Ruth … All sorts of thoughts gathered, wanting to pour out of me as I read your words.  You look great, it is hoped you feel good, and you have new challenges that many don’t seem to be able to find in the offing.  I think you have come to the realization that you cannot be responsible for how your children are living their lives.  That can be like a stone that drags you down.   But - where have all the good times gone?

I think you packed our own life with "good times" already as I did.  Within me is a storehouse of good times past that I can bring up at will.  But there should come acceptance that we aren’t "beautiful" - but speaking for myself, I never was.  I took what I had and went with it as there was no choice.  We find that that is not what it is all about anyhow.  But I certainly can still fill life with laughter and delight, attracting others that also believe "good times" are what we make of them. 

Yes, I see around me people who think that slowing down to a crawl, watching life pass them by is what we "do" when we get to a certain age.  I avoid them, knowing that is their choice.  But within me is a young person always trying to get out.  Around me lie rainbows that I find that are always within reach, and with a mind that stirs (if anything) more than it has ever done, I am not going to waste a moment.  I am determined to find out what lays beyond the next corner, the next country, and in my home, love blooms.  I swear it is the laughter shared that does it - and the caring and exuberant hugs. 

Our dreams I believe are not whimsical now, but more substantive and "real".  And doors I didn’t know existed open up, and behind them new and fresh people who interest and challenge me to be smiling and excited over what the next day may bring.  Is life good?  Is there a cut off date for dreams?  If there is, I am all done.  But while I see a road ahead, I am going to travel it, sometimes not knowing where it may lead except forward.  And moving  FORWARD is the key, and joy in what you discover along the way is the prize.  Excitement reigns — and over and over I have found that it is up to us to make our days good and productive — and we CAN!!!  Joan

Recently my daughter helped out an older couple who were lost. When they found the house they were looking for the old man asked if he could give her something for  all her troubles. She asked: give me advice on what you gathered worthwhile at your age. The man did not hesitate and said: Don’t get old!

All good and well, should that be our dream when we are 50 or 60 ????Should we run around saying that we don’t want to see 80 or heaven forbid 90.

Every age , I found out, has challenges and yes, dreams. If not then we will just wither away. Life sucks! An expression floating about and if we catch the phrase mid air and accept it as ours then I can assure you it will suck.

Perhaps you say there are moments when life does suck but then is the time to see what we are made off. Give in? Fight? The choice is ours.

Having written all of this wisdom (Ha ha) I surely do not want to be 90..because I will not have enough money to live till I am 90!

A lovely piece of writing, Ruth, singed with melancholy. My question would be, as it is in many things in my own life, have you come to a healthy "acceptance" or is it a passive "giving in"?  As long as we are still breathing, in terms of molecules, and I would say even possibility, we are as alive today as we were the day were born.

I really enjoyed this article. My parents started the process of getting a divorce in mid July. They’ve been marred for 36 years. In just these two months, it’s been incredible to watch how both of them have reimagined their futures. I wonder if dreaming is helping them? My father, without a doubt, is indulging his dreams of travel. My mom, who I think was having a very tough time at first, seems to get better day-by-day — maybe she finds some spiritual guidance in her dreams?

Thank you, Ruth for this thoughtful essay. You raised so many issues about aging, holding onto one’s ability to dream, being creative - just a goldmine of things that are so essential to contemplate.

I’m finding that as I get older, far from losing my ability to dream, my dreams have become very dense and multi-layered. As a young woman, I started keeping journals, and in them I often record my dreams. Looking back over nearly 40 years of journals, as I occasionally do, I’m always struck by the difference in my dreams. Years back, they were full of EVENTS and ACTION. Now they are full of CHOICES and CHALLENGES. My dreams seem to have become more detailed and more packed with situations where the process and challenge of making decisions is more important than leaping into the fray in a headlong manner. My dreams seem now to be far more metaphoric and symbolic - either that or I’ve just reached an age where metaphor and symbol are deepened by years of experience and years of just plain living, and in many senses are the norm.

There are many nights where I actually look forward to falling asleep simply because I anticipate dreaming, When I have days that are particularly stressful or challenging, I find that I NEED to dream as part of a sort of "purge" of conflicting thoughts and feelings. I don’t always get an answer in my dreams (or any inkling of winning Lotto numbers, alas) but I often find some thread in a dream that, upon waking, I can hold and follow to an insight.

And as for dreaming during waking hours, setting new goals and challenges, feeling excited about the future - well, I think as I’ve aged, I may be more realistic about some of those dreams. (I have finally admitted that the likelihood of my making the Olympic swim team and competing in the breast stroke is probably not going to happen - that was a hard one to give up, but there is always the Senior Olympics should I decide to "go for it" after all!) I have not necessarily eliminated those wild, wonderful fantasies that set life in motion back when I was much younger, though. Because if I did that, what would be the point? Tennyson’s great poem "Ulysses" sums it up for me:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in the old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Keep dreaming! We’re in a No Yield Zone.

We live in a society where we die at 40 and yet some manage to "reincarnate" quite well.  Dominick Dunne for one. 

Most of the "professions" tend to "discourage" those over 40 without realizing that "life experiece" makes for wonderful attorneys and doctors and psychologists.  

Still, those with a passion, often discovered in those day dreams, somehow manage to prove that it’s never too late to do something you really want to do.

Oh grow up.   Whine Whine Whine.  It appears you have a life that would be the envy of anyone and you are here blathering about not having good dreams anymore?   Countless women are living lives with far less public acclaim, glamour, and personal fulfillment and aren’t sitting around whining about it.  They just wake up every day, feed the kids and husband and pets, get the cereal on the table, get the book bags together, get the kids to school, go to their own nine-to - five jobs, and come home exhausted and put dinner on the table, help with homework, make dinner,  clean the toilets and throw some laundry in, fall into bed and HOPE they don’t dream but get a good night’s sleep.  I have a suggestion for you..if you have a hard time falling asleep because you don’t dream anymore, try counting your blessings.