Flights of Fancy
First published in my print column The Nature of Things
Certain facets of getting older are actually really great. No one tells you this. But it has been a rather pleasant surprise for me.
When I was young, I was just sure my life was going to be remarkable. Then, I believed many things that people believe when they’re young and unacquainted with the fickle nature of life that holds your heart in its teeth: the fleetingness of time, the tragic fragility of certain relationships, the surprising endurance (relentlessness?) of others. And now, to be a woman of a certain age, and to be living a life radically different from how I once imagined it would be, I find my life has surprised me, circling back to a sort of completion of the basic elements I once sought, however inadvertently I achieved them.
With hindsight being the clearest, I’m pleased to discover how aging continually affords a much broader field of vision from which to consider a life. And just because mine didn’t unfold exactly how my youthful mind imagined it might, has not made it any less remarkable an experience—not to me at least.
For every course and decision that, at the time, felt like a set-back or detour or distraction from where I thought I wanted to go, I was repeatedly forced to expand my perspective, and stretch to new limits. Though not always pleasant in the process, it is only in the looking back that I now have the proper angle from which to truly appreciate the value of those experiences.
Of course we’ve all heard of this ‘hindsight insight,’ usually in an under-the-breath utterance by an elder, or in an out-and-out sit-down talk from the same. When we’re young, that sort of lecture is merely endured, rather than heard, and usually with eye-rolling impatience. But to find myself as the elder now…I get it. I totally get it now, looking back from the other side. And what a wonderful place to be.
To understand, by authentic experience, that the actual living of life is the point, not the planning of it. To see through to the truth behind the illusions of safety and control we so carefully cultivate to deflect our fear of the unknown. Truth that, once revealed, becomes a genie you can’t put back in the bottle. The kind of sight that truly teaches; so we can look back on those times where life split us open, and we can see them in a different kind of light. We can see it was only when we were broken that the light got in through the cracks and allowed for something new to grow. We realize it was only when we let go of our tight-fisted grip on how we thought life should unfold, and how the rest of the world was supposed to respond, that we were free to be guided—blindly, heart beating hard—over the edge and into the great abyss of the next unknown.
One of the most beautiful aspects of growing older is realizing in those moments when it felt like you were giving in or giving up, you now see how you had to first lose your footing on solid ground in order to find your wings for flight.
