Life's Journey

Here’s where it is today, hiding inside a pensive mood that borders on depression. The seven stages of … life, updated from The Bard, who named them thus:

1. Infancy: In this stage he is a helpless baby and knows little.
2. Whining schoolboy: It is in that stage of life that he begins to go to school. He is unwilling to leave the protected environment of his home as he is still not confident enough to exercise his own discretion.
3. The lover: In this stage he is always maudlin, expressing his love in a fatuous manner. He makes himself ridiculous in trying to express his feelings.
4. The soldier: He is very easily aroused and is hot headed. He is always working towards making a reputation for himself, however short-lived it may be, even at the cost of foolish risks.
5. The justice: In this stage he thinks he has acquired wisdom through the many experiences he has had in life, and is likely to impart it. He has reached a stage where he has gained prosperity and social status. He becomes vain and begins to enjoy the finer things of life.
6. Old Age: He is a shell of his former self — both physically and mentally. He begins to become the butt of others' jokes. He loses his firmness and assertiveness, and shrinks in stature and personality.
7. Second childishness: Senility; dependence on others. (Thanks, Wikipedia)

I’m at the stage where I’ve done my childhood, been the schoolgirl, fancied myself a lover, became a soldier working in the marketplace to carve a name for myself, and had a few hands of being the wise, learned justice. I’ve oft quoted my mother’s wisdom that no one can put an old head onto young shoulders, capturing the spirit of it takes time to become wise. But I'd truly like to put this old head onto new shoulders and have a chance to live my life ... differently. I cannot say "better" or "worse," because different can mean an entire timeline of change, but I'd like to do some things differently, knowing what I know now, rather than living with what I didn't know then and continue to relive now. I’m floundering through stage 6, the “old age” stage that is reality no matter how often anyone thinks that 50 is the new 40 and 60 is the new 50. I’m looking at another zero birthday headed my way, the big 7-0, and that is “old” age regardless of what to the contrary anyone wants to believe.

It takes energy and perseverance to make it through the first 5 stages, to grow and flourish through youth into middle age, working one way or another to achieve both status and recognition. Some pathways are unfettered and form a positive memory as one retires and seeks to re-establish a sense of identity that is apart from what one once was, but no longer is. If I grant that I was the best teacher I knew how to be, I should be able to remember all the positive experiences, as well as people, but the ones who stick in the memory are events/incidences that I didn’t handle well and/or the students who caused major problems. If it were possible to go backward, to revisit a time and a place that could have been handled better, I’d use that button and ask for a redo with a different outcome. But we all have to live with what is, not with what we wanted life to be and either we failed life or life failed us. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda” is a good way to look at life, but it's a tagline that is always followed by “But didn’t.” Our legacy is pretty well set by the time we enter Age 6 and become a shell of our former selves, losing firmness and assertiveness, and shrinking in stature and personality. We can see it in the eyes of our social contacts, as they begin to glaze over as we recall and relive in our mind’s eye times, places, and people from what is now a long-ago past, but instantly in front of us again and again as we strain to change the outcome or merely glory in what’s past.

This is where I am today, my mind wandering through the times of my life, wishing I could go back and have a do-over, whether to change the outcome or improve the process of arriving at a desired outcome. I know I did the best I could, but sometimes one’s best truly is not good enough, or often enough, or on-point. Life becomes the time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when all of the children are on their extra-special good behavior to enhance the quality and quantity of gifts Santa will leave under the tree. It’s as if we don’t quite remember that we are the sum of all our months of behavior, not just the few weeks in which we want to make a good impression. Why can’t I, now that I am facing mortality, become the person I 100% want to be, rather than the person I’ve 100% become during the first five ages of my life? It’s depressing to read the obits and have to accept that the ages at death are not just where I am, but include far too many who didn’t have the opportunity to live as long as I have lived. I’m wanting a do-over, but sometimes, today is not the first day of the rest of anyone’s life, but the last day of life period.

There will come one day when it’s the last day, ready or not, and the only part of me that stays behind is a small fragment of the time spent with others who came into and then moved out of my life. My life picture will be thousands of these small fragments, each piece of which will somehow be made into a larger, complete portrait by the individual who holds the fragment. The only good news is that I'll again be that "mewling and puking infant" of old age, the second childhood during which others must provide the care to me that I no longer can provide for myself, and none of it will matter a whit to me.