I turned “60” today. It’s weird. It’s good. I am grateful.
In church on Sunday I reflected on turning sixty. I thought about having lived ten years longer than my dad. I thought about my mom being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at sixty and I felt abundantly grateful for the place I found myself in. I felt good. I mostly feel pretty good. I am healthy. I have a great family and friends. Yup, I have aches and pains and some are not so much fun. I don’t move as quickly as I once did and I sure can’t put my feet onto the ground at 6:30am crawling into bed at 11pm without substantial breaks anymore. I can’t garden for eight hours and expect to be moving just fine the next day. I can’t pack every day full of stuff without struggling to continue to breathe. I am learning to pace myself.
I can still do a lot. I am not dead or even close to dead. Yet sometimes I get the distinct impression that perhaps some others think I cannot contribute. I call that ageism. I am a sensitive woman who stayed home to raise her children and jumped into a post secondary education late. Somehow, I missed the career employment boat. I finished my degrees. Because of a combination of my personality and lack of experience, I found it impossible to find a spot uniquely mine. Several university friends wondered what I would do. They had decided that I would need a unique situation and it seems that’s true. Plus, at sixty and a woman I am not very employable. I am great for volunteer work though… it seems. Go figure. I have picked up a couple of part time jobs that I like and, in that way, I am quite fortunate. I have had to let my dream of a terrific job where I could really make a big difference in someone(s) life, to bed. It seems I chose to drop this dream, when I first stayed home with my children thirty years ago. I did not do so cognitively.
I consider my life, my decisions. Good decisions, bad decisions and mediocre decisions. Just decisions.
I think Charles Dickens describes it well in a Tale of Two Cities.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
This is life.
Sixty seemed like another birthday until I saw the six and the zero on my birthday cake. Then it got very real. Then it was no longer imagined. Gratefulness butted up to reality. I consider what the next pieces of my life will hold. There are many many things left to do. Usually I welcome the challenge. At a slower pace now.
Finally, the elephants. I wrote a blog post a couple of months ago about my sister’s elephant collection and in particular a white elephant, she had inherited from our family home. That white elephant symbolized stability as it threaded its way through my life and the life of my sister who is thirteen years older. It brought memories to our other siblings as well. We all had different memories. After a friend read my post, she found a group of elephants in a shop she was at. She knew she needed to buy it for my sixtieth birthday. I am not an elephant collector but the pure white of this stand of elephants, reflected on my blue family room wall, gives me pause. An elephant family. All but one has their trunk in the air symbolizing happiness. Only one has their trunk down. The elephant of my childhood was smooth and very white as well and it has a special place in my heart. All be it a recently renewed found spot. The elephant of my childhood has its trunk down. These elephants represent my life. The uplifted trunks are the happy times and the down trunk the sad times. Three elephants to represent my three children and one elephant to represent the future or my two miscarried babies. I may change how I think about the elephants as the years pass, but for now this is what I think of.
Wikipedia describes elephants this way – “Wisdom & Loyalty: Elephant symbolism also represents sensitivity, wisdom, stability, loyalty, intelligence, peace, reliability and determination, which are all seen in the animal’s nature when observed in the wild. … In many cultures, elephants are revered and highly respected due to their symbolic meaning.”
My sixty years have included the elephants amazing attributes. My name, Anita, means God’s grace. God’s grace shining on me, helps me to live the elephant’s attributes.
Mee Leven 