Moment versus Momentum

Moment versus Momentum:  The Creativity-Key to unlock the Isolation-Prison

By Charles LaFond, ISR Senior Development Director

There is an odd secrecy to aging’s challenges in our society. We love to talk about aging’s “joys,” such as retirement, travel, intergenerational community centers, mental connections, etc. And there are many joys. However, there seems to be a taboo on speaking about the challenges of aging. We hear feedback in meetings such as “It’s a downer to discuss aging.” “It frightens me to think I might one day age.” (…said a 70-year-old!) or “We can discuss aging, but not illness or death.” And I get it. The topic would be less challenging if we were all not going down that road of life. My washing machine has a cycle, and so does my life.

I work for Island Senior Resources– days filled with challenging conversations about aging. How do we discuss a difficult topic without being triggered into fear responses? The subject of aging is more complicated than, for example, Cancer – which only a percentage of people will battle, or homelessness, which even fewer of us will fear. But aging is an equal-opportunity arrival, so we need to discuss it. Openly. Honestly. Conversations that are repressed will seep out in harmful ways, like steam from a cracked pressure cooker.

A recent illness of many weeks, due to an age-related disease, forced me to get curious about aging’s challenges. After many weeks at home, in a forest, alone in a chair, I began to feel sad and frustrated. Days would go by without human contact. My mood became darker, food was no longer fun, and the darker thoughts lasted longer because I let them. As a writer, I began writing about these feelings and noticed that the solution was “moment versus momentum.”

If a moment of grief, loss, loneliness, or sadness flew into my head, I realized that the old saying is true: “It’s one thing for a bird to fly over your head, but quite another to let that bird make a nest in your hair.”  We need to let go of anxious thoughts as an act of self-care.

A primary battle to be fought in aging, with or without illness(es), is the work to move past the “moment” of depression and into the “momentum” of creating something – anything.

So, what does momentum look like when one is ill, weak, or exhausted? It looks like creativity. It looks like movement. It looks like not letting the bird-thought of sadness make a nest in your brain.

So, I began making lists of things I could do with an infected leg and the amputation of part of my foot. I could …well…write letters, make Chinese dumplings, call friends, make fun meals (briefly), create cards for friends, use YouTube to learn new skills, or imagine “travel” possibilities with Rick Steves on TV. I could watch documentaries and invite friends to bring me dinner (and stay for it.) I walked a few steps to move my body. And I began a coloring journal, writing down my worries and hopes but then interpreting them in colors with paints like an illuminated manuscript with as many joyful images as I could muster.

Our fears just want to be heard and acknowledged at the door, but we need not invite them in for afternoon tea. Whatever you can move, move it. Whatever you can learn, learn it. Whatever you can do, make it. Creativity leads to optimism.