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All my aging fears are misguided, it turns out. In my youth, as I looked ahead to the inevitable aging process, I dreaded wrinkles, sagging body parts, aches and pains, and the snickering of people who could still bend over to pick something up without getting stuck there or–worse–releasing a little fart.

As with everything else in life, though, the things you fear never turn out to be the real deal. What gets you, in the end, is something else entirely. Take camping, for example. While you are packing up, you might spend your time fretting that you’ll forget something critical like the tent poles, or fearing that you’ll drive away and leave the oven on. But instead you’ll get eaten by a bear.

Do I digress? No, not really. I’m only in my forties, but I’ve already figured this out. The aging process is kind of like being eaten by a bear, but in the slowest possible way. It starts with your extremities, and you get pain and loss of dexterity in your fingers due to arthritis. Then your mid-section goes, and you get belly flab and reflux. And then it gets your heart.

For some people this means they need heart surgery or have to take meds. For me, it’s not the tick-tock aspect of the ticker that is troubled. It is the wistful part. The part of my heart that swells to the point of breaking when one of my children looks up at me with those perfect round peepers and says “I love you, Momma.” It is the ebbing away of things, the desire to hold onto everything that only happens in the moment and will then be gone. I’m telling you, none of this used to bother me. Until recently I could just calmly respond to my kid with “I love you too, Sweetie.” But now, in mid-life, my heart makes a hideous thump and I get all weepy. What is UP with that?

I remember the same thing happened to my dad, a swarthy, capable man who could build or fix anything. In his elder years, at a relatively slight provocation he would suddenly tear up and begin mopping his eyes with a handkerchief. He had everything go haywire on him all at once, though. He had the surgery, the meds, the ticker regulator thingy, and the weepy deal too. At the time, I never really understood about the weepy problem. I mean, a grown man. Sheesh! And he said “Just you wait. It’s an aging thing. It will happen to you too.” Now I’m a grown woman, and an aging one at that. And I get it. With aging comes a sense that some of your experiences and some of the things you are used to are going to stop–if not now, then probably soon. For me, this realization just periodically sneaks up and grabs me like a ravenous bear out the woods.

For example, I recently attended the end-of-year Peace Assembly at my daughter’s school. I was kind of grumbling about it on the drive to the school, because I had devoted countless hours to various school events and volunteer efforts in recent weeks, and work was piling up. It was a beautiful day, though, and I began to get into the spirit of it. I rolled down the window of my car. I felt the breeze on my face, and I started to enjoy being out of my stuffy little mole hole of a basement office.

I got to the school, and naturally there was a waiting period of about fifteen minutes while the kids assembled in the school’s central courtyard. Freckled faces filed past me. Many of the kids carried popsicle sticks with brightly colored paper butterflies pasted on. I began to feel twinges of what was to come. But for the most part I remained in Working Mom mode–a kind of warrior stance that lets the world know you mean business. It helps you glide from work life into family life and back without losing much momentum. I looked around. There were other moms there–women I had seen before–but none of us had a real chit-chatty kind of relationship. We smiled at each other, and waited.

Finally we filed out into the courtyard after the kids and took seats in folding metal chairs, holding printed programs. Some announcements were made, and then kids began to take turns up at the mic, giving their wishes for a world in which peace will reign. The sunlight fell on their hair, and their clothes ruffled slightly in the breeze. Some kids were dressed well, others in rough and tumble clothes purchased second hand. But popular kids stood side by side with the ones that play alone, delivering messages about being kind, about looking out for one another, about thwarting bullying, and about manners and love.

I looked over, and could see my daughter’s class, and she herself among the other girls in bright summer dresses. I found myself pushing contemplation away, trying to focus on the work awaiting me when all this was done. Some people, I suppose, feel the need to reflect on these things, to savor them. Not me. I was actually trying hard not to think about the sudden end of a school year my daughter had struggled through socially, how her self-esteem had narrowly prevailed over a barrage of taunting by a mean-spirited child, the fact that her teacher was retiring, or the dread I have that she will lose her sweetness and innocence as of third grade. And that’s when it started the whole welling up of something unexplainable. Out of nowhere. All at once I found myself completely adrift on a tide of tears.

Music had begun. The kindergarteners began singing along with a tape of Louis Armstrong’s gravelly and beautiful “What a Wonderful World,” their voices high and multi-pitched, yet earnest. “I see trees of green red roses too. I see ‘em bloom for me and for you.” The entire throng of children were softly waving their bright little butterfly sticks in the air to the music. And a river now flowed unabated down my cheeks. The compunction to hide it was simply pathetic. Tears were dripping off my chin. I stared through a watery sea into my purse, where not a shred of tissue could be found. I tried to breathe deeply and regain calm, but it was no use.

Younger mothers, dry-eyed, looked sympathetically upon me and offered tissues. No doubt they were aghast. A grown woman so reduced to tears. I wanted to warn them: “It’s an aging thing. You’ll see. It will happen to you too.” But in youth, you can’t be convinced. I know. I’ve been there.

Ultimately, though, I felt thankful. I had been shaken momentarily out of my state of conscious unconsciousness. Against all my efforts to move robotic-like through my day, stay on track with work, and be a veritable human machine, I had felt something powerful. What an amazing thing, to stop holding everything back. I actually felt happier, suddenly, and lighter. Plus I had an odd thought. Whereas I had once pitied my father for his occasional spontaneous weeping, I now wanted to applaud him for unclenching the nerves of steel he was known for so that he could truly feel.

It’s corny, I know. But it occurred to me that a great wish for peace is that absolutely everyone, worldwide, could be reduced to blubbering on occasion. Let the tears fall! And with them anger, bullying, rudeness, hatred, and war. Let everyone hear Louis Armstrong’s deeply male voice singing “The colors of a rainbow so pretty in the sky!” and have their hearts melt. Let the world leaders hug tearfully at the summits, and the builders of bombs see sunlight on children’s hair and drop what they’re doing to spread peace instead.

Otherwise, let them be eaten by bears.

(c) 2006 Jayna Locke

Jayna Locke is a freelance writer, editor, and website developer, as well as a health and nutrition consultant. Her advice on health can be found on her site: http://www.newvitalitynews.com She offers a range of health enhancing products on http://www.newvitalitywellness.com

[tags]humor,aging,peace,children,moms,working moms,working mothers[/tags]