I’m getting older. I’ll be 60 this year. But 60 isn’t what changes things. It’s just life…the accumulation of stuff that, in some cases, catches up with you; in others, sits there just over the horizon or under the surface, waiting to trip you up or outright ambush you.
Getting old isn’t a horrible thing. I’ve grown a lot in patience and peacefulness over the years. But I’ve also experienced that much more trauma and pain. It fades, yes, but it leaves scars.
Sometimes those scars can serve a greater purpose. If you find the right balance in sensitivity, you need not become embittered by them; but rather, you use them to help others. Still, there’s a chasm that needs to be bridged. You can’t hang out with kids your whole life. Your own grow up, and eventually you’re not the parent who knows what it’s like to have a teenager in the house or a kid off in college. They’re 35. They’ve got their own families. You’re a grandpa. But you still have something to give.
Things don’t magically get easier when you get older. There’s a time you reach your peak – where you generally know what you’re doing and you’re fairly confident doing it – but then…well, something new comes out. And then something more. And then it turns out that not even your kids are on the front line of technology anymore.
Yeah. Life is cumulative. It piles up on you. But you grow. You gain more wisdom even if you can’t keep up with the know-how. In the end, you just have to decide if it’s going to beat you down or make you more useful.
“Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.”
Thornton Wilder, The Angel that Troubled the Waters