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We’re reflecting today on mindful aging. How did you arrive at this theme for our conversation?

Six years ago, I had a double total-knee replacement. More recently, instead of fully healing, I needed knee revision surgery on one of them. And now, the second knee may also need similar revision surgery. So, mobility and accessibility are on the top of my mind.

I had just passed my 65th birthday, now 66. Mobility, accessibility, and staying connected with people became a new path for reflection. I had not included aging and its physical manifestations; another challenge for the fourth quarter.

I discovered the need to enter a different state of mindfulness; to live a mindful life while aging. Acknowledge the good things and learn from tough times.

It’s been six years since the first surgeries; and for five years before that, I had been in constant pain. Already feeling the challenges of becoming less physically able to do what came so easy in my youth.

I’ve been in both worlds – physically abled and now physically challenged. I’m not an expert in the field, but there’s a personal intensity to it now. Every time I see there’s no elevator, every time we go to eat and I can’t get in and out of the seating. It’s like a reoccurring injury.

That sounds very difficult, I’m sorry for your pain.

Thank you. It was hard, and raised the awareness of ‘uh oh, this is coming, my body is going to change.’ And I have to be strong enough to change with it and bring everybody else along with me on that ride.

I keep saying it’s brave to grow older, but it is. Because it’s the time when you’re confronting everything you’ve ever done and passing judgement, and hoping you come out on the plus side.

It’s a lot of revelations of yourself and thoughts that you’ve had over the years. It feels like it’s a lot, and I’m trying to figure out some methodology to do it all.

I think it’s so much harder because mainstream culture leaves us all on our own to make sense of aging. Do you feel a perspective emerging yet about the arc of your own journey?

I was an active sponsor and supporter of systems change; that feels like it was a long time ago. And that’s the thing. There was a point where I stopped thinking of myself as Maria-The-Advocate-Changemaker and started feeling like this much more introspective person struggling with how to find a place for myself. What are the new headings that I need to have as I age?

Did that point or transition feel sudden, or has it happened over a longer period of time?

The transitional moment hit me out of the blue. You’re busy living your life, and all of a sudden you come up to this point of transition. I felt like, ‘oh, interesting inflection point. Now what?’

I’ve been searching for myself and trying to find the ‘now what.’ Your life has changed, you’re not the same person you were ten years ago. So, what are you going to do, Maria? Am I supposed to be “retired?” I don’t consider myself retired.

I feel that I have a lot to give, but I don’t know how to package it and give it to anybody. I try with my board assignments to be the advocate, an agent for change, but it feels like there’s something missing. How do you apply what you know, in a new or reformatted way?

Friends and colleagues are left behind in the working world when you leave it. That’s been really sad – how do you engage and maintain relationships? I wish that would happen externally, but I know it’s something that I have to do. I don’t have a list of the things that I’m supposed to do to get that sense of community and belonging.

Is that because you got those things through work?

I did. I got a lot of it through work. I see that’s a big struggle now.

I hear you; it’s been such a lonely time for so many. You’re not alone.

Thank you. It’s one of those moments where I remember that we have friends forever, and we also need friends at a moment in time, and they may not be the same. I would expect friends to challenge you, make you look at yourself, engage in a lot of reflection, and most of all, not pass judgement. Sometimes I feel judged – maybe by myself, but I’ll blame other people for it!

Do you feel like it’s connected to the time of the covid-19 pandemic as well? 

I think it’s a combination of the injury and surgeries along with the natural aging process, and the life-altering pandemic. And I think these are questions that one would have regardless: now that I’m older, what am I going to do. Aging plays a big factor, and having to come to terms with it.

I’ve been doing a lot of analysis about my past. And I’m still trying to emerge from that process. I think we have several points of emergence in a lifetime, and I’m looking for that next stage.

I’m wondering what you would consider your guiding values right now? I’m hearing belonging, agency, contribution, connection.

A value that I have is trying to walk in everybody else’s shoes before you say or do anything. Be aware of the other, that it’s not just about you. That to me is important. And to feel that you belong somewhere. Actually, you hit it on the head, I don’t belong anywhere, and that’s what I’m trying to find.

Being 66 is a very pivotal point. Because there are parts of you that can keep going and going, and there are parts of you that say, ‘I can’t do that.’

Do you want to say more about those parts?

Well, there’s the physical part. The fact that even on a thinking, cognitive basis you’re not as fast as you used to be, you don’t remember as much as you want to, or you get tired sooner.

I can tell my story in several ways. I can tell it so sad that you go, “oh that poor woman,” or it could be “oh my god how fortunate she is.” And that’s where I want to be, taking stock in how fortunate I have been.

What I would like to say to people is that you don’t have to be afraid of these stages, that it’s an opportunity for cleansing, it’s an opportunity to really make a contribution. And not a contribution in comparison to other people, but in comparison to yourself.

I honor and respect what you’re saying about what you lose as you age; do you have a perspective on what you gain as you age?

That’s the quest; I need to answer this quickly. Because there’s still a lot left that I can and will do for myself and others. I’ve divided my life into quarters, and this is the fourth quarter. And it’s trying to see what is it that I still have in terms of my intellect, my passion, compassion, and productive anger. The passion that gets you to the point of being productively angry and being able to do something about it, in ways that you couldn’t have before. I wasn’t going to have the same impact at 32 as I did at 42.

And what are the roles in a culture that – generally speaking – isn’t good at respecting and embracing and lifting up our elders. So our elders are left to figure it out in a way that feels to me incredibly unfair and unjust and unkind.

That’s the toughest part of the journey, I think, this one. Because you’ve got a lot of things you want to bring to closure. And you also have gained the skills to manage it, to deal with it, not often recognized. I think that’s part of what I’m doing now; a double check on Maria’s journey from-the-past into the future.

You must be brave. You are just like a toddler, testing out a whole new world. My granddaughter just walked six steps. That’s some of the joy that has come with aging. It’s not all gloom and doom, it’s process that you have to work really hard on, step by step.

What inspires you, gives you hope these days?

My granddaughter. I remember when I was at the Graustein Memorial Fund and it was all about early care and education. It became my simple goal to work toward every child having what my child has: safety, food, whatever it is that they need to be healthy.

At this point, I know I’m contributing to a future I will never really see. I think that’s ok, it all depends on how you define the journey to get there. My journey is in the last quarter. And I hope to do it in a much more thoughtful way.

It sounds like you’re succeeding on that front.

I don’t give up easily. I think if I did, I don’t know where I would have ended up. But I don’t. And that resiliency – sometimes I have to search for it deeply, sometimes it’s more on the surface. And I think that’s what I’m looking for now, that kind of validation.

On a day-to-day basis, in what ways do you like to recharge?

It’s a challenging question, and an excellent one. Definitely hanging out with my granddaughter. It’s interesting too, someone asked me, ‘what do you feel now, more pain, less discomfort?’ And I realized that what I was feeling was hopeful. Hopeful for what’s next. I didn’t have that before the surgery. So that’s really motivated me, and is motivating me to get up and go to physical therapy, and all around better self-care.

For me that’s a good thing, to be able to look at that and still say that I’m in a state of hopefulness.

I’m hopeful that I can walk again and go places on my own, I don’t do that now. Hopeful that the pain will diminish, and my mobility will increase. That I have found the path forward as I try to age with impact. That would be a blessing.

Get in touch with Maria directly at LinkedIn

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