latest doctor report. And now, we have to build in extra time to anything we do to accommodate an amble from the parking lot. Or, we don’t go as far, or see as much or stay out as late, or stop for a night cap, because… of being tired the next day, or stamina gives way or meds get in the way, or heartburn if drinking or eating too late. My friends name their vulnerabilities. They hope for feeling better or keeping from further deterioration tomorrow.

I stand back, impatient when we can’t walk at full gait, frustrated when talk focuses on death, doctors, meds, pain, prostates… disgusted as the old persons emerge from my vibrant friends.  I don’t feel like an old person. I work… hard, long hours. I think about getting a new job. I work on a business plan to allow me a new career. I write copy for a web site and comments for Twitter.

Our discussion on the park bench, opened the secret door to vulnerability. I do these things, I realize, no longer in the audacity of growth, but in view of vulnerability. Vulnerability to what can’t be stopped. It doesn’t announce itself. Age sneaks up and kicks the best of us, the healthiest of us, the nicest, the smartest, handsomest, prettiest, the holiest of us, it kicks us where it hurts.  I watch, I work, I wait. I worry for my friends, I worry for myself. I sit still, wanting to choose a place to live in view of five, seven, ten more years of working.

I begin to connect the dots between inaction and action and between growth and decline. These are cross over points. I see that I don’t have to stop growing, but choosing a direction, will allow more safety, more security.  Each day I don’t settle somewhere at a cost less than what I now pay, for example, my opportunity costs are greater, I lose dollars that will cover my security later. I’m immensely grateful that I am healthy now. I redouble my efforts to stay that way.  I soften my frustration, my reactions to those around me who aren’t so lucky. The vulnerability is out now. The vault’s been compromised. The connecting dots seem to lead from vulnerability to calm and resolve.