“That’s my kind of senior living. One of those establishments where you have your own little maintained house, ride around in golf carts, have an on site coffee shop, and everything is conveniently a walk away so you don’t have to go anywhere.” -Jordan
Okay I will admit, not an exact quote, but he approved that this was at least the gist. Naturally I had to poke fun at my darling husband a bit, as the scenario presented is one for another lifetime of years away, and even doubling his age would not yet bring him to 80 years of life. If we should be allowed the privilege of continuing to grow old – very old – together, I will admit I would want to have passed peacefully in my sleep well before finding myself taking a leisurely ride on my scooter to the next door post office. But of course as our journey together so far has taught me, the phrase “never say never” should be accepted as truth a bit more readily. (Yes, I am that person who rolled her eyes at cookie cutter homes, but has lived in townhomes lined by identical duplicates in every way for the past seven years.)
Maybe you are thinking that Jordan should just buy a moped and live in the city, but strangely, despite the similarities, he has no desire to. Although perhaps not that strange at all. You may not have idealized your final hometown for the end of your days, but I am going to suggest you have done the same thing Jordan has in your own way. And I have done the same thing in mine.
We have all found a way to romanticize all that is not, or at least, not yet.
I have to give Jordan credit for being so optimistic about joyfully embracing a part of life where walking is difficult and assistance is required. I do not fear growing old, nor do I think on it very often, but I know that in all its sweetness of watching grandchildren and even great grandchildren be given life, in having your favorite stories always at the ready for listening ears, there is a sadness that I do not want to have to yet experience. Saying goodbye to loved ones with more and more consistency, feeling the body slink into wariness, and regularly craving for a letter or phone call as your only point of access to the world outside your well maintained walls.
That is not to diminish any one season of life, for there are joys in all of it, but just as there is brokenness in all of it too. We know this. The scales may not be evenly weighed, for surely some moments in time the burden feels far heavier than what might even seem bearable. Yet there is beauty there if we choose to seek out its offerings. A feat requiring diligence and intentionality. Yet what might we admittedly do instead?
Rather than finding satisfaction in even times of dissatisfaction, we do not look readily to what is before us for stamina and an altered disposition of cheerfulness. No. Instead, we look to what is not, and find great solace in all that could be.
Our minds are fascinating, and rather quite beautiful. As children, we let them take us to places of mystical adventure. As we grow, we let them be the catalyst for limitless opportunity of discovery and pursuit. We grow older still, and somehow our minds begin to deceive us. The imagination of our growing years looks to clasp onto remnants of trust and contentment, but they are overcome quickly by certain realities and self defeat, somehow convincing us that there is a better reality just over the horizon. If only we work harder, eat better, look longer, then that something we’ve romanticized will be as good as ours.
Until it’s not.
Yet the unknown continues to lure us, imagined free of human woes, for we are always more optimistic about what remains in our imagination than what abides in our reality.
And so we find ourselves romanticizing our not-yet-here days up until our final destination on this soil covered earth. Where we will at some point have no more to romanticize than the grave.
Ah yes. Isn’t it romantic?
EXPOSITION: Be honest with yourself. Have you ever found yourself romanticizing a not-yet-here time in life by surrounding it with circumstances alternative to what you are presently experiencing, or at the very least, exempt from the cares you have now?
RISE: What if, when faced with the temptation to idealize the future, which often fares a biased view towards perfection, you romanticized what is tangible and in front of you?
DENOUEMENT: “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He’s the one who will keep you on track.” (A paraphrase of Solomon’s words to his son | Proverbs 3 – The Message)