One of the places I teach is at Saddleback College’s Emeritus Institute. The Institute is geared for people over 55, though you can be any age to enroll and you can live in California and a bunch of other states. Classes are free (though we adjuncts are paid fairly, no complaints).
Yesterday in my Advanced Creative Writing class, my good friend, Candi Sary, author of the novel, Magdalena, spoke to my class on finding inspiration in every day life. After she left, one student who was jazzed about her talk, said, “But I’m 80. Why should I write a novel? I might not be here next year or even next week.”
I thought of a journalist friend who’s still writing and publishing at 92. And I thought of another colleague who died at 40. She was working on a novel. People die at all ages, a sobering fact.
Who knows when the buzzer will go off?
When people I know call themselves old or say they’re getting old or say it’s too late for whatever it is they really want to do, I say, Stop it. Your body will believe you and act accordingly.
If you have a gift, I told my worried 80 year old student, you gotta use it. You also don’t have to take ten years to write a novel like Adam Ross did with his marvelous Playworld. I told my student, get your discipline together and write your book in six months.
What I’m trying to say, and what I’ve been thinking about, are the limits we put on ourselves and the way we talk down to ourselves. We say things to ourselves we would never say to a friend.
Be kind to yourself and wish yourself the best. However long a time you have on this planet, might as well do what you want to do for as much time as you can.
