Sunday, October 9, 2022

LATE-LIFE REALITY......REALLY


 





The following post dates from June, 2014, with a couple of recent updates. In my tired old eyes it still rings true 


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I’ve spent the last couple weeks proofreading October Bold one last time. In that story David and Marian are stumbling toward one another…..each of them weighing the possibility of a new relationship against their personal experience in a long and successful marriage. As I tell their story I am trying my best to imagine their hopes and anxieties as they consider a new and very different future.


Like it or not, late-life reality is inescapable. As I’ve said before, October is not for sissies. Of course, we all like to dwell on the high points of that special time….a fruitful marriage, our children’s success, the wonderful world of grandchildren, the moments when things work out like we planned. Who can fault us for reveling in those good times? More to the point, it is those successes, both large and small, that help us cope with the other side of late-life….the sometimes dark moments of October/November reality.


Whether as individuals or couples, each of us deals with our own unique set of late-life circumstances ….a personal blend of issues that may include family, financial, health, and relational challenges. 


Each of us knows someone who deals with one or all of those. Perhaps it is you. After all, those of us who are fortunate enough to make our way to late-life arrive with a weighty load of existential baggage. At every turn the person we are still becoming, and the future we are still creating will be impacted by those very real realities. 


Our April dreams….(Remember those?)…. have been tempered by a lifetime of personal experience. Yet even now we continue to update our expectations, creating new understandings of what we consider acceptable outcomes. We have learned by now that our dreams are not static. Our youthful visions of  “happy endings” have been reshaped, probably more than once. Though we keep dreaming, our dreams are undoubtedly very different these days. 


Truth is, for some of our peers loneliness, worry, and doubt have become dominant elements of their late-life existence….testing the responses they have spent a lifetime learning….creating what I consider spiritual challenges. 


No matter how you choose to label those soul-deep trials, my personal sense is that one of the most effective coping responses, whether you view your dilemma as transcendental or purely coincidental, is the presence of the right person at your side. I am one of those who believes that late-life works best as a shared experience.


But before we start down that path let me take a moment to address the obvious. For many, perhaps most late-life survivors a new relationship ……one that is meant to dull the hurt and loneliness of losing a beloved life-mate……is no answer at all. They are quite willing to settle for their one, just right, partner. I will admit that I have always considered myself to be in that camp.


After sixty-two years of satisfying matrimony and the blessings of family the great cosmic parade has taken my soulmate to a better place. One day I hope it will be my turn. In the meantime, I have never imagined the need for a new partner to take her place. Still, how could I say that would never happen? 


Since those stories of mine were written I have personally experienced the gnawing emptiness her leaving created. In ways I had never considered before I can sometimes relate to the feelings my Tenner Chronicles seekers are experiencing….the need for a supportive partner. Perhaps the pain of life lived alone fades with time, or maybe it is a permanent reality. In either case, how does one one move ahead?


It is the possibility that “It works for some people” which nudges me toward the October/November relational stories I tell….the ones that illustrate the impact of a new or renewed relationship on the distressing landscape of late-life reality. We know that sometimes happens in real life. And it happens in the course of my Tanner Chronicles stories.


Take a moment to consider that possibility. What kind of October/November person would choose to start from scratch with a new partner? If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lifetime creating a life with “the one.” (And he or she with you.) At this stage of the game, would you be willing to relive that same, sometimes bumpy learning process yet again?


In the course of eleven novel-length “relational” stories I have followed my Tanner friends, the ones with their own late-life issues, as they travel toward what they hope is “one more time.” Why wouldn’t I have paused along the way to wonder if my depictions of a “second chance relationship” are too simplistic? 


After all, I have lived out the deeply personal process of bonding with a life partner….and her with me. I know that the merging of any two lives into a meaningful partnership is not always an easy thing. 


That must be especially true when each of them has already spent a lifetime in the company of someone else, acquiring their own unique set of habits and preferences. My first partnership experience, all those years ago, required realistic expectations, chemistry, trust, patience, and a huge dose of good fortune. Seems to me that late-life relationships must be built on those same elements.


When I step back to consider my own experience I remember the first times I seriously considered a future with “her”….and how the youthful lad I was at the time charged ahead, relying on an oh-so-naive “I’m sure it will work out.” assumption. Fortunately, it did. But there were no guarantees. That was true then, and still is.


After all, there are so many variables. How can anyone be sure that what worked so well in one relationship will succeed with a new and different someone, especially someone they are still getting to know? Is that even realistic? Small wonder that not all my stories end with a gift-wrapped, happily-ever-after bow. Yet even then, who am I to say they shouldn’t have tried?


Perhaps you can tell that digging deep, looking for unseen motives is an occupational hazard for someone like me. If that’s true I accept it as the price of making my stories as authentic as possible. I want them to be something more than feel-good caricatures of lost and lonely souls seeking a last chance at happiness. My Tanner friends know it’s not always like that. Truth is, you’ll find very few ivory towers in a late-life landscape.

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