On ageing: The stranger in the mirror

I look at the old couple sitting next to me, on one of the coffee tables of the Franky and Co café, enjoying the hustle and bustle, the sounds and smells of a busy Saturday morning. One of them slowly lifts their cup of coffee, trying to steady the tremors in their hand and not make it spill.  And I watch. And, then, I look away, trying not to embarrass them.   

I can’t really say now how long it’s been me looking away from others thinking they’re old and I am not. But now that I am 51, the past few years around this bend have made it difficult to deny that I am growing older, if not old, as well. I never really expected life to start to turn into that mirror that tells me, I’m not the fairest of them all. Not that I ever thought I was, in the traditionally ‘fair’ sense. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting to face the music of all the ways in which I had taken my health and body for granted in the first 40 years of my life. I did not think for a second that they would come back to haunt me. I had no idea that each oversight could very well result in the loss of body parts and organs. And to be honest, having them all intact within me, did make me feel the fairest of them all. 

And so, as I sit in the cafe on this Saturday morning, I wish to dig a little deeper into this rabbit hole that has forced me to reflect on my relationship with my ageing body.  And as I look into the mirror, the first thing that pops up into it, the fairest one I had, is my gall bladder. I dig from the recesses of my selective amnesia the horrid memories of gall bladder pain, caused by those relishing sweet treats and the many varieties of snacks devoured to satisfy a hunger that eluded me even then.  And so, after a year of painful attacks, I was brought to the point when it had to be surgically removed from my body. Forever. 

No more gall, I thought. But guess what? Within three years, it was time to look in the mirror again.  This time it showed me my  bile duct. Not only were the stones back, but this time, without the gall bladder, the liver had poured them into my narrow bile duct where they had got stuck.  Another six months of excruciating painful attacks led to another procedure. A slit was made into the end of my bile duct to allow any future stones created to smoothly pass into the food canal and digest any more sweet treats, full of fats and sugars that I chose to consume in the years to come. 

Sitting here a year later, I wonder what’s next? Which body part am I now allowing to malfunction? Slow down and deteriorate?  The passing thought that it maybe my liver, does cross my mind, but it’s not before long that I let it pass, uncomfortable with the idea of  going through another one of those procedures.  I have noticed the aches and pains that start to creep up every four days that I go without my yoga and pilates routine. Like trees in autumn, I can see my body beginning to withdraw the constant support that it once gave me. Looking at the leaves strewn around me, on my daily walk, I feel daunted by the natural cycle that is going to take its course no matter what I do? 

Freud’s definition hits home as he describes ‘the uncanny’ as a feeling we experience when something familiar, ‘heimlich’ (homely), turns unfamiliar, ‘unheimlich’ (unhomely). And as I question the road ahead, I can see, nothing can be more unhomely than the alienation one experiences when one’s one body decides to be the unfamiliar stranger in the mirror that it was not . . . once upon a time.   

And at that dismal thought, I decide to step out of the rabbit hole that has begun to feel like a very narrow bile duct.  I look around and everything I see around me changes once again.  I can suddenly see so many bodies sitting, drinking, eating, walking, shopping, around me. And as I look around, my mind catastrophizes the fates of everyone I see and I am plagued by a world of questions I have never thought of before. I wonder if they are well? I wonder which organ of their body has begun to stop working? Has anyone surgically removed an organ, like myself? Has anyone had a transplant, or are waiting for one? If yes, how many medications are they taking to make it work? And how do they cope with the after effects of those meds? And then I begin to freeze as more questions rear their heads. How about those who have been terminally ill for years? And those who have children, or partners or spouses who are struggling to live?  And as I look around for answers once more, all I see is bodies around me, agile and not so agile, healthy and not so healthy, in the café on this Saturday. 

And I can’t take it anymore. I finish my coffee, walk to my car, drive home and pull out my yoga mat in a desperate attempt to save myself from the fate that awaits me, around the corner. 

I make the intention. I become present.  And as I slowly begin to focus on my breathing,  I turn to my exhausted body. And for some time,  I give it my full attention.

And like a long lost friend, waiting since forever to have a heart to heart, it begins to spill like an overflowing cup and tells me what it needs.  When I  stretch my arms and back in child’s pose, I feel the stiffness in my back, and it tells me its tired of sitting still across a table in a cafe, endlessly ruminating on the darkness of  rabbit holes that go no where.  And when I stretch my legs in downward dog, they sigh and let go of the inertia that has accumulated in the calves and shins, over the course of the past week, from long commutes to and from work. By the time I lie on my back and hold my toes in happy baby pose, I can’t help laughing out loud at the sheer joy of holding my feet up in the air. The child within me is happy to tug a little bit more here and flex a little bit more there, making all muscles and joints slowly open their sleepy eyes, blinking awkwardly as the curtain is lifted and light floods into the dark house.

And as I flex and extend, hold and release, and ease into the rhythms of my yoga practice, I let go of the paralysis of ruminations that held my body prisoner.  And I release it from the chore of carrying my overthinking brain. For a while.  And as I move and bend and hold and relax,  I let it come alive physically. And play. 

And while it does, I can see, there’s no stranger in the mirror here.  At least for a while. 

References: 

Freud’s Summary: Uncanny