This One Made Me Think
about turning fifty-four
Thank you all for the sweet birthday wishes. The weekend felt truly celebratory and it filled my heart with love and gratitude. I am so lucky to have wonderful people in my life, including y’all.
I want to address a comment on my post from Sunday.
but I’m left wondering why you had thought you wouldn’t live to be 54.
That is a totally fair and appropriate question. And here’s what I think: I have a hard time visualizing myself as old, or even middle-aged, which we know I’ve reached now. I think it’s at least partially because my parents died so young—I don’t really have a model for how to grow old. I, of course, have an extended family that includes my grandmother, who is now almost 100. But the direct model of a parent is something I didn’t get for very long. My mother and father lived to be forty-one and forty-four, respectively, and I saw those birthdays go by, well, a decade ago.
I finished my first book, Blood, on my forty-fifth birthday. I think I was able to call it done that day because I had passed some existential time marker—I had lived to be older than both my parents. In some ways, I was set free by that. My life became my own, but I still didn’t have a map. The past decade has reflected that in good and not so good ways. On one hand, I feel able to live my own life without outside influence, which means I have been free of that kind of guilt-laden baggage. But on the other, what would I have given for a strong guide and wise counsel when I needed it? Not that my parents would’ve been that, but again, I have no blueprint, so dreams are allowed—who knows how they’d have turned out?
Finally, I don’t want to get too dark here, but studies show that children of parents who committed suicide are three times as likely to commit suicide themselves. I am fortunate that route out of here has hardly ever been on my mind—I can’t say never because I don’t think anyone can say never—but what I can say is children look to their parents first for their example of how to live. I am quite aware, especially these days, that nothing is guaranteed. If I’d made a handful of terrible decisions from which I couldn’t recover, it could’ve happened. We never know, do we?
I hope this helps explain what I mean when I say I wasn’t convinced I’d live to be this old. I’ve had a wild life and statistically, considering my score on the trauma or adverse childhood experience scale, my life should end up being about twenty years shorter than the average person’s. I guess the knowledge of that has always hovered around my head.
Maybe it will go away now. Because I’m more okay than I’ve ever been. I have agency and I have a really great life filled with really great people who love me. I’m happy I’m here and want to stay as long as I can. Despite everything, I think this world is a beautiful place.
Peace. Love.
Allison
On the subject of growing old, I feel compelled to tell you an awful lot of well meaning people will give you a lot of advice on the time to do it, and the proper way to approach it. I know this because I suffered through that "awful lot" myself, and I almost fell for it!
What I really want to say is as long as you keep going, keep doing, keep pursuing your passions and refuse to let anybody "set you down", the longer you last, the longer you remain engaged, and vital.
Sure, you have to stay aware of your health, and your own limitations, and adjustments will necessarily happen, but be adamant about you making them, and not "an awful lot" of well meaning friends. Doctors should probably be the exception to the advisors you ignore with a smile, but I think life is going on around us all the time. A comfy sofa, staying safe inside, not overdoing it, might keep you from pulling a muscle, but it can also deprive you of a ton of meaningful experiences, wonderful adventures, and fabulous memories. And I'm told it's true of muscle, if you don't use it you lose it. I see no reason that can't be true of life itself.
Somebody said it, I wish I knew who, but "you ain't beat till you quit", so keep moving forward as long as you can!
Once you park yourself on the couch with a remote and a cellphone as your two best friends, it gets hard to get up and make it to the dance!
Just a thought (that turned into a dozen, lol).
I know a lot of people will say "Have a nice day", "Have a nice evening" or "Have a great weekend", and there is nothing wrong with that, especially if it's heartfelt and not just uttering an appropriate cliche. But they all feel somewhat limited, and like some lives, over far too soon.
What I wish for you is a fantastic, wonderfully fabulous, curious, adventurous, well traveled, well read, fully experienced life, full of the best music you can find or create, the best dances you can see or better yet dance to yourself. I wish for your life to be productive, prosperous, and purposeful, healthy, and perhaps most importantly, happy!
You owe it to yourself.
I made a decision a while back that I was not going to get old. Of course I would look older, but I was going to do my best to keep my mind and heart young. At 74, so far so good. 😎