“But I still feel 21” #078

The wonderful comments you wrote in response to last week’s “I knew no one”, caused me to reflect on that thing we call age and ageing.

A distillation

I can distill your comments down to a gratitude about generally caring less, tinged with a sense of loss, of time passed, and passing. With comments such as “but I still feel the same as I did at 21”.

I do too. At least, that’s what the voice in my head tells me.

The voice

The voice which doesn’t recognise my current sixty one year old self. That one.

The one in defiance to my ever ageing skin, gathering wrinkles, the saggs and droops of gravity, the gradually greying hair, the softening post menopausal belly. That one.

The one that defiantly ignores my self-limiting mind chatter – I’m too old, too unfit, too scared, too undignified - what would people say?

The voice which feels familiar, yet creates a sense of aloneness in the infrequent times I get really still, undistracted or meditate.

The one that those far wiser and well read call the Inner Witness, the Voice Within, the Higher Self, the True Self, our Naked Self, our Soul.

Strangers in the future

When I was 21 I couldn’t possibly imagine the person I’d be today. I recall trying to imagine the year 2000. The year I’d turn 36. And it feeling a distant, unknown place. I’d be so old and over the hill. Barely worth thinking about.

Let alone being sixty bloody one! Jeepers.

Behavioural scientist Hal Hershfield discovered our future self feels like a stranger to us. Probably the reason why so many of us save precious little for our future – what’s left over rather than paying our future self first. Nor look after our bodies - we drive rather than walking. Accept, rather than refuse, that extra drink, cake or portion of chips.

Choosing to live for today rather than tomorrow.

Strangers in the past

At the same time, when I look back ten years, to 2015 I need my iPhone photos to nudge memories of my then self…skiing in Cervinia, visiting friends in Helsinki, cheering my partner and her cycling group into Madrid, my business partner’s terminal illness and buying him out, The Red House team’s day return Christmas trip to Paris for lunch, London Zoo with my three year old niece, singing in the Some Voices choir at a deconsecrated church in Hackney, drinking Guinness in Dublin…

As for twenty years ago, 2005; and forty years ago to age twenty one? Alas, I didn’t have an iPhone - Instead life then is a beautifully distant memory of a former me.

With a common thread of friends, family and places.

Still, the voice

So, what is ‘that’ voice?

The Self that we carry with us through life yet so rarely, really hear. Our innate desire for life and living?

I’m not sure I know. But somewhere deep down I do feel a constant, inner sense of self. My ‘inner Ruth’. Perhaps it’s time to get to know her? I wonder what she’s urging me to notice and do?…

You

As ever, I’m interested in you.

I’m conscious all this may sound a bit out there and woo. Maybe that’s what a week on a remote Greek island does to you ;-)

Still, I’d love to know:

Do you hear an inner voice? How old is it? And what does it tell you?

Put on some mystic moods, pour yourself a delicious retsina or ouzo and drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you.

And remember, you’re never going to be any younger chronologically than you are today; what’s your twenty one year old self badgering you to do that you’ve not yet done? Go on, dare you ;-)

Finally, yesterday, in a taxi to Athen’s airport, a song came on the radio that spoke to this post, ‘“Forever Young”. Written by Bob Dylan, covered by many…

“May your hands always be busy,

May your feet always be strong,

May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of change shift,

May your heart always be joyful,

And may your song always be sung,

May you stay forever young”

Until next week my friends

Ruth x

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