The Rear of the Firing Line

Something has happened to me as I now enter my sixty-fifth year of life on this planet. I won’t reach the magic birthday until August, but my body and my outlook are very graphically telling me that life will be different from now on. I never really believed that I would age. Because I’ve had good genes I took my relatively youthful looks for granted. No one told me that those who are slow to age get presented all at once with the bill somewhere down the line.

My bill arrived on my 64th birthday. I woke up to discover that my hair had coarsened, my knees were finally protesting their harsh treatment, that a network of lines had erupted on my neck, the sunspots on my face and hands had suddenly become prominent, and even the skin texture on my face was more like crepe than vibrant, youthful skin.

Despite my self-congratulatory belief that age would pass me by, I was not unduly surprised about all this. After all, that’s why surgeons and botox exist. America’s fascination with personal nip and tuck is just one more manifestation of the total makeover. You can look artificially as young as your wallet will allow you to.

What I was surprised about was my new outlook on life. It has taken me several months to understand it—if I can really say that I do. But I know that I have changed in some profound ways.

For one thing, I have decided to forgive myself for the real and imagined failures of my life. I am no longer interested in agonizing over the what-ifs any more. I made my decisions, I took my chances, and I want celebrate the things of which I can be proud. I have written two books. They are the best that I can do. I think they say something about what I have learned in life and I hope that they speak to other people. If only my friends read them, then I rejoice in that. I no longer need praise and recognition to validate what I have accomplished in my life. I know now that I will never be the popular writer with the glamorous life that I once dreamed of being. But that was not my destiny and I will be proud instead that I had the stamina and courage to write something only I could do.

For another, I am able to see my parents as human beings rather than as extensions of myself. Life has taught me to have compassion. I know now that I am not responsible for the choices they made in their lifetimes and under very different circumstances. I have lived too long listening to the moralists of the world and apologizing. I never again want to hear others preaching the shoulds and shouldn’ts. They don’t know anymore about what’s right than I do. I have needed to bring judgement out into the light and let it fly away.

For yet another, I recognize that the things that mattered to me before no longer have relevance in my life and probably never should have. I no longer feel the need to justify my existence by hustling to be productive. I spent a lifetime doing that. I was successful in a competitive and fast-paced career. Now I wonder what I thought I was doing. Did I really think I was essential? At the end of her political career, when the British electorate dumped her, Margaret Thatcher remarked that it was a strange old world. We all reach the point in our lives that she’s talking about. It’s that point when suddenly the ways we have found meaning in our lives cease to be. We are left alone then to pick up whatever pieces of ourselves are left. We are told, in effect, to “pick up our brass and move to the rear of the firing line,” as Sid likes to quote.

Some of us will leave behind building and roads named for us. Some will be in history books. Some will leave enduring art. But most of us will leave behind our families to continue on. Often the things we think we will be remembered for crumble in dust along with the scrapbooks we keep of who we once were.

As I turn 65, I help my family as I can and value those who take the time to care about me. That’s why I recently searched for two of my university teachers who made a difference in my life. I was saddened to realize how frail they are, but heartened at the same time by their pleasure at being remembered. I wanted them to know that they had meant something more than tenure and promotions and publications—someone valued them enough to want to tell them so.

That, it seems to me, is the best thing that anyone can be remembered for.