I see so many people posting memes about leaving the past behind and focusing on the future. This is often framed as an uplifting message and in some circumstances it is.
But what of the many who have very little future left before them and a long past behind them?
Gail Sheehy wrote in her 1974 book, Passages, that during middle age we come face to face with our mortality. We see the inevitable end.
She placed this event in the 40's and though I believe it happens a good deal later, like maybe the early 60s, it does hold true.
So I am thinking about bucket lists. But also about how I process my experience every day events, mostly the pleasurable ones such as making an excellent soup and perhaps sharing it. Or walking in nature. Or seeing the first hummingbird of the year.
The thought is about how many more bowls of soup or lovely spring days do I have?
We all remember our “firsts”. The first kiss. The first time driving a car. Losing our virginity. Buying a first house or getting a first job.
But our “lasts” do not often announce themselves. We may not realize for some time that a thing we took for granted as lasting forever was actually the last time. The last job. The final home. The last sex. It is only recognizable as “last” after the fact.
I am also thinking about the role of memory. Knowing that the memory bank is larger than the bucket of future expectations.
Sheehy speculated in a later work that this period of introspection does not last forever. That we come to terms and go back to just living without also observing ourselves in that way.
Until the end is actually in sight. By reason of age or in the case of terminal illness.
If you are running out of road ahead it is time to make peace with the past and enjoy the best memories.
If you are of the age where this applies, does this hold true for you? Do you have a bucket list? Do you notice small things in your life and wonder how many more times?
No, I don't think about "last times" yet, although Medicare is hounding me to sign up before I turn 65 in the next month or so, which has a tendency to remind me. Rather, I choose to remain delusional...
Part of your post reminds me of Brad Paisley's song "Last Time for Everything"
As for peace with the past, I'm not sure I've ever not been at peace with it. Regrets? No, not really. Selling my saxophone after high school was stupid but decades later I stopped regretting it. Relationships? I could knock myself on the head over a few of them but... regret, no. Embarrassed, yes. Bucket list? anything I would regret NOT doing? Yes, not taking a chance to do something that calls to me (like living in Italy). Honestly, I don't really want to live past another 15 years so I do think about that. But I'm not sure that's changed my perspective. I struggled in my first marriage b/c it often felt like I had fallen asleep in a poppy field (Dorothy). At that is my worst nightmare - to just become so comfortable that I don't strive to do and become and contribute more. The quote that brought me out of my depression in 2019 (in the midst of an awful job and trying to work out what myth had a hold on me) is Annie Dillard's: How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. That led me back to: If I could do anything, what would I do? And that led me to Italy and the rest, well... With the time I have left, why not just go for the dream?
Actually, I think getting older and recognizing the limited years ahead of me has allowed me to let go of so much. Most certainly possessions and also ways of thinking, ways of being. Instead of old age scaring me into safety and submission, I think it has liberated me.