In class today, the teacher ended with a short reading about celebration. I immediately thought of my other professional life, in which I work in digital and print media, with a niche in long term care.
Almost twenty years in, I’ve become keen to how much celebrating goes on. I’ve assembled a monthly newsletter for one assisted living community for a good four years now and I’ve nearly run out of ways to say “celebrate.” Every month there are celebrations, for the major holidays, the minor holidays, when the weather changes, when the weather really changes (it’s in Pennsylvania), staff and resident milestones, the start of a project, the end of a project, and of course, the monthly birthday luncheons.
If you were old, frail, and living in a nursing home or assisted living facility, would you want to celebrate? You’d think not, but reading the newsletters, it seems like being frail is one big party, not the reality of impaired vision, obscured hearing, lost memories, and incontinence.
But, when you think about it, it’s not really different from any other age. Every age has it’s realities that would seem to defy its brighter points: the acne and rage of adolescence, the uncertainty of early adulthood, the bodily heaviness and spiritual emptiness of middle age.
What’s the difference then? In long term care, there is a formalized system of the youngers looking after the elders, and for those who love the work and stick with it long enough run programs, they’re looking after the elders with admiration and a kind of love that you only really get if you’re in the biz. The elders have accomplished so much and persisted so long, and the time to acknowledge it is short. Their time has a fathomable end.
A lot of times, I don’t want to celebrate: when I’ve overextended myself again, when life feels like an ever narrowing path of limitations, when my body has started making new rules about what I can and can’t do (coffee and chocolate combined are not allowed, alcohol is permitted only in small amounts and without sugar, all-nighters are off the menu, and concerts that require three hours of standing are for special occasions only).
But then – then! – younger me steps in to remind me that I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, confident enough not to care about missing out on some events that I secretly didn’t enjoy when I was younger anyway, that I have as much freedom as a working adult could possibly have, and that everything I have ever encountered since being younger – good or bad – has changed.
And there it is: the reminder that time may bring with it perils, pain, and some regrets, but the flip side of every pain and every regret is the ever shortening amount of time to enjoy what any of us do have, whether it’s worked out the way we expected or not. The stuff I might wish I’d done differently is completed and farther away with each passing day, so I don’t really have to worry about it anymore.
Party time!