A Pension of Experiences and Memories

Turning 63 yesterday, as I undeniably did, I reflected that I really should have some wisdom worth sharing at this point. I mean, I’ve been around the sun a few times, saw my quota of good stuff and bad. Isn’t it about time I had something useful to share? 'Insightful' might be stretching it, but there really should be something.

Okay, well let’s try for a little something. It ain’t gonna be much, I can promise you that but, come on, we’re talking 63 years old now, I’ve gotta start dispensing some kind of wisdom soon or else it’ll simply be too late.

And, if you’re not there yourself already, let me tell you a little something I’ve discovered about being 63. It’s a darned sight older than 62.

Maybe it’s just me and the year I’ve had (fairly well documented in these pages). Maybe it’s just a general truism. Whatever it is, and I know I’ve only been in it for one day, but 63 starts to feel a little old. Maybe it won’t feel so old tomorrow (here’s hoping) maybe it will feel even worse. I’ll keep you posted.

So, we’d better get to that wisdom of mine before I fall down on the ground (again).

It’s pretty basic and well-trodden stuff, to be honest. And I didn’t come to it solely on account of my advancing year-count. In truth, I got to it via that well-documented ‘falling down’ I experienced in January of this year.

As a key part of recovering from that incident, I was required to spend some time as a resident in a physical rehab unit, where I mastered the art of walking all over again. Said rehab unit – a most excellent place with most excellent people – also doubled effectively as the main old-folks home in the town. So, for that recovery period, I lived alongside the residential elderly, and, for a time, I was as incapable and in need of care as any of them.

My point here is that I got a fair taste of that it is like to be an elderly person who lives in a care facility. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not old and I don’t think of myself as being old, I’m only 63 for God’s sake. But the experience I had gave me an opportunity to draw back the veil on that life and see what it is really like. And, for what it’s worth, I’m here to tell you that it’s not all that bad. The care is good and, most importantly, delivered at a human level. The food isn’t bad at all, and the people try to make you feel like one of the team rather then the target of the exercise.

There’s a TV Show called The Rehearsal where the central guy goes to extraordinary lengths to recreate locations and scenarios so that people can play out life events in a contrived environment to perhaps learn how best to deal with those events. I feel that’s kind of what I did during my time in rehab. I got to play at being old and infirm. I got to do ‘elderly lite’.

And before I share with you what I think I learned best on my ‘elderly lite’ programme, I need to acknowledge one thing that effects everything about my own experience. Apart from a few days early on, where long-term scenarios were being less positively predicted, my time among the elderly and infirm was coloured by one critical piece of knowledge. I was always getting better and I was always going back home. I have to respect the people I met there, who are still there and may always be there. Theirs is a different path to the one I walked, and I know this to be true and I respect it.

But my experience seems to have taught me something or, at the very least, reinforced something I may have always known.

And it is this:

As you move towards retirement, you try to amass some kind of little pension. An investment to see you through the remaining years (hopefully decades) of your life. I think there is another pension you contribute towards, even if you don’t know you’re doing it, and it is a pension of experiences and memories.

The reason I know more about it now is because I drew rather heavily on it when I was in my rehab place. Even in those early days when my life seemed potentially permanently altered, the old memory pension gave me something that I could usefully spend. I thought of the things I had done in my then-62 years. The people I had met. The people I love. The places I’ve been and the various bits and pieces I managed to do. And, perhaps critically, I found myself to be largely satisfied with what I found, there in my account.

Something kept me positive and mostly upbeat during that whole rather rocky time, and I put a lot of it down to that memory pension of mine. I have done a lot and if, for some reason, I didn’t get to do very much more, then the memories and the experiences were things I could draw on to warm me and lull me to peaceful sleep.

And finally, back on my feet again, rocking and rolling, there is an increased drive and incentive to get some more contributions into this virtual pension of mine. I don’t need to go into orbit or descend into the depths of the ocean. I don’t need to jump out of a plane or go to see Timbuktu. I know it sounds mawkish and a bit trite, but I see the leaves on the trees in full summer bloom, and I see them more clearly that I did last year. I will see them this way in my head if a day should come when I will not see them anymore.

So that's my advice to you, as I head boldly into 64. Pay into your memory and experience pension. If the choice arises to do something or to not do something... do it. 

Some day, your pension will pay out for you.