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Playing the age card

1/29/2020

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​The other evening we had dinner with long-time friends, three of us octogenarians , three of us about to turn 80. As you might imagine, the tone of our conversation touched on what we all were doing during this time in our lives: our health, living possibilities, our kids and grandkids, travel, and how we spend our time.
    I told my friends that as an old woman I often find myself playing the  ‘age card’, and that it’s not a secret that I’m happy to do so. In fact, one of my purposes in writing this blog is to reveal the secrets that we old people have in the hope that others will understand us more fully, as a group and as individuals.
    Here are some situations when I play the age card: to go to bed early or to take a nap; to enjoy a third brownie after supper; not to join a church committee; not to go out in the evening. Of course, I don’t always want to play the age card, nor do I always need to. I still travel by myself. 

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       I am a 78 year old white, educated, privileged woman, in excellent health, with a wonderful family. I go to church and travel by myself to Italy and Scotland. That’s my public vita, my public persona. But that’s not all who I am. I have secrets, secrets of an old woman. So let me say some more.
         I’m old. Not in the usual physical ways of a person age 78, but I’m old in years, and that very fact guides the sense of meaning that I feel and experience in my life. Put succinctly, more and more my age is becoming the filter through which I lead my life.
         I’ve had a rich life, with caring parents, a loving husband of 54 years, two wonderful children, and four amazing grandchildren. My teaching career was rewarding; I published six books for teachers describing my experiences as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. When I retired I earned a divinity degree and became the spiritual care counselor for a local hospice.
        I ask myself if now I am really retired. Well, yes and no. Yes, in that I have more free and unscheduled time to satisfy my longing for silence, solitude and simplicity, which I blog about in this blog-- www.acottagebythesea.net, and more time to attend to my spiritual life, which I blog about in www.aprayerdiary.net. I have more time to spend with family and friends, help at church, read for pleasure, write, and travel,. My old woman secret is that I am still searching for meaning and the search is intense and life supporting.

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