Science says that 60 is a turning point where humans age dramatically.
For me, the dramatic downturn might have happened at 59 with a double hernia taking me out physically for over six months. More than a year later, I am still uncomfortable in my body. I’ve put on weight. I have lost strength and flexibility. Beyond my spine, joints ache, my heart thumps weirdly, my cholesterol is creeping up, and my thyroid function slowing down. Overall, I feel older and less capable than I was two years ago. And I’m not even considering my mental capacity, which waxes and wanes.
Compared to my neighbors, my colleagues at Oyama Senmaida, and many of my local friends, I am quite young. But I often feel older than they are. I don’t have the stamina for hard work. I do it and enjoy it, but I pay with days of recovery.
Rural Japanese life demands a lot of every participant. My neighbors have been living it for decades. In farming there’s no option to stop or slow down. Fields need tending. Weather blows through and leaves repair work. Animals need feeding. I know that my friends all have significant aches, pains, and health conditions but they endure. It is Japanese gaman culture in action.
By contrast, the middle-class white American culture I grew up in emphasises slowing down as we age. Retiring and taking it easy. Enjoying the grandkids. Maybe a little travel and some hobbies, like gardening and birdwatching. Americans with enough money accept a battery of treatments and medicines to prolong activities of daily living. In the US, being an “active senior” is a goal rather than a necessity for many.
So here at my 60th year, I am taking stock of the future and my trajectory through it. Do I go the Japanese way? The American way?
I am frustrated with my physical changes. I think I should be more capable. How long until my damaged discs allow me to twist fully again? Will my right foot always hurt after a long walk? Why won’t those extra 10 kgs budge? And my surprisingly vain ego doesn’t like the saggy, crepey face it sees in the mirror.
But, honestly, do I need to be as wrinkle-free and strong as I was in my 40s? For me, those circus days were the peak of my physical life. I was fit and perky! But do I need that now? Is the future me a Japanese farmer?
Amanda Palmer’s song “In My Mind” just popped into my head. Ha! My inner muse is giving me a message along with a memory of playing ukulele and singing this for my mother on her porch in Pennsylvania in 2012. Mom was 72 then. She loved it.
In my mind, I can see my 80 year old self. She is not a farmer.
Future Kristen rises early, tends to cats, goes outside to observe nature and manage the wild garden. Spends the morning writing or doing housework. Rests after lunch then perks up again in the late afternoon for some creative time before dinner. It’s not too much different to today. Compared to the current me, she’s slower and less driven by deadlines, but she still has a to do list, curiosity, and joy in daily life.
Keys to my future happiness are mobility to go outside and to create, vision to observe the world and to see what I’m working on, & mental clarity to imagine and to motivate. I’d like to keep pain, anxiety, and loneliness at bay, too
Getting those things does not require me to reclaim my younger self or to adopt Japanese gaman for everything. It would be smart to build some stamina now as a buffer for decline, so I will gently push my limits without measuring against an external standard.
That seems radically self-accepting. Maybe I can buy XXL clothes, restart my yoga practice, continue making art in my shed, and be happy with my situation, regardless of what the world thinks of it.
I have a small fear that radical acceptance may lead me down a path of sloth and gluttony. Even now, I feel a bit guilty about my afternoon rest with a movie on the screen and a cat or two in my lap. There are desserts and sweets daily. From my encounters with care homes in the US, I have seen how small indulgences can shift from a treat to an expectation. Before long, they become the only thing one does. Sloth is a painless, passive, and comforting way of life that fits the culture I grew up in.
I don’t think that’s me if I am left to my own devices.
But who knows? Every ending is different. My father died quickly from aggressive lung cancer. My mother lingered with dementia. One grandmother died from flu complications. A grandfather was in a car accident. My future end is unknown but I will aim for a happy age-in-place life for as long as possible.
And we’ll just see what dramatic aging looks like this year.
