Maybe it’s from currently doing all those jigsaw puzzles and ending up with pieces missing, but I think it may have more to do with therapy and graduate school in clinical psychology, where a lot of us talked about our growing edge, referring to our attempt to expand ourselves to become more whole beings.  I’m not saying it very well, but it was a familiar retort of mine when someone corrected me (“I know, and I’m working on it.”)  And I was!

I guess graduate school  in psychology at Georgia State University back in the seventies was a little unusual; but maybe it wasn’t, I wouldn’t know, but it was a clinical stronghole [stronghold?]  of Gestalt Psychology, especially with the guiding examples of Irma Shepherd and Joen Fagan, Earl Brown and George Taylor etc.  George once said to me after an encounter, “Thank you for the gift of your anger.”  Wow.

I’ve been toying with the challenge of how to spend my remaining time.  Just having fun may be adequate as a goal for some, but I feel the urge more clearly now to get back to uncovering my growing edge.  I’ll be eighty-eight in September, and I have so far to go [grow!].  I had settled down into near acceptance of myself as is, and then had an insight: I experienced the possibility of a new growing edge.

I have always seen myself as a somewhat avoidant personality, having gone to eleven public schools in twelve years–which limited the cultivation of friendship experience; and there was the intrusion of my alcoholic father, but I did luck out and survive.  But does a survivor just live on to have fun?   I had no idea what my options were. Now, I wasn’t wanting to be a late-life born again do-gooder to earn my admission to heaven…Besides, I didn’t have the energy to ladle out soup in a food line, when something happened to let me see a needy room for improvement.  The details aren’t necessary for this post, but an incident uncovered my need to focus on personally reaching out to others, not for support but to support  Big deal, hunh, but it was a big deal for me, and thus today’s blog.

Maybe others have all the pieces of their puzzle, but I have a sneaking suspicion I still need to find some.  The following poem by Felix is by someone who has a full deck…er…all his pieces.  See his poem:

_____________________

BEING OLD

Now that I have become quite old,                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I seldom do what I am told.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I rise each day before the sun                                                                                                                                                                                                                              and ponder what I’ll do for fun.

Content I am to live alone                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    For twenty years it’s all I’ve known.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   I shun things of complexity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 My bliss is in simplicity.

The food I eat is often plain.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                For me to cook is just a pain.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I sate more quickly than before                                                                                                                                                                                                                            and eat much less.  It’s not I’m poor.

A jigsaw puzzle I find fun;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I’ve books to read before I’m  done                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I walk my laps when at the gym                                                                                                                                                                                                                          and try to stay alert and trim.

Despite the aches I must assuage,                                                                                                                                                                                                                      there’s joie de vivre in my old age.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      There are but few sins I repent.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            So all in all, I’m quite content.

As I turn over life’s last pages,                                                                                                                                                                                                                             I don’t expect to live for ages.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I welcome being old and grey,                                                                                                                                                                                                                              for I’ve known love along my way.

August 2023 –  Used by permission of Felix Gagliano*

[The contorted line spacing above does not reflect Felix, but my own oldster ignorance of technical contraptions. Too late to change that!]