Living for my 75 year old self
Every year – around springtime – I gain a new friend. These friends are always exactly a year older than me. I don’t know them, but they insist they have known me my entire life. It took me 25 years to start befriending myself. Now I’m bestfriends with a 75 year old. She teaches me to be kind, loving, patient. She only asks of me to not forget about her. She doesn’t expect me to be right, or perfect, or rich, or smart, or pretty, or productive. She tells me I’m already loved. She reminds me to slow down. She inspired empathy in me for her – I know she will miss the regular moments of her life that her younger self took for granted. Now we walk through life with her wisdom and clarity, appreciating the moments when her coworkers excitedly grab enormous spare paper towels, or buying dozens of roses at a grocery store last minute, or sharing snacks with friends, or the smell of her dogs’ paws, or getting her heart broken, or those cold winter nights, or those slightly burned dinners, or those “bad bucket” runs. This is what it means to live for your 75 year old self. It means you’re never alone. When I’m driving to work heartbroken, confused, worried about being happy, I turn to her and I feel her sweeping me up into her embrace, communicating “Oh child, if only you knew what I knew. You will be okay. All you need right now is for me to hold you.” Life becomes worth living, even in the bad moments. I know she and I will joke about it one day.
As I’ve been reflecting on Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development, I noticed myself craving a relationship with the virtue of ‘wisdom.’ I wanted to learn how to call upon my older self who has been there through all the earlier stages. I also wanted to ask her, “how I can help you? What can I do for you? What do you want to remember? How can we live with our mistakes, imperfections, regrets, decisions with compassion?”
In all honesty, I’m not even past the middle age conflict of ‘generativity vs. stagnation’ but find it perfectly sensible to begin exploring Erikson’s last stage. It would be even more honest of me to admit there’s still unfinished business in each of the stages. Some days I feel a sense of resolve, other days I’m dealing with two or three stages all at once. Without the wisdom of my older self, I can spiral into the trappings of needing to know what the “right things” are to resolve my conflicts. I fuse to my fears, landing in rumination and feeling frozen. My ability to make the “right choice” feels like a do-or-die moment — and if I make the wrong choice — I’m dead.
In those moments, calling upon my older self, who survived what felt like a do-or-die moment, reminds me there is no right choice. She encourages me to learn from my mistakes. She reminds me I’m trying to do my best and that there is so much out of my control — so many unknowns. She trusts me. She’s not concerned by my confusion and sense of loss. She knows it’s part of the process. That we turn out okay.
Further reading and other perspectives on this topic: