It was that very moment when I knew things had to change. An epiphany of sorts. It is all the ways we avoid taking responsibility for ourselves. The friend that didn't call to ask whether we got the job. Or if we recovered well from surgery. A happy birthday phone call. Or even being in someone's home. They return late from work, pour themselves a glass of wine and don't bother to ask if you would like one, too. The sadness one feels at being forgotten. Switch that up and one could sum it up by not asking for the things you want. But times continue to change and what worked fifty years ago, isn't applicable today. Younger generations don't know that. But they will. Especially as their own mortality closes in.
You see the younger generation believe, as they do that you will speak up for yourself. Help yourself. They do so they naturally think you will do it as well. They simply don't understand or care about generational change. They care more about themselves. I reduce it to lack of manners. Of thought. I imagine my own parents felt the same way.
This all began nearly fifty years ago. It had something to do with the marriage, although I haven't quite worked that out completely. Prior to that, I just took care of whatever I needed. Maybe it was in the person with whom I chose to spend my life. Maybe early on my bodymind knew I was totally on my own but it didn't register in the brain. Clearly! So maybe I sought this out in others. Who knows.
As I attempt to recover from my own foibles and laughter at having typed that in the first place, my thoughts return to the film,
The Wife. It is remarkably profound in so many ways. A talented writer, for reasons discussed in the film, leaves what could have been a stellar writing career to look after her husband. That not so tacit understanding that she wasn't good enough, a female who wouldn't be published because female writers weren't taken seriously back then, coupled with his egomaniacal nature left her in the dust. At least, not authored. Or recognized.
Turning seventy is a decade of reflection. Reflecting on the people who have been close to you. Cared for and about you. Those you will leave behind, those who will continue with you. I've been doing a lot of the former lately. Uneven relationships. All completed. No sadness, regrets, just moving on.
So in all of this what you are really doing is making other people more important than yourself. And that realization is the moment that everything changed.
