Overtime: Aging, Fear, and Gratitude

I would be lying if I said I was not afraid. I'm afraid of watching my parents, my in-laws, and my friends grow older. Yet I also recognize how fortunate they are. They're still here. Still engaged. Still playing in overtime.

My parents are in overtime. I'm entering the fourth quarter. And if I'm fortunate enough to hear the final buzzer decades from now, I hope I'll earn overtime, too.

Aging has taught me more than I ever expected. The old saying is true: if only I had known then what I know now, imagine where I might have gone.

Even so, I am deeply grateful for the wisdom I have gained. My life is better because of it.

Aging can be exhausting, too. I see it in my parents through the frequent doctor visits, aches and pains, physical challenges, and occasional lapses in memory.

Still, they keep moving. They do not stop. Perhaps that is one reason they remain in overtime: they continue to show up, one step at a time.

When I read about the Blue Zones, places where people routinely live into their nineties and beyond, one lesson appears again and again. People keep moving. They garden. They walk. They cook. They visit neighbors. They don't retire from life. I think about my parents and in-laws when I read those studies. They keep moving, too.

I am deeply grateful for my life. I understand the odds of simply being born. And if you read my essay from a few weeks ago, Between Faith and Doubt, you know I fear there may be nothing after overtime. Fear changes us. Some people become more anxious. Others become more grateful. I hope I continue choosing gratitude.

And despite the fear, I am grateful - grateful to experience the miracle of life, whatever its cause. I am beginning to feel the aches and pains more often. I have had part of my kidney removed because of cancer, and I still worry about many things. But this is part of aging. The fear. But so is gratitude, especially if you are in overtime.

None of us knows how much time remains on the clock. Some are in the first quarter. Some are at halftime. Some of us are entering the fourth.

If we're fortunate - truly fortunate - we may even find ourselves playing in overtime.

Whenever my final whistle comes, I hope I spend whatever time remains balancing two companions that seem to walk beside every aging soul: fear and gratitude.

Fear reminds me that life is fragile.

Gratitude reminds me that I was lucky enough to live it.