A medical team stopped and restarted my heart a few weeks ago, trying to stop its atrium from fibrillating. I considered this a drastic measure, but it didn’t work. It rarely does, with people my age. Consequently, I’ve scheduled even more drastic measures.
My cardiac reboot took place two days after a close friend’s memorial service. After living with Parkinson’s disease for 21 years, he died of it last December. Despite 63 years of uninterrupted friendship, he didn’t recognize me the last time I visited. I didn’t take it personally. He didn’t recognize his son either. Severe dementia is common during late-stage Parkinson’s.
Shortly after my coronary reboot, another friend called to check on me. He too has Parkinson’s, plus a few bonus conditions. My oldest and exceptionally athletic 84-year-old friend suffers from peripheral neuropathy, a progressive condition wherein his feet become numb. It affects his balance and makes walking on uneven ground increasingly difficult. He has given up on his dream hike in Patagonia.
This is what our eighties are like. Declining abilities are strongly felt, dreams are abandoned, and death claims us with increasing frequency. The “golden years?” Maybe.
Remember Joan and Eric Erikson’s Eight stages of life from last month’s column? (Of course, you do. You’ve thought about little else since, right?) At each stage, the Eriksons theorized a specific developmental task we have to complete to resolve a basic conflict between individual wants and societal demands. By resolving the conflict, we develop a “virtue” that will be essential for successfully resolving the next stage’s conflict. Successful resolutions at each stage yield at least a possibility of happiness. Failed resolutions bring, well . . . not happiness.
Usually, triggered by one or more losses, we start transitioning into Stage Eight sometime after age 65. At 83, I’m well into it. Characteristic of this stage, we have increasingly less to look forward to, and increasingly more to look back on. Consequently, we come to rely ever more on our past to infuse our present with meaning. The inherent psycho-social conflict we face during this final stage is “integrity vs. despair.” The central question is, “Did I live a meaningful life?” The potential virtue to be developed is wisdom.
When review reveals regrets about important things we wish we’d done differently we tend toward despair, because opportunities for amends have become extremely limited and do-overs almost non-existent. Conversely, to the degree we approve of how we’ve lived we develop a sense of integrity, contentment and completion.
Accepting things we aren’t proud of is one version of Eriksonian wisdom. “An informed and detached concern with life in the face of death,” is another way the Eriksons put it. So, Stage Eight is about “knowing” and about “letting go.” Two decades ago, upon completing a career I loved, I wasn’t ready for Stage Eight. I still had too much to give to my community, so I started another career with Age-Friendly Carbondale.
I love this career even more because it’s unrelated to earning a living. I love it enough to be writing this column at 4am. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to live up to the standards I set for myself. Afib makes me tired. Everything seems to be taking me longer and staying focused is increasingly difficult. Soon, I’ll have to step back from this career too.
As for that Eriksonian developmental task, I think I’m doing okay. Increasingly, I’m looking backward. I made mistakes that hurt people I loved. Some people tried warning me but, being too immature to listen, I pandered to my ego and hurt people who didn’t need to be hurt. As a Stage Eight veteran, I own that. Owning it includes mitigating a bit of the damage by apologizing.
In one case I can somewhat compensate for the damage by helping financially, so I’m doing that. But I can’t do a thing for my dead parents who deserved better than I gave them. That regret I’m just living with. Altogether, I feel that I’m doing well at accepting and mourning my mounting losses. But all is not lost.
I still have considerable abilities. I treasure those and intend to continue using them on behalf of my community until I no longer can. I think that’s also a part of integrity. So is recognizing when “no-longer-can” has arrived. “You gotta know when to hold’em, know when to fold ‘em . . .” the poet wrote.
I also still have many relationships and am even forming new ones, but here I’m not doing as well. I attend to them much less than I could, even while knowing that unexpressed love is worthless. Yes, just knowing that is a kind of wisdom, but knowing it and still not expressing the love is plain stupidity.
There are still plenty of Stage Eight issues to resolve before I can die feeling complete instead of just feeling worn out. I guess it’s true. It’s not over until the ample soprano sings. (Hey, just trying to avoid another regret.)

Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale