By Gilda Cordero-Fernando
http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/relationships/relationships/view/20100912-291732/When-I-grow-up
I WANT to be like you when I grow up.” -Cheche Lazaro to Jetro Rafael, 30-year-old chef-patron of Van Gogh and a bi-polar who cured himself.
Recently, in one of those titillating surveys that lifestyle pages like to conduct, some older women were asked if they would agree to dating much younger men.
One of the more proper ladies (a widow) replied that no, she wouldn’t, because she was sensitive to what people might say. She would, she said, never be able to explain it to her conservative children. She explained that a woman should behave her age especially if she has children who look up to her as a model.
I would have said no, too, but for totally different reasons (one of which is that I’m afraid no young Turk would ask). Over tempura with Ning Tan, we began to batter such temporal concerns.
What is “behaving your age?” Ning is 50-something and you know how old I am (80 going on 30). But if I feel like wearing my grandson’s fatigue pants that look good on me, I will (someone is bound to say it’s a fashion statement.) It really depends on one’s intention. Do I wear such because I want to look young? Or impress anyone? Not likely. If you think it made me look young, fine. If it impressed you, fine. If you think it made me look cuckoo, fine. It’s just me, take it or leave it. I’m all for Deepak Chopra’s “Your opinion is none of my business.”
On the other hand, if you sally forth with the uneasy feeling that you’re dressing ridiculously young for your age, for sure you’ll be.
Now, what is the “model-me” that I want my grandchildren to emulate? (My children are too old and already crooked.) Maybe that I am true to my own person, no subterfuges, no pretensions, not true to what others want me to be. Ning says this assumes that one can tell the difference between what one wants to be and what has merely been programmed by upbringing and environment.
Freedom
Freedom is one of the perks of growing old. You can go anywhere you wish and with whom. Or not show up. You can dress any way you want, disobey your church, avoid funerals and golden anniversaries where grandchildren sing and dance and there’s an interminable video. You can join a safari (if you can walk), enroll for a doctorate, learn to cut hair or disappear into the maw of an ashram. You can pray, eat and love, or shop until you drop.
Does freedom also include being as silly as you want, looking slovenly or glittery like Lady Gaga? Eloping with a priest? Undergoing a plastic overhaul? Unfortunately, yes. But we are also our own ideals, our aesthetic sense and virtues, our higher selves (but alas also our lower selves). If we are basically grounded we do not suddenly become irresponsible, or carelessly offensive. Freedom recognizes other people’s feelings. For instance, I love my hole-riddled T-shirt of 15 years to bits, but promise, I won’t wear it to your party.
Growing up happens at any age. Maturity may come to a seven-year-old yet elude a macho at 70. Growing up is having choices. It is following your heart rather than your guilt. One of them is not being afraid or embarrassed to say no. How many social activities are we “forced” to attend as bothersome obligations rather than joyful happenings? Maybe we should diminish those.
Growing up makes it possible to become more and more honest. For example: about whom you want to see or prefer not to at the moment—be it someone indifferent or someone you love. Edit those too. They’ll survive it. And if you’re elderly it will allow you to survive.
Growing up is not having to say something nice that you don’t really and truly feel. It is learning to zip your lip before that sharp retort, brilliant criticism or scandalous quip escapes. It is not engaging in gossip (Who ever said growing up was easy?!)
New view on sex
Growth gives us a new view of sex which is guided by the higher self. It is getting out of the need which is still an animalistic urge. (Remember Tiger Woods.) We are better able to manage our emotions. Many sex adventures are actually a frantic search for life’s meaning, the feeling that we are so very much alone. Some fill the emptiness with a jam-packed career, with religion or with relationships—good or bad. Once we find our meaning, everything is neutralized, becomes aligned to the higher purpose and falls into place (observation from Lyvia Martinez who is smarter than me).
Growth is having the courage to detach from a person, group or activity that we feel no longer makes us grow. Or drags us down (misplaced loyalties stunt).
As we grow, our motives become clearer and more readable. We no longer want to mislead anybody by covering up hidden intentions. We no longer do things to please somebody in order to get some benefit. We have less and less of an agenda yet get more and more of the results we want without trying. And it lights up our world.
Growth is learning how to forgive and be forgiven. Throughout my life I have seen too many people enslaved by deep hurts, walling themselves into fortresses of unforgiveness. While the unforgiven merely got up, dusted themselves and filled the rest of their lives. We do not forgive to benefit others but to do ourselves the favor of walking free.
Losing your enemy
When I grew old, I lost all my enemies (or maybe I forgot who they were). One time I ran into a person whom I had once been actively avoiding because he had fooled me so badly. But I was absent-minded that day and truly happy to see him so I kissed him warmly. He was shocked. So was I. And we were both relieved that all rancor simply evaporated.
And so I have this conviction that for “letting go” to happen, issues need not be aired frontally nor over and over. A simple courageous act (or absent-minded gesture) will fix it better. Ning reminds that one must do only what’s “comfortable,” not necessarily the most altruistic. Be content with second best. Don’t force, for instance, a face-to-face apology if that’s excruciating. Someone said you can even apologize to a person who is far away simply by sending the thought to the wind. The person will feel the tension loosen up and the situation right itself.
Forgiveness, though, is easier said than done. We sincerely resolve to forgive the errant one for the relationship that has been severely damaged. We repeat it over and over when we’re alone. At first it is just on the mind level. The hurt and the bad memories remain in one’s bones and blood and cells. It needs only a small nudge for the resentment and the hurt to surface once again. (It’s still there?!)
Only a shift in perception can finally excise it. One friend had to remind himself repeatedly to be thankful that he was not his brother whom he abhorred, a useless bum who had to be supported and who stole mercilessly from him. In another instance, the individual became aware and grateful that the neurotic mother she resented was the one who genetically passed on the capabilities that the daughter now most enjoyed. These were an artistic sensibility and a business sense, talents she couldn’t have inherited from her more pleasant father who possessed none of those.
Multi-dimensional
Growth is multi-dimensional, multi-directional and invisible says Lyvia Martinez. But we know we are still growing when we have not stopped asking questions. We never know enough, there’s room for ever more of life’s lessons. Growth is limitless.
It is when we’d rather stay in our little comfort zone and never want to venture out that we give up growing. Why step out into the big bad world and be disturbed by things we cannot control?
Growing up is knowing how to be fearless, not afraid to face the unknown. This especially applies to the pursuit of one’s dream a.k.a. mission in life. The path is frightening because it is full of risks. But one is never in doubt about the final outcome. This is what makes us fearless.
We know when it is the correct path because many synchronicities help the dream along. Some of them may be puzzling at first as when there’s a sudden detour or seeming setback. Until it becomes evident that the synchronicities all fall into one basket and lead to the final goal. People who have gone through this many times look back with great wonder at the glorious achievement. How was I able to do that? Was I ever that good?
No true mission in life, by the way, is ever purely for oneself, it always has a component that includes others. As we develop an attitude of gratitude and forgiveness, it automatically dissolves self-centeredness. There are no more boundaries between oneself and others. We feel others’ misery and their pain. We become their mirror, others are ourselves. It is no longer our need that we address, it is theirs. We are now ready to serve in the full meaning of the word.
No comments:
Post a Comment