The Sweet Spot is Now

It’s taken a pretty long time, but I’ve finally come into my own.

I’ve always done what needed to be done, stood up to speak, supervised other people, engaged in debate, but I have never done it with ease until now. With the remarkably sagging skin on my arms and my sometimes-precarious balance has come an absolute trust in myself and an enveloping, glowing belief in my own wisdom. It’s not that I am always right. It’s that I am always true.

A long time ago, a therapist told me “You are who you pretend to be.” I get her point now but at the time, I thought she was telling me, “Pretend to be a not crazy person.” So I did that. And it worked. It also worked if I pretended to be my friend, Arlene, if I had to do any kind of public speaking because Arlene could talk forever and make everyone laugh. I pretended to be Arlene a lot – in graduate school and then later on my jobs in community action. She became an alter ego, but I never told her.

And then, somewhere, somehow, I left Arlene by the side of the road.

I thought about Arlene last night when I read my statement conveying the Commission on Aging’s county budget priorities at a town hall meeting. I read the statement instead of speaking off the cuff because I needed to ‘go on the record.’ But I could have just talked – spoken my mind, waved my arms in the air to make a point, made a wisecrack, delivered my message without stopping to look at any notes. That’s how golden I am right now. The sweet spot – 76 years old.

No one ever told me. But I’m telling you. You have a lot to look forward to.