Emancipation

  As considerably more than half of the people who visit my office are 55-85, I am (without Virgil's experience of having preceded Dante into Dodge City or wherever they dared go, together and long ago) guiding/walking-alongside a number of folk who are restructuring their lives and using words like retirement. People who feel the need to restructure their lives in the aftermath of however far we or they have managed to get in the realization of their young person Dreams (much, to my way of thinking, as Levinson and Sheehy (using his data) demonstrated beginning in the 40-50 year old period when people begin a process of redefinition.)  For each of my visitors  and assuredly for myself it's complicated. One woman whose patients began complaining (she over 80 and a physician doing meds mngmnt and therapy) that she would forget to file a prescription for them or would nod off during sessions. For another woman, it was realizing that she was exhausted every night after her varied clinical hours. "when is it gonna be my turn?" she kept asking. She, like me, had a-fib which cut into energy levels and during paroxysms disturb executive functions, as the brain is tricked into thinking the erratically elevated heart rate is because of anxiety subsequent to danger.  My own case seems typical. My functioning has been limiting since the early 90's when I began cutting back. At that point, I was administering in a variety of places, teaching in a University full-time, supervising a lot of different kinds of practitioners and in clinical practice. My. Kids were all pretty grown, two well out of college and one on her way.  'something's gotta give ... Something's gotta give.'  Over the next 20 years, I pared it down, leaving only a half time private practice of < 30 hrs/week and some writing. By the late 90's, physical symptoms of middle age were expressing themselves. I no longer thought as clearly as I once did ... There was no misfunction ... Just less function. My sleep was less regular. I began breaking metatarsals interrupting the loneliness of my long-distance running. Sexual appetites modulated. The intensities of the young and of early middle age lessen and are replaced by a joy in the mutual pleasurings of The Last Quarter. Intercourse is no longer simply Freud's release of sexual products ... poor Papa. He missed so much. Memory was not the memory of childhood. Retrieval, need I say, was not the last guest to leave the party. Teaching, organizational supervision, administration were slowly disengaged from. My only major piece of writing appeared in the late 90's and I walked with a cane for two months after rising from that labor of writing some 500 pages.  Both university teaching and administration were the ones that had to give. Now, I lose a goodly % of each week to afib ... Less with new meds. All these other Souls are in my life .... Grandchildren and inlaw children! Running has become walk-running .... Recognition is still strong but retrieval really sucks, now ... energy is lessened ... Loving feelings are increased ... Dinner with my longest-standing friends, last night, was heartening. Milt just retired from a life of Univ teaching ... Just two months, ago. Ruth retired years ago. It's clear that the four of us take care of each other. That's become important.    Maybe that's it ... Theoretical differences and nuance become less important .... A form of Caritas has grown, in it's place.  ...Christians, Hindus, Jews, a far left octogenarian feminist and a radical vegan anti-vivisectionist will be led in a liturgy compiled from various sources (including a hagaddah written by Velikovsky and anotyer lost friend) by my 14 yo grandchild based in gratitude for the upcoming holiday ... Or, at least, that's what I requested. She and that family of hers will be elsewhere but her liturgical presence will be felt.  Life is always about change or else it's about  Refusing to change.  Existence, for me, is always 4 dim ... with the 4th dim being time or change, take your pick.  Life would've been different had M and I had children later ... Retirement would have been different, as well. But every single thing past alters the cone of possibilities whose point opens up wide into the future, ay? So it is! So, be it!  I have changed. I arose this morning at 4 due to change in the sinus bloc of my life-pump, my heart ...  I think the rest of the day is about cooking.  Tomorrow and the next day about the experience of gratitude for freedoms, in particular, and life, in general. What a gift, even if my prefrontal cortical area and it's good memory and careful thought are following my hairline out the back of my head.