Aging

“Only by owning who and what you are can you start to step into the fullness of life. Every year should be teaching you something valuable. Whether you get the lesson is really up to you.” - Oprah Winfrey

A year ago, I sat in the Emergency Room for the third time in two weeks, wondering if I would even make it to my birthday. As I waited alone in the hospital bed waiting for the doctor to return with the test results, two things circled repeatedly in my head:

1. My family has already been through so much; I can’t be the reason the people I love hurt even more.

2. I waited my entire life to start living it finally, this can’t be where my story ends.

When my birthday finally came around, I set an outrageous number of goals based on one thing: living. I promised myself I would no longer hold myself back in all the areas I had been so afraid to allow myself to want, let alone claim.

It took weeks to walk to the mailbox without my heart rate tripling. It took months before I felt like myself again without pain. And then, around the holidays, my health battle was quickly forgotten as my mother’s began. Months later, she was gone.

It wasn’t how I planned the first half of my year to go, but as I have learned from all the previous years, we have no control over the events of our lives but rather over how we react to them.

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One of the greatest gifts in aging is perspective, especially regarding the people who raised you. Over time, you see their humanity more. You learn to honor their circumstances and begin to realize just how much they did the best they could with what they had available to them.

Especially in their absence, I see both of my parents in a completely different light while simultaneously seeing their faces in the mirror more and more with each passing day. When I was younger, if someone said I looked like one of them, I cringed, but now I smile at anything that reminds me of them.

The hardest part of losing them was not being able to tell them just how much I loved them once more. After my mother passed away in March, I stood in my apartment and stared at myself in the mirror. As the usual laundry list of insecurities and proof of my unlovability came flooding forward, I was suddenly taken aback, and another voice came to my mind.

“How can you be so desperate to love them yet so unwilling to love the product of them?”

And in that moment, everything changed.

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My father was 37 years old when he had me. He once told me that after you turn thirty, "there aren't as many milestones to celebrate, and the years start to fly by." Ironically, the most significant milestone that occurred when I turned thirty was his sudden passing.

From the moment I said goodbye to him, I circled this upcoming year on a calendar. Since I could no longer ask him what it was like to have a child at this age, I figured I would wait to see what my life looked like and imagine what it must have been like for him.

So much has changed in his absence, and while I can't imagine what it would be like to add a child to my life right now, I am grateful to have reached this place in my life.

His words were true about time passing quickly. It's hard to believe that it has been over six years since his passing and over six months from my mother's. I think part of the reason why time passes so quickly as you age is that it isn't as precious to us. For a child, 8 hours of school is a lifetime compared to their short life span, whereas for an adult, it passes by like a nap.

Too often, I reflect on the week prior and have to actively remember what I did with my life. We are so accustomed to distraction and noise that it allows us to miss each moment that is in front of us. It feels as though the only way to counteract the speed at which our lives are moving is to be even more present in them, minute by minute.

There is no way to stop our lives from moving forward, like a train on a track, but it is ultimately our choice whether or not we miss it.

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Even through all of the adversity, the last year of my life was one of the best yet. I try my best not to judge the success of my life based on the expectations of others or even my own. More than any other year that I have set goals on my birthday, I will leave this year with many of those boxes unchecked. And yet, I am incredibly proud of all that the last year taught me.

I felt more, including the good and the “bad,” than ever before. I judged myself less and worked consistently to catch myself when I judged others. I put myself out there creatively in new ways and focused only on the felt experience of creating instead of how it all was received. I gained a lot of gray hair and a small patch of hair on my back, which honestly felt offensive. I let go of old patterns, questioned myself less, and let others in more.  

All in all, I settled a bit more into myself while no longer defining exactly who my “self” is.

I know the road forward will not always be smooth, but I no longer approach it, waiting for the inevitable pain. Instead, I am hopeful. I believe in miracles and magic. The fact that I have no idea what is to come no longer scares me; it excites me. I have loved and lost people who would have done everything they could for another breath, so I am grateful for another year.

Traditionally, I set many goals on my birthday. Some years, I even set one for each year that I have lived. Last year, in the aftermath of my health issues, I set about fifty, ranging between eight different categories (is it any surprise that I didn’t complete them all?).

This year, I chose to simplify it down to five. Here is what I intend for myself in this new year:

1. To be myself everywhere that I am and only go where I am wanted.   I no longer want to play through scenarios in my mind of how I can prove myself to others or force my way into spaces that aren’t outwardly extending a hand.

2. To smile and laugh more.   I spent years in the mirror trying to keep my mouth as closed as possible when I smiled and spoke. My shame was more critical than my joy. The most challenging times in my life have taught me that none of this is as serious as we make it out to be. As I look at that photo of my younger self all I can see is his smile. It is time to let him out a bit more.

3. To allow myself to dream bigger and be open to possibility.   So much of my inaction has come from not knowing what I am allowed to want. I no longer want to limit myself in terms of whats possible, I have enough examples in my life of things that I never could have seen coming to know that anything is.

4. To lead with the love in my heart and not the byproducts of past pain.  Too often, the people I care about are surprised when I tell them how much they mean to me. I vividly remember people retracting from a hug because they couldn’t believe I would give them one. My judgment helped me stay alive; my release of it will help me live the life I survived for.

5. Be present (and put your phone away for the love of everything.)  My goal every year for almost a decade has been to give up my addiction to technology. So far, I have been incredibly unsuccessful. But to create, I have to live, and to live, I have to be present. There is no other way.

Here’s to page 1 of 365.

With Love,

Clayton

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