The flesh may sag, but mind is firmer

BOY am I glad I am more solid in my thoughts. Now. While the flesh may loosen, slack and sag in older ages, the opposite can be said of the mind. At the least the part of the mind that makes decision. One’s decision-making mechanism when older actually becomes firmer. You become more sure of stuff and even of the self.

Being sure about things is not something to be taken for granted. There is much floundering, fumbling around and stumbling about with trial and errors on life when you are younger, but with the benefit of experience and wisdom that comes with age one becomes more solid minded. Self assuredness is by far one of the greatest things that comes with the four decades.

Packing those decades under one’s belt is no empty feat. There are lessons you have learnt – you have learnt what to do and what not to do, that is your basic wrong or right. Then you become clearer about what works and what doesn’t, chances are you have with benefit of wisdom discovered for example that sulking does not work in the long term, but that discussion and negotiation work better. Nobody could have convinced you of that at ten, and nobody could have coaxed you of a silent war at 32.

But in your forties you realise that you can as well be ignored and that life could and can go on without your approval. You simply have to put your two-penny worth of thoughts or feelings on the table to battle it out with other people’s. You soon learn that if it is not tabled, it will not be addressed and you also get to appreciate that your heart and mind are not transparent. So for you to be heard you have to open up and share the thoughts feeling and opinions.

With age you also gain a keen ability to sift the riff-raff from the real deal – even in your own thoughts or ideas you begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. That is growing up – coming of age. And because of this, you become sure of what it is you like or don’t like; you also become clear of what it is you are thinking or feeling and what is even more fun is that you now even have words for your emotions and thoughts.

At 26 you may not have been able to know that what you are struggling with in your relationships are personal hang-ups, which are emotional baggage; so at 40, 42, 48 or even 50 you have names of these things and various phenomena is no longer just hitting you unaware, you know what is going in. You can analyse stuff. Of course that is if you have taken the time to learn, observe, familiarise and appreciate the serendipities and intricacies of life and living– all of which makes what is known as knowing yourself.

With all that in place, decisions come easier And if over the years you have invested sufficiently in empowering yourself you are then able to make some life changing decisions for the better. At this stage it no longer holds water to blame your parents for stuff or for how you turned out. In your forties you need to own yourself and your decisions and subsequent actions. You are taking responsibility at this stage. You come into your own. Yes, even as you relate, interact and mingle with others, if you have used or using your experience and wisdom well, at this stage you are able to know and show where you start and where you end. No longer should you be swallowed up by others. Your identity should be clearer to you and you should be better able to articulate it.

If by the time you are in your forties your identity is yet to show through; is swallowed up and enmeshed with that of your friends and whoever else you associate with, then it can only mean, one thing, and one thing only: that your age came alone – it did not come with wisdom.

The Fabulous Forties column is a celebration of an age that benefits from lived experiences, opinions, observations and sentiments associated with the “coming of age”. Contact: maggiemzumara@yahoo.ie
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