Recently I went for my annual physical. This year was different because I was also meeting my new family physician for the first time. Because of that, and because I am sixty-five, I put considerable thought into what I wanted to address during my visit. I liked my new doctor almost immediately. Although she was ready to launch into my physical, I told her I had some things I wanted to bring up. I could tell she was a little concerned that this might put her behind, but nevertheless, she perched atop her desk, the computer keyboard in front of her as she tried to listen and type simultaneously.
I explained that in the last eighteen months I had had some changes that I thought she should be aware of. I had been diagnosed with degeneration in my lower back which was causing chronic pain. I had seen a neurosurgeon about a neck problem and discovered that I had deterioration at my C-4 and 5 vertebrae that was causing pain in my elbow and thumb. I had also been diagnosed with lymphocytic colitis. Oh, yeah, I recently had trigger finger surgery and was dealing with residual pain. And my cholesterol has been a problem, etc., etc., etc.
As I told her all of this, she diligently entered the information into the electronic medical record, and I began to think---“Uh oh, this is all I am to her! A jumble of symptoms!” So I found ways to introduce other things about myself---my past work, some research I had done, my writing; my marriage, daughters, granddaughters. She listened and typed, but asked few questions, except to say, “You sure are busy,” which she might not have said if I weren’t a retiree.
I left the visit with a referral to a dermatologist, orders for blood tests, and plans for reducing my cholesterol. I also left with questions for myself about why it had been important to tell her so much about who I was. I guess the answer was simple. If all went well, this new doctor would be my physician for the rest of my life. If that were the case, I wanted her to know as much about me as possible, so that as my health issues multiplied over the years, she wouldn’t forget that I was a person, that I was more than the sum of the infirmities that come with aging. I didn’t want the curriculum vitae of my personal and professional life to be buried under a pile of medical diagnoses.
As I reached my car, I thought, “Don’t be so silly.” Then almost as quickly, I thought, “You’re not being silly at all.”
With age comes the struggle to maintain a vital sense of self. Many things can encroach on this---failing health, role displacement, stereotypes of older adults, loss, and just the gradual unraveling of time. Sometimes it’s the smallest of things that remind me that with the passage of time there is also the passage of who I once was. I cannot throw a ball as I once did. I cannot run. My hands are not nearly as strong as they once were. My memory isn’t as sharp. Aches and pains don’t come and go. They come and stay. Oh, and I am one and one half inches shorter.
It is easy to lose oneself during the irreversible changes of aging. It seems to me that, if I don’t want that to happen, my task is clear. I must be the one who shapes and defines who I am for as long as that is possible. For me, that comes down to two things. Freud said it first: work and love. By work I don’t mean employment. I mean doing what gives my life a sense of meaning or purpose. Writing tops the list for me, although I have other commitments that also fit the bill. And by love I mean being connected to a significant few in a mutually nurturing, affectionate and transformative way. I am lucky to have cultivated that, as well.
Aging provides an inescapable opportunity to tackle again and again the matter of who we are and what we’re about.
David B. Seaburn is a writer. His latest novel is More More Time. He is also a retired medical family therapist and Presbyterian minister.
