Thoughts on Aging

[Barbara Branden]

Note: This article is originally appeared on OL July 19 and posts on this thread were lost during the disaster of July 2006.

Thoughts on Aging

By Barbara Branden

I turned seventy-seven this year. I look at that sentence, and it seems as if the words "seventy-seven" must be a typo. What has that number to do with me? I remember that when I was still under twenty, I read a short story – I've never quite understood why this passage struck me forcibly at the time and why it has remained with me -- in which an elderly woman, in her bathtub, looked down at her body and thought: "How very strange. Here I am, I've lived all these years, and this is my body, and I've earned it – and nobody understands that inside, I'm still eighteen."

Inside, I am still eighteen. I hope I've learned a lot, and I've certainly lived a lot, yet still all the passion, all the curiosity, all the wonder at the beauty and the possibilities of life on this jewel of a planet we inhabit, remain with me as they were when I was a girl, unaltered by time. There was a river that flowed across the street from my home in Winnipeg, and when I was a young girl I'd go there to sit on the riverbank and dream about what my future would be. I would know great people, I told myself, I would travel to great cities, I would devour whole libraries and learn and never stop learning and I would read about the noble lives others had lived, I would find the answers to all the questions that I struggled with, I would find friends who shared my dreams and my passions and I would find a man to love who saw the world as I saw it and with whom I could share my life – and I would write, I would find ways to set down on paper the things I felt and understood, I would communicate to others the incredible treasure that is our life.

And now, as I look back, I see that I have done it all. Much of it has been different than I imagined, there has been more pain that I expected, I have not found answers to all my questions – but I would not choose to have it otherwise, since the questions lead me to tomorrow, where the answers might yet lie. There has not been one man with whom I have shared the whole of my life, but three men whom I have loved deeply and passionately -- a great gift I would not choose to have lived without. Some of my gods have failed, but, in so doing, they have taught me that to be a god is a simple thing but to be a human being is not. And today, I can echo the words Ayn Rand once said to me: "I don't regret a moment of my life."

I have found that aging is not wholly an entry into years of gold. It brings with it the pain of losing people I have loved. My mother, whom I adored from the moment I opened my eyes on the world, died when I was still in my thirties; it is a loss that does not fade. My beloved older brother died suddenly sixteen years ago, a blow to me beyond anything I had ever experienced. I have lost dear friends, Roy Childs for one, and others who had been my life-long comrades and who have left me forever. My father, the kindest and most generous man I have ever known, died when he was only sixty; three very dear aunts, all over ninety, and a very special cousin with whom I played Tarzan in my yard when we were children, are gone now, and I miss them. Ayn Rand died, my mentor, my much-loved friend, and my enemy, whose thoughts and influence and the memory of my unrepeatable years with her will never leave me. But I have learned, through these deaths, that we do not cease to love when the object of our love dies; the love remains, and the beloved is alive in our hearts forever.

Cherished friends remain, however. Joan Blumenthal, my friend since I was thirteen, the first person to whom I could speak of what I thought and what I loved and what I dreamed and know that I would be understood. Wilfred Schwartz, my first boyfriend when I was fifteen and still, more than fifty years later, my dear friend, who has stood by me through all the traumas and the triumphs of my life. And James Kilbourne, whom I met eleven years ago on a moonlit terrace in Athens, Greece. A boyfriend once told me a fable that I loved, and I had him tell it again and again. The story was that my friends and I had been born and had lived on Rigel, where we had played, carefree and happy, among the stars. One day, God decided that it was time for us to go to Earth and learn its mysteries. He picked us up in His hands and scattered us over the earth – and from then on, each of us searched always for our lost playmates. In James, I knew almost at once that I had found my playmate from the stars. I have learned so much from each of these friends; they have enriched my life, for which I am more grateful than I can say.

Aging brings with it, also, the piercing sadness of watching some of my friends – happily, only a very few -- fade and seem to diminish, to lose some of the fire that had burned in them and illuminated their existence. It brings with it the physical problems that inevitably come with the years, in my case again fortunately very few. I survived cancer almost fourteen years ago and have been in remission, and quite well for the most part, ever since.

I never really noticed the years flashing by. I didn't experience the trauma many people report at becoming forty, or fifty, or sixty – not even seventy. I have never observed any failing in my mental abilities; in fact, I think that I am wiser, more stable and centered, more tolerant and loving than I have ever been. Whatever self-doubts I once had – and there were many – I have never doubted my intelligence; and with advancing years, I feel that it is more highly developed and that it serves me better than it ever did. I feel a still-growing confidence in Barbara, the certainty that she will cope with whatever problems she must face. But with my seventieth birthday, I found myself becoming thoughtful about the years to come. I realized that those years were limited and that it was time to decide what I wanted to do with them. I have decided. There still are mountains I want to climb, and singing words to put on paper; I have not devoured all the libraries in the world, a feast which still awaits me, and there are still great cities to see and new playmates to encounter and new experiences to have and wonders to discover and knowledge to gain. I am not afraid of the years to come. I have found that one great advantage of aging is that there's not much that I am afraid of. I want to remain on this jewel of a planet for as long as I can.

I have always loved the poem by Robert Browning that ends with these lines:

"Grow old along with me,

The best is yet to be,

The end of life for which the first was made."

Barbara

[Charles R. Anderson]

Barbara's post is an enchanting treasure. Too bad the many appreciative responses to it have been lost. I still love it and the spirit of the woman who wrote it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Charles,

That is one of Barbara's treasures.

Some posts from the black hole of July 17-27, 2006 were saved on a printout by Kat. They haven't been posted yet, but they will be soon.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

We managed to recover a few original posts from the July 17-27 black hole. Unfortunately this is all we have unless someone else saved or printed out more.

Michael

Barbara,

My mother is 78, my father 77. What I wouldn’t give for them to be able to see their lives with the spirit with which you see yours My wife, who is 8 years younger than I, has taught me the value of striving for the life I can look back on with pride when I come closer to reflecting on it as a completed whole. I want to see the life I have lived with the feeling and spirit in your words when I judge what I have created and the choices I have made. I am just getting to know you and I look forward to learning more about you and from you for years to come.

Paul

Dayaamm that was simply beautiful, Barbara.

Coming from you, it had to be so.

Michael

I loved what you wrote, Barbara. I feel much the same way, having just turned 58 a few weeks ago and looking back over what has happened so far. And I look forward to being one of your playmates in the years to come. We have work and fun to do together, and I am impatient to get past the next few very busy weeks so we can set aside some time for that work and fun.

Best,

REB

Barbara,

Beautiful and life-giving!

I never really noticed the years flashing by. I didn’t experience the trauma many people report at becoming forty, or fifty, or sixty—not even seventy. I have never observed any failing in my mental abilities; in fact, I think that I am wiser, more stable and centered, more tolerant and loving that I have ever been. Whatever self-doubts I once had—and there were many—I have never doubted my intelligence; and with advancing years, I feel that it is more highly developed and that it serves me better than it ever did. I feel a still-growing confidence in Barbara, the certainty that she will cope with whatever problems she must face. But with my seventieth birthday, I found myself becoming thoughtful about the years to come. I realized that those years were limited and that it was time to decide what I wanted to do with them. I have decided. There are mountains that I want to climb, and singing words to put on paper; I have not devoured all the libraries in the world, a feast which still awaits me, and there are still great cities to see and new playmates to encounter and new experiences to have and wonders to discover and knowledge to gain I am not afraid of the years to come. I have found that one great advantage of aging is that there’s not much that I am afraid of. I want to remain on this jewel of a planet for a long time.

I know. I love you.

[Rich Engle]

Barbara-

I hope you got the thank you email I sent the day you posted this article. You made something very important happen for me.

best,

rde

[Brant Gaede]

Thanks, Barbara. I really liked reading this.

--Brant