Open Writing

You learn some lessons as you get older. I've found out, for example, that "Slowly and carefully" isn't just a good motto for blind people; it's a principle for making good things last. Also, that A place for everything and everything in its place" doesn't just help you find things; it helps you remember where to put them in the first place!

But there are other things I've learnt, and some of them are surprising. So surprising, in fact, that I'm not really sure if I've learnt them at all. Perhaps I've just given up trying to learn something else. Like the lesson of the toothpaste tube that goes like this: "You're never going to get it all out so stop bothering to roll it up from the end like a blooming pancake! And for goodness sake, don't bother to wash it out before you recycle it because the toothpaste is never going to smell bad or breed bacteria … duh!"

Perhaps the most surprising lesson that age has taught me - or should I say, is teaching me, since I'm still on the youthful side of fifty - is that I don't actually want to be extraordinary. Maybe that's not hard for you to swallow, but it is for me. I have always admired people who stood out from the crowd. Once, when I heard a woman say her goal was to live a life that defied explanation, I was seized with envy. Why hadn't I thought of that? Oh, to be so unique that people fell silent as you passed! I could just hear them whispering afterwards, "Nobody knows how she does it! She's amazing!"

Of course, I was thinking about my disability. It was a constant challenge for me to be as good as my peers, and if there was a chance to be better, I took it. Biographies about people who had beaten the odds inspired me beyond measure. Helen Keller, Joni Erikson, Jeff Hilton-Barber, Margaret van der Post - these were my icons and I strove with every ounce of passion and willpower to follow in their footsteps.

As a result, I developed high moral standards and a disciplined work ethic. People frequently said I was hard on myself given my physical limitations, but it seemed to me that to be deemed courageous and resilient, one needed to prove oneself in difficult circumstances. What I was doing, in fact, was forcing myself relentlessly to achieve my goal, but I didn't see it that way. I only saw it as wanting to be of service.

Then came the day I encountered an altogether opposite world view. It presented itself in the form of a sixty-year-old Franciscan priest. Bear in mind that I respond strongly to voices and you will appreciate how his rich, slow, infinitely wise manner of speech touched my soul at the deepest level. I knew with a certainty that made no rational sense that I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to live like him, speak like him, believe like him and even doubt like him - because this was a man who wasn't afraid to say he didn't have all the answers. And there was something else; he claimed to be ordinary.

This perplexed me no end because it went against everything I had ever been taught about self-actualisation. It even undermined much of what I believed about God's purpose for my life. I thought I was supposed to want to be extraordinary, but here was this humble man telling me it was an immature goal. Young people have visions of greatness because they want to stand out from the crowd and be seen. Older, more experienced people know that it is preferable to have no visions of one's own but simply to go where life leads, doing what is necessary and leaving undone what is not for them to do.

So here's the thing. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to re-programme my mind or just stop caring so much. I suspect it's the latter but frankly, the former would be easier. Reprogramming my mind would be more of the same; gathering some trustworthy sayings, repeating them like affirmations and reviewing my behaviour daily in the light of what I say I believe. But ceasing to care so much? How does one retrain one's heart? Or am I missing something?

My intuition tells me what my mind cannot; namely, that what I think I care about I don't really care about that much, and what I do really care about I don't really know I care about … if that makes any sense at all!

Because there's another thing that age is teaching me: Listen to your heart. Saying I want to live a life that defies explanation is all very well, but it carries with it a burden to perform consistently and always be available to those who want to ask questions. On the other hand, not saying anything but simply being myself releases me from that burden. If others find me extraordinary because I am unlike them - well, that's fine. I found the priest extraordinary and he remains an inspiration for me to this day. But if my life seems dull and pedestrian, if my interests appear arcane and rather irrelevant to daily life - well, that's fine too.

I'm not trying to impress anyone. All I'm really doing is growing into my own stature, and that can only be what it is. It will take as long as it takes and will proceed as smoothly or as choppily as it proceeds.

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