The grief of ageing

Popular debates about identity seldom includes the identity crises of the aged.

Ageing is a popular topic right now. Mostly how not to.  

We marvel (or cringe) as 81-year-old celebrity businesswoman Martha Stewart poses in a swimsuit for Sports Illustrated, and as 85-year-old Jane Fonda stars in her latest movie, dressed as a geriatric Barbie doll.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, my 90-year-old mother-in-law stares into the mirror incredulously and declares loudly, “Ah ya ugly old bat!”

She hasn’t always been so feisty. “No one needs you anymore,” she said quietly, when she was widowed two decades ago.

Managing the ravages of age is the price of a long life.

The other price is loss and grief.

It is indeed a privilege to grow old, to see your children and grandchildren mature, but there is a price for everything, and the often unspoken price of ageing is grief caused by continual loss.

Loss of friends and family through death or misunderstanding, loss of opportunities, loss of health, loss of independence,  loss of memory, loss of relevance, loss of optimism, and loss of confidence in our ability to cope in a changing world.

We grieve for our past lives. We grieve for the dreams and battles of our radical youth – many of which are now being reversed. We grieve for the world we grew up in, as we find ourselves marooned in a different world with a different lexicon, different social mores and different expectations.

We grieve for the fact that the wisdom we have accumulated is not valued. Technology has outrun us and time has consumed us. The world is different, and we have lost our place in it.

Add to this, the issue of money.

What the media doesn’t tell you is that how you feel about growing old depends on how much money you have and how much pain you’re in.

For too many, there is not enough of the former and too much of the latter.

Yet these issues of accumulated grief and loss, this identity crisis, is seldom acknowledged in all the advice about “healthy ageing”, where the focus is mainly diet and exercise.

The popular debate about identity seldom includes the identity crises of the aged.

We barely admit it ourselves, as we sit in cafes, sipping lattes or wine, recounting stories of our travels or showing photos of our grandchildren.

Instead, in search of our lost selves, we gobble up the world, or  return to the dreams of our youth, and take up piano, or gardening or  learn a language, or join a book club – posting our achievements with false humility on Instagram and Facebook while gushing over the achievements of others to prove that we are liked and likable, to prove that we are still here…still worthy…still relevant.

Sometimes this search for our lost selves can make us envious of youth, beauty, confidence and opportunity.

“What do they know of life!” we say, as the newly hatched talk about what is new for them and old for us. And as the words leave our lips we blush, as we hear the echoes of our parents’ voices, shrill with resentment and frustration.

This grief and loss can also make us petty. We grow old but we don’t always grow up. Sometimes, we lash out at those on whom we are dependent, or at those who don’t or can’t give us what we want, which is always, always the same – to  be seen, to be loved, to be valued.

But still, as the days pass, each bringing new losses and new challenges, there are thoughts of what has been, what might have been, and what now will never be: the opportunities that have come and gone, and the people who no longer share our lives.

Ageing may be a time of fulfilment and gratitude, but there is a reckoning as we come to terms with what is, and what can never be again.