{"id":1292,"date":"2022-10-02T14:27:48","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T19:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2022-10-02T14:27:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T19:27:48","slug":"on-turning-70-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=1292","title":{"rendered":"On Turning 70 Years Old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Mike Soika<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned 70 this summer, and it wasn\u2019t an easy transition.  I found myself thinking about all the potential losses I had in front of me.  For example, I\u2019m pretty sure I won\u2019t be around to see any great grandkids and I\u2019m not sure I will be able to \u201cdance at my granddaughters\u2019 wedding\u201d  since the oldest is six and the youngest will turn two in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wondered how many years of sailing I have left, as my knees are becoming increasingly stiff and I\u2019m not as nimble as I once was scurrying around a moving boat.  I don\u2019t want to become a liability and I don\u2019t want to end up as one of those skippers who can only (and barely) just sit and steer the vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father died at age 66 from early onset of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.  And now \u2013 every time I forget a name or why I walked down to the basement – I pause and wonder: is this how it starts.   I remember being a teenager, lounging in my bedroom reading a Sargent Rock comic book and hearing my dad talking downstairs.  I went down to see who happened to visit \u2013 only to find my dad reading a book out loud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, there were two things odd about this: one, that he was reading a book at all as that\u2019s not something I ever saw him do before or after; and two, the fact that he was doing so \u2013 out loud.  When I asked what he was doing, he just shrugged it off and said he wanted to \u201chear how the words sounded.\u201d  In retrospect, it is clear that he could feel his mind slipping and he was trying to find a way to stave it off.  At the time, Alzheimer\u2019s disease wasn\u2019t commonly known, at least not in the circles I ran with in rural Western Pennsylvania in the late 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see where this was going.  I mentally ran through every malady I knew of in my family\u2019s history and imagined how each was a sentence hanging over me.   Will I end up with macular degeneration like my mother\u2013 or kidney disease that incapacitated my grandfather?  My uncle died from heart failure and my maternal grandmother became senile in her advanced years.  Is that my fate? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, as I approached turning 70, I became focused on a life of diminishing returns: one of lost opportunities, physical incapacitation, and mental instability; a life of increased strife and an absence of joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given my dreary disposition, it was clear something had to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since becoming a Quaker, I have a touchstone reading that helps to ground me.  It is from Isaac Pennington \u2013 a 17th<\/sup> century Quaker:  \u201cGive over thine own willing.  Give over thine own running.  Give over thine own desire to know or be anything.  And sink down into the seed God placed in thee and let that be in thee and grow in thee and act in thee.  And  know, through sweet experience that God knows that, God owns that, God loves that and will provide your life\u2019s inheritance according to his portion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, this quote reflects a Zen teaching:  Acknowledge your feelings and desires, but don\u2019t own them.  Give them over and then, focus on the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon contemplation, what I realized is that I have little control over what illnesses may befall me or how long I may live.  What I do have control over is my ability to appreciate the here and now: the amount of love I share with my family and friends and my ability to drink in and savor the moments \u2013 whether playing with my granddaughters or sailing or sitting in the yard watching the butterflies or talking about the day with my wife over a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am healthier now than I likely will be in 20 years.  The same can be said for my mental capacity or my sailing skills.  It is easier for me now to crawl around on the floor with my granddaughters than it will be years from now.  From that perspective, I don\u2019t want to waste the joys of the present in painful fear of a debilitated future.  Now, I see 70 as the youngest I will be for the rest of my life so I plan on enjoying every minute of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or as my favorite poet Mary Oliver wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a serious thing \/ Just to be alive \/ On this fresh morning \/ In this broken world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I turned 70 this summer and it wasn’t an easy transition.”<\/p>\n

Photo by Mike Soika<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-september-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}