AHSS The Gift of Years: Loneliness (Lesson 33)

“What is the worst of woes that wait on age?” Lord Byron wrote. “What stamps the wrinkle on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page and be alone on earth as I am now.” A major characteristic of aging is that it separates us from the rest of humanity. The older we get, the younger the rest of the world appears to us, the more aware we are that we now inhabit a very rare space. There are fewer now who understand who we are, where we’ve been, what we care about in life.

Age is the elegy of elegies. It has a greater impact than death in many ways. In death you are remembered. In age, you are far more likely to feel forgotten sequestered even from the very act of living. We are the ones who have to ask ourselves every day, “How does it feel to live in a younger world while being so old?” There is a loneliness that seeps in as we age. It is the loneliness that distances ourselves from where we’ve come from and to where we’re going. We begin to be less and less here and more and more … where?

On the one hand, we are lonely, even in a crowd, because there are so few we can talk to about this new moment in our lives. And on the other hand, it does not feel real, even to us. Age, we know, is nothing but a number. Except that it isn’t. We begin to be aware that life is slipping between our fingers like the oil of fine olives, smoothly and steadily, smoothly and regularly, smoothly but inevitably.
That’s when we get lonely, not because we are being isolated or ignored, but precisely because we are now in the fullness of life. Our own. We are not living the life of the masses anymore. And our life, we have come to understand, is very different from theirs.

We miss the sense of importance that came with the bustle of middle age. We miss the daily social stimulation that came with going into the office, the shop, the store, the classroom, the hospital, and being a part of the team, the crowd, the birthday parties, the neighborhood barbecues. We miss the intellectual stimulation, sense of achievement, of being needed, that came with the daily problems. That is, until we become conscious of the new importance that comes with simply being who we are, rather than simply what we did, who we were around but did not really know, and being a part of the accomplishments that no one ever heard about. We miss having a place to fill.

Families used to stay together through generations and actual retirement was not as common. There was no T.V. or internet to keep older people informed back then. There was no way to become part of something even bigger and more important than the work they did, once the work was over. Now there are far-flung families and friends, jobs change often, and early retirement is a choice frequently made. T.V. and the internet have made people able to be close across distances and more easily able to find societal needs worth doing regardless of the pay. Then we discover that if we’re lonely, it may be because we have not looked around to see who needs us.

A person who is needed – really needed – is never lonely, never isolated, never without purpose in life. All we need to do is to go out and do something. The world is waiting for us with open arms.

Sister Joan says: A burden of these years is that we will hole up somewhere and mourn our age, our change in life, our losses. A blessing of these years is that we will make ourselves available to the world that is waiting for us, even now, even here.

1. “Age is the elegy of elegies,” Sister Joan states. Look up the definition of “elegy.” After doing so, discuss or journal why you think she made the statement.
2. What has been your experience of loneliness? Was Sister Joan’s solution to look around and see who needs you an idea that might help you deal with loneliness? Discuss or journal your thoughts.