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“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” laments the Beatles song.
When I was very young, which seems like some time ago now, no one in our generation wanted to live past thirty — it was considered to be too old, an age past the prime of life, when zesty new experiences would be lost on us. Now, we can watch a 78-year-old Mick Jagger prance and leap (next to an even older Keith Richards) like he’s a youngster, as he belts out “Satisfaction” one more time. Aging appears to be more psychological than physical now that people are living so much longer, thanks largely to modern science and more focus on healthy lifestyles. The old notions of aging are just that: old. If mid-life now means 55, then certainly 60 is the new 40, and then we can subtract from there.
As science and psychology meet, what does this mean for our lives and our relationships if aging out is no longer a factor? As I ponder the vicissitudes of this strange new world, it occurs to me that we live in a culture that not only is youth-oriented, but in which the ways people can act out youthful fantasies occur in an increasing variety. Whether it’s through spiritual vitality, jumping out of planes at 90, or running marathons well into dotage, we seem to be defying gravity. What dreams we can now carry out is no longer determined by age, but by our confidence in our ability to do them.
I also notice the so-called summer/winter liaisons and romances. It’s long been fodder for salacious jokes and pithy put downs, but who really has the last laugh? To folks who are in those relationships, they may feel as if they are in a really cool time machine that psychologically insulates them from old age and impending doom. But it begs the question: is this an example of a vapid emotional wasteland, people subconsciously expressing a deep seeded fear of death, or is it that, with longer lives, youth is extended to the point where age differences matter less and less? There are some who suggest that, for men, it’s an attempt to overcome a dreaded form of so-called male menopause that accompanies the slowdown of testosterone production in our bodies, but even that wisdom is dated. The truth is that, for many men, it no longer matters. We can simply supplement the slow loss of testosterone with Viagra (and other tools of modern medicine) and vavoom— we are 29 again.
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Scientists do not agree that there is such a thing as male menopause. The phrase itself seems a misnomer, if not a little insulting, and the drop in testosterone that accompanies getting older is natural and can be managed pretty simply with diet and lifestyle changes. But, we certainly can see the psychological manifestations of a cultural revolution — one that defies the former logic and organizes psychological thought toward pleasure and activity — that this new longevity has created. We see men and women leaving their families behind (perhaps breaking off long-term unhappy marriages) for a much younger person, and we may scoff and deride this endeavor as being childish and without depth. Is this simply the re-manifested urge to mate with younger versions of ourselves, to maintain the species and pass on more genetic duplicates? Or is it a new psychological state of mind that has created the opportunity to live as if we are younger versions of ourselves?
Many of us who have passed the middle point of our lives have worked our whole lives, made babies, sacrificed for our children, just to see our remaining time slipping away. Watching past achievements sitting, collecting dust, as our relevance seems to dwindle, the urge to rush out and keep living can be overwhelming. In this mad dash for lost youth, I see more of us springing for younger partners, seeking to play out those long-held fantasies of freedom. There are others, however, who stay the course, and live out their lives as they promised they would do, lo those many years ago. Do the ones that leave their marriages live with secret shame and regret for having pulled apart two lifetimes’ worth of work to chase a dream only they had? Do the ones that stay live in denial of the joy they might find pursuing new adventures with a new partner, or no partner, by their side?
Is it possible to regain our love interest in our partner while still keeping what is sacred intact? How can we make it out of the drudgery without destroying everything in the process, including our self-respect? For those people who have attained financial success, we may find some extra testosterone swimming around in their systems, but it’s no guarantee for vitality. After years of marriage, the energy and intensity softens. We may then long for those intense pheromone infatuations coupled with a jolt of sexual attraction to take us back to our early 20’s. But time is stubbornly a one-way experience, and turning back the clock isn’t actually possible. Is the only option, then, to jump out of our established lives and go for it, leaving all that we have built behind? Beaudelaire once said that he would experience an “Eternity of damnation for an instant of eternal bliss.” Does our fear of aging or of death drive us toward the life force, even as our own is draining out of us? Does our system, in its need to survive, sustain us by ramping up our sex drive?
How do we withstand the normal turmoil in our lives, keep what we have and still find something fresh and new to appreciate about it? Sometimes what we have is not what we once did — for better or for worse. Can a relationship survive for 30 years without a face lift of some kind? The answer is a definitive no. To recapture youth and vigor — that is to say, to break out of old mindsets — we will need to remake our lives. Sometimes it takes bold steps to break down the walls that make us old before our time. We may need to try things, make mistakes and go off on a wild goose chases to create change. Sometimes, everything has to break. The value of conflict, a reckoning, smashing the old ways can be healthy. We liken it to breaking a vase. When we glue it together it’s stronger, but the cracks are there too — maybe that’s a good thing. We should never just assume that our partner will always be with us. We may need that reminder that our life partner is with us because they want to be, but they will walk if we don’t treat them right.
Sandra Tsing Loh, who is known for her work on NPR with “The Loh Down on Science” and her book The Madwoman in the Volvo, speaks of her brush with menopause in a recent LA Times interview. She talks about how therapy does and doesn’t work. She says that therapists have to give advice that is healthy and sensible — but what may actually be needed is to “Divorce your husband, have an affair, or date a younger man, or go on a cruise, or move to Africa.” What she means here is that we have to break the frame. We have to shake things up and come up with some new solutions when things start to become a form of soul death. Of course, drastic steps are dangerous on many levels, but there is a point here even if you don’t feel like moving to another continent. Sometimes you have to let it all go so that everything old can become new again. Even if it’s just that we come clean about our wishes and fantasies.
It’s really about emotional isolation, fear of death and the phenomenal importance that advertising and living longer have created in us.
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Herein lies our dilemma: Which way do we go? Do we buy a boat and cruise the world? Does this save us, give us life and force us to reassess? Or is it like Jon Kabat-Zinn tells us in his book, Everywhere You Go, There You Are, that there is no escape from ourselves because we take all our inner stuff with us wherever we go? In our work, the saying goes that there are no geographical cures, only internal ones. Happiness, as it turns out, is an inside job. We take our cures from our inner world as we listen for signs of life. The key, then, in all our midlife worlds, is to take note, listen to the stirrings, make sense, find some healthy outlets and go for something new and interesting — not necessarily the cute, cheeky chatterbox at the local dive.
Some of this tension, it appears, is actually the result of not taking good care of ourselves. It’s really about emotional isolation, fear of death and the phenomenal importance of behaving youthfully that advertising created in us. Whether it’s biological or psychological is, in the final analysis, moot: It’s about how we want to live our lives and what quality we want in them. As for relationships and midlife, the only way to make it work over the long haul is to, first, work out a way to have a safe relationship; and second, open up to your mate, the good the bad and the ugly.
If you truly want to stay forever young, then open your heart, knowing that it might not go well in the beginning. But I can tell you from some experience, there really are no viable alternatives or substitutes. Find some time, sit down, and throw down the gauntlet, so to speak: meet yourself with honesty at the intersection within you where life and passion meet.
Diane Akerman writes eloquently about the subject in her book The Natural History of Love :
“So it is with love. Values, customs, and protocols may vary from ancient days to the present, but not the majesty of love. People are unique in the way they walk, dress, and gesture, yet we’re able to look at two people–one wearing a business suit, the other a sarong — and recognize that both of them are clothed. Love also has many fashions, some bizarre and (to our taste) shocking, others more familiar, but all are part of a phantasmagoria we know. In the Serengeti of the heart, time and nation are irrelevant. On that plain all fires are the same fire.”
Everything that is old can become new in this process.
The classic film Harold and Maude expounds on the central issue regarding age. Ruth Gordon plays the part of a woman in her late 70’s who is full of life and befriends a young man in his twenties who is suicidal and decidedly 40 years her junior. He acts the older one and she is so full of youthful fancy and fun. She shows him how to live and in that process they save one another. She opens his eyes to what a life can be like, if one but has the attitude — and with this film, it’s all about attitude.
The solution, then, to the question of how to handle the psychological crisis of getting older is to find new pathways. Finding new friends, trying innovative things, developing interests, passions and soul satisfying activities can boost our zest for life and in that sense remain forever young. The worst thing we can do is to stop growing. Refusing to open ourselves up to new ideas is a form of death. Being alone in this kind of pain is the worst of it. Finding a tribe, a therapist, a muse and hopefully our partner and seeing they have our back is the best of it. So fling back the flood gates and make a new path, one where you can find your own peace and happiness and feel the life force coursing through you. Your well-being is your job and in the end it’s all that matters. Midlife crises are just another way your body and mind are telling you to get busy and make your life matter before it’s too late.
Photo credit: iStock
Just this past weekend I was talking with Danny Abramowicz at a function. He played for the Saint back in the 60’s/70’s, 49rs in the 70’s and was a special teams coach for the Bears and offensive coordinator for the Saints. And we were talking about death. He has a heart condition as do I. We shared our stories about facing death. And you know what? We both agree, we’re not afraid of death. Things are good in our lives but what’s got us stoked, is that we’re good with God. He’s older but we both have a lot of… Read more »