Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – Pina Martinelli

September 22, 2007

On Getting Older

Pina Martinelli

ON GROWING OLDER...from Nymph to Crone-to-be

(With thanks to Bruce K. who got me thinking)

 "Leaves are falling all around,
It's time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged
For such a pleasant stay.
But now it's time for me to go,
The autumn moon lights my way.
For now I smell the rain,
And with it pain,
And it's headed my way.
Ah, sometimes I grow so tired,
But I know I've got one thing I got to do,

Ramble On,
And now's the time, the time is now
To sing my song..." 

Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On"

When I was 12 or 13 years old I spent a lot of time contemplating life's great mysteries, as much as I spent countless numbers of hours ruminating over what a particular boy thought of me at the time. Despite my assorted crushes, I often wondered if my essence would remain intact in the decades that followed my teens, or if I would change so much I would not recognize myself. I didn't think about illnesses, I didn't think about loss. I simply wondered who I would come to be.

Sometimes in quiet moments of reverie or when Led Zeppelin music pounded my brain, I imagined myself at 30, 40 and 50, stylishly dressed in business or casual attire, with or without a husband and children by my side. At other times I'd see myself as an ancient wise woman of 80 years of age with long, pure white hair and a penchant for wearing tribal jewelry I had purchased after many trips overseas. There were times when I imagined myself as I have always been, teetering around in my sneakers and a T-shirt and jeans, conversing with friends over a strong cup of coffee downtown in Greenwich Village in NYC, my hometown. I'd marvel at my visage as it changed but still wondered if my basic essence would remain intact within this older version of my self. I wanted to ask the elderly people I knew if they had these same questions when they were my age, but I was never brave enough to ask. My thoughts were left to their own devices then, repeatedly circling throughout the contents of my cranium, always unanswered and unresolved.   

As I got a bit older I once asked my mother if she felt "different" once she had reached middle age. She said that despite the outward appearances of aging, she felt she was still the same person she'd always been. While I accepted her answer, I was still troubled by it. Unaware that I was looking at her, I often detected a trace of deep sorrow in my mother's eyes, as if she were lost in thoughts that rendered her a shattered, broken version of herself. The spirited and playful mother I knew, the woman who danced with me to Big Band music as if we were veritable replicas of Fred and Ginger, or the mother that accompanied my older brother and I in a lively, loud and rather off-key rendition of The Beatles' "She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah", seemed old to me, as if she had given up, as if the sands in the hourglass had fallen around her feet. I never broached the subject again but didn't have the chance to.  In a year, when I was just 19, she would die from lung and bone cancer. Five years later my father would die from a massive coronary when I was just 24, the year I went from being a  wood nymph to a crone, all beneath the guise of fresh faced innocence and inexperience.

Since her death I often stood within the wings of my life, watching daily life unfold before my eyes as if I were watching actors on a stage. There, amid the flurry of activity, the laughter and the noise, the tears and the pain, at the wedding showers and weddings, the baby showers and births, the BBQ's, the Holiday and birthdays, the joys and sorrows, the triumphs and failures, I sat, watching it all from a distance, present and yet so far away. Unbeknownst to family and friends, I viewed these occasions with a cynical, guarded eye. In my mind I would think there was no point to any of this; that in the end none of this would matter when our flesh and bones turned to dust. And then I'd dance, as if I thought none of this at all, but inside, I was old before my time.

Unlike most of my friends who have recently lost their parents, I have spent 32 years thinking about the realities of getting older, getting ill and dying too young and too soon, or before or after my spouse. I have wondered who will care for me when he will no longer be by my side or if I will wind up in a nursing home, discarded and forgotten with no say in the matter. I wonder if I will die as painlessly as my father's father did - playing the cello on stage, taking a bow to an appreciative audience and then collapsing - off stage - from fatal heart attack, or, if I will die like others I've known, suffering through a painfully lingering illness that tortured them until the end.

I have invested in my retirement plan since I was young but have all but avoided thinking about writing my will lest it foretell my future. I have thought about the things I'd leave to family members but argue with my inner voice about the initial decisions I had made. I have thought about the complexities of settling estates with virtually no life experience to speak of, as much as I have thought about battles I faced with the circling vultures overhead, the ones that vie for the decedent's personal belongings within days after the funeral, and always without consideration and sensitivity for the grieving parties.

I have thought about this every day of my life because I have lived and breathed it. But now it is time for me to live, to spread my wings and fly, and to breathe before the breathing stops, while I still have the chance to.

Like everyone else, I do worry about getting older. Though I am blessed with a youthful appearance at this age, I know that there will be a time when I will no longer pass for 38 years of age, or delight in the "No way" comments I receive when I divulge my true age with an impish smile. I know there will be a time when men will not turn their heads when I pass by, just as I know, sadly, that one day I will be invisible to the world as if I were nothing but a blank canvas made of flesh and bone.  I know, as I know now, that I will never weigh 115 lbs as I did when I was in high school and that despite exercise, a proper diet and good health habits, my weight will creep up because of a variety of things, including menopause. I know this and I accept it to the best of my ability, just as I accept the "me" I am now.

Shifting hormones, rampant mood swings and my forgetfulness consume me at times. I worry that I am experiencing the early onset of Alzheimer's even though no one in my family ever had it. I chalk up the odd things I do these days to a mind consumed by too much stress and activity, too many plans for the future, and too much work to do at my job, where thankfully my memory for detail remains intact. When perimenopause and its assorted madness raise their ugly heads during the most inconvenient of times, I wish menopause would come now, right this instant, before I lose my mind entirely. And yet, I am secretly grateful for the fact that my periods still come regularly like clockwork, the sea's shifting tides, the waxing and waning of the moon.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to be when I grow up until I realize, with shock, that I am a grownup with many things to decide, plan. I realize that in several short years my retirement will be fast upon me and there are things I still want to do, try, and create well before the song of my life is over. Maybe I will start painting and drawing again, or maybe we will travel to parts unknown, like explorer's on ancient seas but by land this time, in an RV motor home equipped with all of modern life's accoutrements. Maybe we will move to a foreign country and spend our last years together underneath stars we do not know, under trees and bushes with different scents from those we are accustomed to, tasting foods and wines we have never savored before. I wonder if I will decide to work again after I retire or if I will become impatient having free time on my hands. I wonder, if truth is told, if I will live long enough to enjoy it, a common thought for those who have lost parents young.

There IS beauty in aging. As my mother once told me, I still am the person I always was, but older and wiser because of my life experiences. The things that once plagued and consumed my thoughts no longer bother me. I have stopped worrying about what others think of me because I realize that my opinion about my self is what matters in the end. I no longer need the approval of others to define who I am or how I have come to be. I have let go of old friends who grew too toxic for me and allowed myself to grieve, as much as I have allowed myself to open the doorway to others that are true friends, even if there are less of them. I want quality now, not quantity. I have learned to put myself first now rather than last as I have always done. I have learned to set limits and say "no" and mean it, and "yes", but only when I can. I have learned to own myself, my strengths and weaknesses, and still hold my head up high, fearlessly, like a lioness walking the plains.

At 51, despite all I have been through in life, I truly have done well for myself. Though most of my life's plans were set aside to cope with my losses and ensure practicality, I truly have no regrets for anything I have done or not completed in life, just as I have no regrets for the things I have experienced, the hurts I have encountered, or the things that once bothered me. These things have shaped me into the woman I am now and because I am still a woman in progress, I can safely say I will be proud of the woman I will become in my golden years.

Getting older, you know, is not as bad as I thought it would be.

But now, I will just ramble on... now's the time, the time is now....I'm on my way.

Pina Martinelli

Pina1101@aol.com