The new aging

Another birthday milestone was celebrated this past week-end. Mine. Looking over the past eleven months in terms of numerology, I was in a personal year 2, which means I began a new nine tragetory of change in 2011. A personal year 2 is a wait and see time, of small contributions rather than large ones, of delays, detours and stoppages. It does seem that 2012 has been stoppages and delays, since I have virtually stopped working on my eponymous memoir.  I just can't muster up the enthusiasm.

Chris is in a personal year 4 of hard work, transitioning this coming January to a personal year 5, a year of major change, freedom, new friends and social activities. The good news is that I, too, will be transitioning to a more action packed year in 2013, and, according to the above link, "a good time to expand personal creative talents, particularly those related to the arts and verbal skills. Recognition in this regard is likely this year." Maybe I'll finally finish the memoir!

These predictions may sound as vague and open-ended as a daily horoscope, but I have come to rely a lot of numerology, almost as nature's way of telling me to take a longer term view, to be thoughtful and patient. Change takes time. Change is continous. With mental health labels, we often let time be our enemy. Most of us don't think in decades, we think in deadlines. If I'm not married by the time I'm 30, if I don't have a career or even a job or degree by the time I'm such and such an age, etc.

Paying attention to numerology is also a needed dose of optimism that change will happen. I've been a hovering parent for the past ten years and I don't want this role much longer. Chris is coming along nicely. He's loving his musical theater work and has found a good group of diverse individuals who share a common passion for music and the stage. He has picked up a girlfriend (a chorus girl!) who shares these interests. It took him eight years to open up enough to seek out the companionship of others.

Change needs to happen for us both. I'll be retiring at the end of 2013 and would like to see Chris by then having a toehold on a future path so that I can be free to enjoy wherever mine will take me.  Chris has plenty of volunteer work to his credit. He needs to start building credentials either through vocational training and/or further schooling . Will he be able to make the transition? Does he have the commitment to set a goal and carry out the hard work involved in getting there. This is a question mark. He's still too concerned about MY welfare. How do you explain to someone to forget about me, be selfish for you? I've tried making that point many, many times since Chris was a child, and from what I can tell, it's part of the territory of SZ to be so totally self-less. (In her memoir, author Elyn Saks writes that  she once told a therapist that she no longer wanted to see her (Karen) because her parents were upset that the therapist hadn't figured this out and come up with a plan, and that it cost them too much money to continue to see her. "It never occurred to me back then (and if it occurred to Karen, she didn't say so) that I was taking better care of my parents than I was of myself.") Amen, Elyn.

I've told Chris in as many ways I can make the point, that his father and I aren't feeble, we aren't looking for his support, nor do we want it. Our job is to help him become independent, which is largely about his putting himself first, for once. He can also be of much greater service to others, I continue to point out, if he has some credentials behind him that can orchestrate bigger, more permanent changes in people's lives than helping little old ladies across the street or a picking up litter on a daily basis.  

105 today! The men all died off years ago.