How Old Is Old?

So, I just turned 62 recently. In my past, I've been ill and broken at times. Fortunately, the body and mind is an amazing thing. The worst I have been hurt, or sick was with Hepatitis 40 some years ago. I've suffered a broken leg, and my back has been drilled, cut, jacked up, and treated to an artificial disk. My nerves have been cut... oh, there are too many procedures back-wise that I have been through. I've been fried, frozen, and been in an operating room, on the table, when there was a hammer present. Yes, Virginia, I have been hammered.

OH MY! You are old!

Depression has always been the worst of my ailments. And so what? It is a disease, and I am being treated for it. You know, it feels often like a problem with me rather than anything that has happened to me. But yet, it is a problem I can't kick by myself. Too bad. I'll make it.

Buddha said suffering is a part of life. Man and woman will suffer. But imagine...62 years. Humans did not used to live so long. A woman giving birth in her 30th year used to be an anomaly. Women died in childbirth. Men, women, and children used to die from countless diseases, and from the effects of war, hunger, even environmental effects. (The pipes that brought water into Rome were made of lead, for instance.)

My friends have their own problems. They have their own aches and pains, their own mental issues, even their children might have illnesses or problems. Certainly no family goes unscathed in this world. My wife lost her brother when she was in her 20's. Her father too was gone in her 20's. Her mother lived to be 92, but my wife was only about 50 at the time. She has seen death. And her cousin lost two children to death, one at 16 or 17, and the other before the age of 25.

I admit to you, despite a rough go my first 25 years perhaps, I have been pretty lucky. A lot of my luck stems from the woman who raised me for the second part of my "childhood," and for the 42 years since I met her--my wife. (Yes, I am still a child in some many ways.) I have been ungrateful at times for such gifts. Shame on me, but she has truly made me realize that life is so much better if one accepts the responsibility for being polite and ethical. I don't claim saintliness yet. Certainly, I am a work in progress. 

But we still suffer. Man and woman suffer. I realize each and everyone who reads this will be afflicted somehow. But imagine--62 years is six decades of wear and tear and sun and pain and cracks to my head and fat lips and thinning hair and graying. 

We suffer, and yet we are still beautiful. I know men and women from Facebook who graduated either the same year, or about the same year as I did, and they look handsome and beautiful. I never noticed this when I was a teen--that older women were gorgeous, but maybe I was blind to that. (The first beautiful woman over 70 who came to my attention--no, not saying my graduating class is that old yet--was a writer, ex-spy, and Countess I met in Santa Barbara. I was in my late 30s and found her elegant, beautiful and charming.) 

So now, I am in love with a woman in her 60s--my wife. I find women in their 50s and 60s and into their 70s often head-turners. Younger people are certainly handsome or beautiful, but if, after 60 years of broken stuff, illnesses, childbirth if applicable, head bumping, Tabasco Sauce overdoses, and hammered fingernails; if you pull off attractive and charming, it is not likely to disappear so quickly.

It is man's lot to suffer. It is part of us. So we do. Hey, we have some claim to it--to the aches and pains and bad feelings. But, in spite of it all, I get messages from people I would expect to be in a crisis of self-pity for all their problems. More likely they are LOL, Ha Ha, or cracking a joke. Well done people! You are my heroes.

Please my friends. Live as comfortably and as happily as you can, Expect a bit of trouble to enter your lives, but you made it! Fill in an age and think about it. YOU MADE IT! And you will make it through most of these turmoils, without ending up squished in the middle of the road. But, let's face it...there will come a time when you won't make it. Oh, well, that's part of how it works. 

God bless you all. Wishing you great happiness, health, and wealth.

Keep your suffering to the minimum.

Relapses, Ophelia, and Elizabeth Siddal--The First Super Model

The painting is by Millais, a pre-Raphaelite painter. The model, who may be the subject of my next book, is Elizabeth Siddal. Siddal was a poet, artist, and very popular model for a lot of Pre-Raphaelite art.
Elizabeth spent weeks in a bathtub posing as Ophelia from Hamlet. Ophelia legend has it that she walked out into a stream and floated on her back, singing and awaiting death as she moved with the current down the river. She succeeded at the suicide.

Lord May I Come?
By Elizabeth Siddal

Life and night are falling from me,
Death and day are opening on me,
Wherever my footsteps come and go,
Life is a stony way of woe.
Lord, have I long to go?

Hallow hearts are ever near me,
Soulless eyes have ceased to cheer me:
Lord may I come to thee?

Life and youth and summer weather
To my heart no joy can gather.
Lord, lift me from life’s stony way!
Loved eyes long closed in death watch for me:
Holy death is waiting for me

Lord, may I come to-day?

My outward life feels sad and stillLike lilies in a frozen rill;

I am gazing upwards to the sun,
Lord, Lord, remembering my lost one.
O Lord, remember me!

How is it in the unknown land?
Do the dead wander hand in hand?
God, give me trust in thee.

Do we clasp dead hands and quiver
With an endless joy for ever?
Do tall white angels gaze and wend
Along the banks where lilies bend?
Lord, we know not how this may be:
Good Lord we put our faith in thee

O God, remember me.

Elizabeth Siddal died of an overdose of laudanum, a solution of opiates mixed with alcohol that was a popular, over-the-counter drug during the 1800s. 

Anyone who has gotten better after depression fears a relapse of the bad times. A any moment a sufferer may fall prey to the disease, at least this is the perception of the victims of depression. It is a scary concept, I admit. Thank God for anti-depressive medications. They help a lot. But sometimes, they stop working as well.

The lovely young lady who posed for the picture above, Elizabeth Siddal, took her own life in 1862.  I suppose she just decided to "fall asleep." This beautiful and talented woman died at 32 years of age. The pre-Raphaelite writers and artists were drawn to melancholy. They were a lot like the Goths are today I suppose. The 1850 and 1860s, were still tough times throughout the world. The population battled incurable diseases, hunger, and wars still fought by staging huge battles and sending the soldiers, row upon row, into the fray. Many battled mental depression before Freudian psychotherapy. Laudanum may have been prescribed for the condition I expect.

Even today, depression is no walk in the park. It still can lead to self-harm or death. Sufferers can still relapse. But we, the people with the disease must count our blessings even in the midst of a severe episode. There is help out there, unlike the time when poor Lizzie took her life. So, if you suffer depression, call a mental health care professional. Americans can get appointments they can afford, or there are free services online for depression, even suicide hotlines.

Don't just give up.

Think you have nothing to offer to anyone? That is why I started this blog. Who knows more about depression than someone who has suffered its consequences. Please folks, even if you are suffering your own tough times, you can talk with other folks who suffer. Be proactive and help.