Meditation on graceful aging

We welcome this post by Sandy Conant Strachan.

July 2022

Part of a recent trip included almost five hours with a couple I don’t know well, but who share a long friendship with my husband.  They are close to us in age, but throughout, I kept thinking that they seemed so “OLD” both in looks and actions.

Afterwards, I found myself ruminating on why that was.  I made a list of friends who are or were 10-20 years older, mostly women, but men as well. Then I thought about why our age difference was never an issue.  What qualities made them seem so much younger than they were?

My list was as follows:

1. They didn’t hide their wrinkles, wispy hair, bald spots or lumpy figures. They were honest enough to let the ups and downs of life be written all over them. Think Anne Richards, Robert Redford, Barbara Bush, Judi Dench.
2. They didn’t live in the past or dwell on endless litanies of “how things used to be.” The past was a source of learning and experience. They explored it with those two things in mind. How did I grow? What changed me? What happened that taught me something new? They shared their past like a good meal – something for everyone to enjoy.
3. They weren’t wedded to being “wise.” Rather – they offered knowledge and understanding they had gleaned.  They listened, advised, cared for others, but seemed to embrace every situation knowing they were both a learner and a teacher.
4. They still lit up with sparks of activism.
5. They weren’t stuck in regrets or resentments. They didn’t nourish old angers. They consciously practiced letting go and letting be and acknowledged that not even God can change the past.
6. They exuded positivism, a sense of forward movement. They were still going somewhere and loving the journey.
7. They encouraged innovation and didn’t dwell on their own obsolescence. They were okay with not being at the forefront of those who would change the world because they accepted the fact that they wouldn’t be around.
8. They recognized their limits and acted accordingly. One did daily laps in the pool using the one arm that still worked after a stroke.  One worked in local politics well into her 90s.  One continued to nourish participants at her tiny retreat center in Georgia—even while suffering with terminal cancer.

Above all, they embodied OPEN hearts, OPEN minds and OPEN spirits.

My next exercise is to ask myself how well or poorly I’m doing on these characteristics. I still have a few good years I can use to improve.  Maybe you’d like to join me.