Ain’t for Sissies

Two weeks ago, I enjoyed my annual biblical storytelling extravaganza: the yearly Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers, International, preceded by three days of the NBSI Scholars’ Seminar and then followed by two days of board meetings (not sure I technically enjoyed the bored … er … board meeting but it was good to spend a few more days with my tribe). And then? My body, mind, and spirit needed the whole next week to recuperate! I didn’t use to require this extensive period of recovery but, alas, I’m no longer a spring chicken. And, as Bette Davis is famous for saying, “Gettin’ old ain’t for sissies.” (sigh …)

I was reminded of this transformation, and particularly how things used to be, when I received an email from this year’s Festival Gathering Coordinator, the day after returning home, asking for a chat to get my take on ways to tweak next year’s schedule. I playfully called her the Energizer Bunny and then asked for a few days to decompress before honoring her request. Her youthful exuberance and lively spirit made me smile because it recalled a very similar vibrancy I had once possessed decades ago when I had been the Festival Gathering Coordinator and had myself been energized by the experience rather than depleted by it. Ah … those were the days … ?

This brief reverie also reminded me of a somewhat similar reflection I’d written three years ago while convalescing after my first hip replacement. I’d never done anything with it, so I dug it up and reread it. Now seems like an appropriate time to share it:

2019 was a less-than-stellar year … for many reasons. It was the final months of Mom’s life, and the end wasn’t particularly pretty. My finances took a major enough hit with fewer freelance gigs and a couple of cancelled seminary classes that I had to ask some friends for help paying my bills (never a comfortable place to be). And then there was my health. My gimpy left hip continued to plague me with pain, leading to an ever-increasingly sedentary lifestyle that I’m convinced at least partially (and perhaps mostly) caused a revisit of my 2011 blood clot issues that resulted in 3 nights in the hospital, 6 months of blood thinners, and enough doctors’ visits and tests during autumn to constitute a part-time job (well, let’s call it an internship because I sure wasn’t getting paid for any of it … quite the opposite!).

Months later, I was updating a friend on everything that had transpired and he asked what toll all that had taken on me. I don’t recall if “toll” was the exact word he used but he was definitely trying to get deeper than the typically superficial, “So, how are you?” which is usually answered with an automatic, “Fine” which then encourages the conversation to quickly move on to more “important”—or at least more comfortable—topics. What he wanted to know was how preoccupying all this had been for my overall wellbeing, and I told him it had been all-consuming. But it was more than that. It had been transformational … and not in a good way.

So I responded truthfully, “2019 is the year I turned old.”

Please understand that I’ve never been someone obsessed with youth. In fact, if anything, the wisdom that (hopefully!) comes with age has always been an enticing aspect of getting older. I have no desire to return to a younger age, think that playing coy when asked one’s age (or, worse yet, getting insulted) is ridiculous, and relish each additional candle that graces every subsequent birthday cake. I mean, let’s think about the options: you can get older, or you can die. Period. No contest!

But being OK with gradually aging isn’t the same thing as being OK with suddenly feeling old. Especially at 54. And that’s the condition I found myself in as 2019 wound to a close. I was fully aware—and OK with the fact—that I was no longer 24, or 34, or 44. But neither was I 94, 84, 74, or even 64. If I was already feeling this old, hobbled, and infirm just barely over the half-century mark, that didn’t provide much joyful anticipation for the potentially several more decades of life still ahead of me.

But as disturbing as all that was, there was something else troubling me as well, something connected with this unfamiliar—and unwelcome—fragility:

I had always been the strong one. In every way.

I was physically strong (my junior high gym teacher sincerely wanted to recruit me as a linebacker for the boy’s football team!), emotionally tough (I intentionally avoided crying during my entire teenage years—long story for another time!), and mentally resilient (able to juggle a crazy freelance lifestyle all on my own for multiple decades). My name—Tracy—actually means “courageous warrior” and I’ve worn that descriptor as a badge of honor as well as a behavioral reminder. People expect me to be strong. I expect me to be strong. It’s not just part of who I am, it IS who I am. It’s my identity.

So, to have found myself having to forgo hikes, and rethink travel plans, and even refrain from shaking my booty when a soul-stirring song played, for crying out loud, was a very disturbing development in the Life of Tracy, to say the least.

If I wasn’t strong and tough and sturdy and resilient, who was I?

That unanswered question from three years ago still begs for a response today as I am, once again, reminded of my vulnerability, reminded that I don’t have the same body or energy level of Tracy from 25 years ago, reminded that there are chinks in my armor (hell, there are whole pieces of that armor that have simply vanished!).

So, who am I? Well, maybe at 58 now, it’s time (past time?) for me to start creating a new identity that doesn’t rely solely on fiercely independent strength but one that embraces a softer, slower, gentler pace and the occasional need to depend on others … one that honors personal changes and times of rest … one that celebrates and is grateful for whatever functioning abilities I still happen to possess at each new phase and stage of life.

I suppose what I really desire is a version of the well-known serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time, and enjoying one moment at a time. Most of all, may all of that come with a dose of grace and a bit of humor.

Lord knows I’ll need ‘em because … gettin’ old ain’t for sissies!