The Old Man in the Mirror

***** Dear readers, when I posted this essay a couple of hours ago, I left a couple of “draft” paragraphs at the end, and they don’t belong. Here is the essay as it should be*****

I have come to a conclusion that couldn’t be more obvious but, has never been so to me: I am an old man.  For well over twenty years, my friend David and I have speculated about getting old—not being old but getting old—with odd combinations of foreboding and fascination.  The other day, talking, as we do every week, we confided that the time has come.  We are just plain old. 

Years ago, my mother ruefully told me a story.  She was walking along a broad avenue in Washington Heights, New York, on the way to visit a good, old friend, when she looked into a shop window.  Instead of the furniture that was advertised, she saw an old woman.  For a moment, she wondered who that person was, but soon the meaning of the reflection was obvious enough. And it spooked her.

Just the other day, when shaving, I saw my own image.  I generally think: “Well, Barry, you’ve put on some years but you also look pretty young-for-your-age.”  Not that day.  I looked old to myself.  My facial features seemed a little less distinct, almost fading into one another.  The vitality seemed muted.  For the first time, I conceded: “That’s an old man you’re looking at.” 

I have always prided myself on my physicality, my movement.  Once, long ago, my college track coach gushed to my father: “He moves with grace, doesn’t he?” And, when I picture myself in motion—walking, not running anymore—I still imagine fluidity and strength.  The other day, though, the sun was at my back, casting a shadow, and as I watched with sadness and a little alarm, the shadow moved stiffly, almost mechanically.  It was clearly the forced effort of an old man. 

My days follow a comparable course. All my life, I’ve moved from activity to activity with purpose, energy, and discipline.  For decades, I’d rise early in the morning to meditate and write in my journal.  For years, I’d greet my children and take them to school.  Greet Franny, too. And, once the children were off to school—I loved walking with them in those elementary school years—and Franny was off to work, I’d spend a couple of hours with a book or an essay that I was working on, then shift to psychotherapy sessions, teaching, building organizations, meeting friends.  In the middle of the day, I’d run for 45 minutes to an hour.  In all these activities, I was always looking to improve. 

The future was my great friend.  Whenever I felt down, I’d redouble my efforts: increasing my introspective journey, running several miles, or renewing my work.  Getting better.  For almost fifty years, this is how I knew and that is how I reassured myself.

But now my days are relatively shapeless. They begin well with Franny and me sitting side by side, reading the morning news and gazing out the sliding doors of our living room at the forest and the occasional procession of deer or turkeys passing by.  Then I turn to my journal but I’m no longer looking very deeply into myself, no longer thinking about further development.  I’m just keeping up, which isn’t very exciting.  Then maybe a game or two of sudoku.  Also a walk—to maintain some conditioning, not to improve but to hold off the inevitable decline.

In the afternoon, there are two, maybe three hours of coaching young nonprofit leaders.  Those hours feel like old times and I’m content.  But they end and I wonder what to do.  A little more reading?  Sure.  After dinner, a movie.  Some news.  And time for bed.  Always with the great comfort of Franny being by my side.

I am aware of the great good fortune I have with this free time and activities to fill the time.  But they don’t feel very purposeful or vibrant, and, as a result, I feel a little lost.

Part of the problem is that I’ve lost the work community with which I had been engaged for so many years.  There I felt connected, part of something larger: usually some crusade or another to try against the odds to make the world a better place.  To an extent, and in spite of all my introspection, I always knew myself through the eyes of my friends and comrades-in-arms, and that was good.  It was reassuring.  I liked the person I saw reflected there. 

Now that I don’t work and live in that community, now that I’ve let go of whatever ambitions once fueled my days, I often feel disconnected, disengaged, on my own and in unfamiliar territory.  Missing their reassuring gaze.  So much so that the solitude I had sought so ardently during my busy decades, no longer calls to me.  This, alone, is a stunning change. 

For the first time in decades, I sometimes feel lonely. 

When I try to relax into that great, sometimes empty expanse of time, I still hear echoes of my parents whispering to me: “Do something; do something good; do something special.”  But generally I don’t and likely I won’t.  I try to respond: “Isn’t this the time of life to rest, to shuck off responsibilities and ambitions?  Isn’t that what my life should be about?”  Sure, but I don’t persuade them.  Nor do I persuade myself.

Sometimes, in the middle of these shapeless days, when I can’t bring myself to write an essay or read seriously or begin some kind of project, I come close to tears.  The leisure seems so meaningless. 

But, truth be told, I don’t really want to imbue my days with great meaning.  I don’t want to build a new organization or in some substantial way, lend myself to one.  I like the coaching because, each time, it begins and ends, and I have no sustained responsibility.  I remember how I lived best in the past—animated by purpose and responsibility—but I don’t want that now.  So, what then?

As must be obvious, I am having a hard time making the transition into old age—or even to understanding what leads to fulfillment during this stretch of time.  Strangely, that image of an old man in the mirror, which I think about often, holds the greatest promise.  I’m trying not to avoid him.  Actually, I’m enjoying him.  As I become more comfortable in his presence, I have finally stopped fighting that big, bad transition. 

I have begun to say to myself: ‘That’s what old people do. There may only be a few, maybe several years left.  Why not relax into them.”  So I’ve begun to pay better attention to the life that I have and, every once in a while, to luxuriate in it.

We’re catching up on household tasks after 15 years of ignoring many of them: revamping the heating system; having the windows cleaned—by someone else; covering the outside air conditioner, replacing the blinds for the big dining room window.  And I’m taking some pleasure in these mundane tasks—or, to be honest, in arranging for others to do them. 

We still relish time we spend with one grandchild or another, three days a week.  Now, post-pandemic, we’re seeing friends, going to the theater, traveling.  I used to pooh pooh this everyday kind of life.  But maybe that old man in the mirror is telling me that this is, simply, what there is.  And if you’re lucky, you find satisfaction tucked into its folds of the everyday. 

The Old Man in the Mirror

I have come to a conclusion that couldn’t be more obvious but, has never been so to me: I am an old man.  For well over twenty years, my friend David and I have speculated about getting old—not being old but getting old—with odd combinations of foreboding and fascination.  The other day, talking, as we do every week, we confided that the time has come.  We are just plain old. 

Years ago, my mother ruefully told me a story.  She was walking along a broad avenue in Washington Heights, New York, on the way to visit a good, old friend, when she looked into a shop window.  Instead of the furniture that was advertised, she saw an old woman.  For a moment, she wondered who that person was, but soon the meaning of the reflection was obvious enough. And it spooked her.

Just the other day, when shaving, I saw my own image.  I generally think: “Well, Barry, you’ve put on some years but you also look pretty young-for-your-age.”  Not that day.  I looked old to myself.  My facial features seemed a little less distinct, almost fading into one another.  The vitality seemed muted.  For the first time, I conceded: “That’s an old man you’re looking at.” 

I have always prided myself on my physicality, my movement.  Once, long ago, my college track coach gushed to my father: “He moves with grace, doesn’t he?” And, when I picture myself in motion—walking, not running anymore—I still imagine fluidity and strength.  The other day, though, the sun was at my back, casting a shadow, and as I watched with sadness and a little alarm, the shadow moved stiffly, almost mechanically.  It was clearly the forced effort of an old man. 

My days follow a comparable course. All my life, I’ve moved from activity to activity with purpose, energy, and discipline.  For decades, I’d rise early in the morning to meditate and write in my journal.  For years, I’d greet my children and take them to school.  Greet Franny, too. And, once the children were off to school—I loved walking with them in those elementary school years—and Franny was off to work, I’d spend a couple of hours with a book or an essay that I was working on, then shift to psychotherapy sessions, teaching, building organizations, meeting friends.  In the middle of the day, I’d run for 45 minutes to an hour.  In all these activities, I was always looking to improve. 

The future was my great friend.  Whenever I felt down, I’d redouble my efforts: increasing my introspective journey, running several miles, or renewing my work.  Getting better.  For almost fifty years, this is how I knew and that is how I reassured myself.

But now my days are relatively shapeless. They begin well with Franny and me sitting side by side, reading the morning news and gazing out the sliding doors of our living room at the forest and the occasional procession of deer or turkeys passing by.  Then I turn to my journal but I’m no longer looking very deeply into myself, no longer thinking about further development.  I’m just keeping up, which isn’t very exciting.  Then maybe a game or two of sudoku.  Also a walk—to maintain some conditioning, not to improve but to hold off the inevitable decline.

In the afternoon, there are two, maybe three hours of coaching young nonprofit leaders.  Those hours feel like old times and I’m content.  But they end and I wonder what to do.  A little more reading?  Sure.  After dinner, a movie.  Some news.  And time for bed.  Always with the great comfort of Franny being by my side.

I am aware of the great good fortune I have with this free time and activities to fill the time.  But they don’t feel very purposeful or vibrant, and, as a result, I feel a little lost.

Part of the problem is that I’ve lost the work community with which I had been engaged for so many years.  There I felt connected, part of something larger: usually some crusade or another to try against the odds to make the world a better place.  To an extent, and in spite of all my introspection, I always knew myself through the eyes of my friends and comrades-in-arms, and that was good.  It was reassuring.  I liked the person I saw reflected there. 

Now that I don’t work and live in that community, now that I’ve let go of whatever ambitions once fueled my days, I often feel disconnected, disengaged, on my own and in unfamiliar territory.  Missing their reassuring gaze.  So much so that the solitude I had sought so ardently during my busy decades, no longer calls to me.  This, alone, is a stunning change. 

For the first time in decades, I sometimes feel lonely. 

When I try to relax into that great, sometimes empty expanse of time, I still hear echoes of my parents whispering to me: “Do something; do something good; do something special.”  But generally I don’t and likely I won’t.  I try to respond: “Isn’t this the time of life to rest, to shuck off responsibilities and ambitions?  Isn’t that what my life should be about?”  Sure, but I don’t persuade them.  Nor do I persuade myself.

Sometimes, in the middle of these shapeless days, when I can’t bring myself to write an essay or read seriously or begin some kind of project, I come close to tears.  The leisure seems so meaningless. 

But, truth be told, I don’t really want to imbue my days with great meaning.  I don’t want to build a new organization or in some substantial way, lend myself to one.  I like the coaching because, each time, it begins and ends, and I have no sustained responsibility.  I remember how I lived best in the past—animated by purpose and responsibility—but I don’t want that now.  So, what then?

As must be obvious, I am having a hard time making the transition into old age—or even to understanding what leads to fulfillment during this stretch of time.  Strangely, that image of an old man in the mirror, which I think about often, holds the greatest promise.  I’m trying not to avoid him.  Actually, I’m enjoying him.  As I become more comfortable in his presence, I have finally stopped fighting that big, bad transition. 

I have begun to say to myself: ‘That’s what old people do. There may only be a few, maybe several years left.  Why not relax into them.”  So I’ve begun to pay better attention to the life that I have and, every once in a while, to luxuriate in it.

We’re catching up on household tasks after 15 years of ignoring many of them: revamping the heating system; having the windows cleaned—by someone else; covering the outside air conditioner, replacing the blinds for the big dining room window.  And I’m taking some pleasure in these mundane tasks—or, to be honest, in arranging for others to do them. 

We still relish time we spend with one grandchild or another, three days a week.  Now, post-pandemic, we’re seeing friends, going to the theater, traveling.  I used to pooh pooh this everyday kind of life.  But maybe that old man in the mirror is telling me that this is, simply, what there is.  And if you’re lucky, you find satisfaction tucked into its folds. 

We’ll keep on hanging with one grandchild or another three days a week.  We’re seeing friends a good deal.  Going to the theater.  Traveling.  I used to pooh pooh this kind of life.

Maybe this is the point for old men: to take good care and to take satisfaction in the everydayness of things.