Recently, I surprised myself when I wrote in my journal: “Old age is like sitting in a waiting room, expecting to be called, and entertaining myself with old magazines.” I was surprised because I am usually optimistic, a “cockeyed optimist” (if you like, pull up the song from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, and hum it in the background as you read).
Why the sudden downturn in attitude, the sour face and self-pity I was expressing?
Because I am learning something about life that I do not like: Life – that great big all-consuming reality – is never static. It seems to consist over and over again, of movement from one phase, one season, to another.
We are all familiar with the idea of phases, especially if we are parents. When our two-year olds know only one word, “NO!”, we say they are going through a phase. Elementary students are in one phase, middle-schoolers another.
But all of us continue to go through phases. And for me, that is disruptive. I become used to the pattern of my life, and then it shifts (or disappears) to be replaced by a new pattern, a new season. And so, I have been guilty of pouting.
My optimistic self scolds my pouting self: “Be grateful!! Look at all the blessings you have! Get busy and write something, knit something, sew something, read something – and stop complaining!
And the Pouter says to the Optimist: “When I want your advice, I’ll let you know!”
But the Optimist has uncovered something. Writing, knitting, sewing, and reading can be very much like reading old magazines in the waiting room – time fillers, purposeless activities to keep busy and keep myself from recognizing underlying feelings, feelings of loneliness and uselessness — feelings of sitting in a waiting room, reading old magazines.
I’ve confronted this issue in another post, https://susanjohns.com/a-new-re-creation/, in which I said: “I can use those projects not only to fill in-between time, but to provide for others. My knitting has purpose when I create shawls for people in my church who are suffering; the cross stitch becomes a gift; and, hopefully, the watercolors will adorn walls other than my own.” And, usually, I follow my own advice.
So why the pessimism?
Because I’ve forgotten (or ignored) another “truism of retirement”: I have a choice. Today, each day, every day, I can choose either a positive attitude or a negative one. I can choose to be grateful or to whine about deficiencies. I can choose to trust the ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastics:
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven
or I can convince myself that my pessimism is the better wisdom.
I can pout about old magazines, or I can celebrate this revised edition.
Today, I chose to celebrate.