Riding The Waves of Aging

Navigating aging is often a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings that often leave us feeling stuck or overwhelmed. We grapple with changes in our relationships, career, family, or self-identity. The emotional upheaval of aging rises and falls like the ocean tides. High tides. Low tides. We all have them. We all have an aging journey.

The ocean’s ebbs and flows have always brought me inspiration and comfort. She teaches me how to stand with courage, self-care, and gratitude with aging. I honor the many lessons I have learned from her.

Discovering how taking care of myself has been like putting gloves on cold hands. The more patience and love I have for myself, the more I have to give to others. When I think that self-care is a selfish act, I come back to paying attention to how the ocean’s tide levels remind me to keep safe.

Courage comes from self-care. Working with uncertainty, change and death is about honoring the reality of impermanence. The ocean’s high and low tides have gifted me the mindset that nothing is forever, no matter how passionate or negative I might experience a situation or thought.

Befriending death, which is going to happen, has lightened the load of worry. I have never heard the ocean complain about the weather impacting her tides. Death is a constant that comes and goes in our lives and the lives of loved ones just as the tides continue to affect the shore.

A daily gratitude for all the gifts from aging, helps me honor my present age. A daily gratitude practice helps me to let go of being busy. By practicing a daily gratitude, I honor all those things — good, bad, ugly — that arise and instruct on the journey.

When I honor the changes, I again thank the ocean’s steadfastness in her ebbs and flows for teaching me to be respectful of where I am today. We all have a choice to either deny or embrace about how we will navigate aging. I invite you to ponder and honor what you are grateful for and learn from along your aging journey.

By Martha McJacobs, Beaverton Committee on Aging member. Learn more about the BCOA at www.BeavertonLibrary.org/BCOA.