Composing a Further Life

take?
    “That’s what Casey does with young people. A lot of times with young people, we adults figure out that, you know, Charlie is bright and he’s got a lot of potential, da, da, dah. But unless
he
decides that he’s got that potential and he wants to work on it, it’s all for nothing. A lot of what I did in management was to try to promote realism and ambition at the same time. They’re not antithetical, but they need to be thought through carefully. It also means that the people you’re working with, your staff, have got to be willing to push themselves to be clear.”
    Ruth has maintained her connection with a project for improving the Seattle schools that was financed by a wealthy businessman and originally focused on kindergarten through third grade. Only now, after over a decade, is it really beginning to be possible to evaluate the results as a model that can be applied elsewhere, but many useful projects are abandoned before the results can be evaluated. She also has a continuing concern with mentoring young people, wishing she had done more over the years to help them take the learning forward. “It’s so a young woman or a young man comes out on the other side, saying, ‘I know that I am good, I know that I can do these things, I’m a powerful player, and I have the skills and the talents to back it up.’ I think that’s the transformative work that has to be done. When I’ve done my very best work, that’s what has happened, that a person comes out on the other side and says, ‘I know I can do this, I’m confident.’ Sometimes it takes more than one generation.”
    “I think it’s also what we want to do for older people, who have a kind of a self-definition of deficit,” I said.
    “Well, you know, you’re right, because it is precisely that issue in my head that I’m struggling with about getting older, confident as I am. You know that I had my knee fixed last year? I had a knee replacement. And I have this image in my head of a fallen horse, like that racehorse? I have this image in my head that if you lose control of your faculties, particularly your limbs, that’s it. They have to put you down. Now that’s a crazy image in certain ways, but in other ways it’s not. It’s all about being in control of myself as an older woman who lives alone, and it’s all about how I am going to do what I have to do to be as strong as I can be and be confident that I can do what I need to do as an older person. It’s the same kind of thing.”
    “Which can also involve learning to manage a disability as a positive learning experience,” I commented. “You know, I told my daughter that I was getting hearing aids, and she said, ‘That will be so exciting for you, something new to learn!’ Learning is different at different ages. You have to have different strategies. So what we’re doing, we’re not compromising, we’re learning and adapting. At least that’s how I see it.”
    “Well, I think it is, but you know the hardest thing for me, I don’t know about you at this juncture, is to come to consciousness about that as well as accepting.… There is a certain part of me that says, ‘Oh, I’m fine, I know how to be me, I know how to be this middle-aged me. I’ll be whatever I was, but I don’t want to be an
old
me.’ It has been a struggle because of all of the prejudices that I’ve internalized, that I project onto other people who may not have them. I have a self-image that I don’t want to lose, and I’m afraid that I’m gonna lose that. I have to work hard to maintain the self-image I’ve got that I like.
    “Remember when we talked in Next Step Women about coloring your hair? Well, I did that for a minute, and then I said, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ So I’ve decided that the ‘me’ that I know can live with gray hair. But there are other things about the ‘me’ that I know that I don’t want to give up, walking proudly, all that kind of stuff. The ‘me’ that I know, that didn’t take good care of myself, has to make accommodations now, and I’m finally saying, ‘Okay, so I’ve got to eat the right stuff, even if I don’t like it. I’ve got to do the exercises they gave me for rehab, make sure that I regularly take care of myself.’ When I left the job, I bought COBRA insurance, and I’m gonna figure out what to do about that damned [Medicare] Part B. I’ve still got to do all that. But every time I recognize those things that I have to