Getting Older

The older I get the grander my desire grows to grab old age by the nuts and kick it’s ass before it even knows what’s up. Longevity medicine is a thing. Erm, that might be about as specific as I can get. I heard one of these longevity doctors has his patients decide what they want to be capable of doing in their old age, and then trains them to train for that. Like training for the marathon of life.

There is this scene from "BoJack Horseman" that has really stuck with me and I think of it when I need inspiration. "BoJack Horseman" is simply put, a must-see show. I honestly think I might put it at the level of "The Sopranos" and "Mad Men."

The main character wants to get into shape, so he tries running up the hill outside his house. Every morning he struggles to get up the hill and every morning a very old man breezes effortlessly past him. One morning BoJack gets so winded he passes out and when he opens his eyes the old man is standing over him and he says, “It gets easier…Every day it gets a little easier…But you gotta do it every day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier”

Sure, the main character is a horse and sure, the wise old man is a baboon, but the lesson rings true. That scene and that quote has stayed with me. I often think of that line when I need to motivate myself for a run, but it can be applied to pretty much anything.

I remember the entire last decade of her life, more and more my Oma (grandmother) would say, “Ugh. Getting old is no fun.” Oma was not the type to complain. In fact, she had a strict “no complaining” policy when I was a kid. So if she was feeling uncomfortable enough to complain about it, it was surely unpleasant.

My Oma was the strongest, toughest lady I ever encountered. She aged very well, staying active and lucid till the end. I don’t know if she did actual exercise in her younger years but she walked a ton and she was constantly moving throughout the day. She was always busy.

When me and my sisters were little and would have sleepovers at my grandparents, the first thing Oma said to us in the morning was, “Let’s get going, we have a busy day ahead of us!” We’d get so excited to be doing things like, changing the linens, going to the supermarket, going with her to the office where she’d give us stacks of papers and put us to work highlighting things for her.

Despite her admission that old age was not as “fun” as one would have thought, my Oma did really well into her old age. I aspire to be like her. The reason she was so active into her old age is because she was active throughout her life.

The amount of love and appreciation for ordinary, everyday life my Oma had was another piece of what kept her strong. I think she was born a strong person, but she had to flee from Germany as a teenager, forced to leave her parents and brother to die in the war. The only family she has was her younger sister who escaped to America with her. Her experiences seemed to make her stronger and give her a more appreciative of life’s simple pleasures and even chores and obligations.

My grandmothers both suffered severe trauma from the Holocaust but in very different ways. I think it’s interesting the different ways Holocaust survivors managed to continue on living after the war. My paternal grandma was starved and tortured, and her baby was murdered. She always seemed like a very, very old woman. Older than other old people. I remember feeling shocked as a kid when I found out that my maternal grandmother (Oma) was older than my grandma Sophie because Oma did not seem like an old lady until the last decade of her life.  

Is it because my Grandma Sophie suffered more horrifying trauma? Can we even compare trauma? Is it a personality thing? I’m not sure. But it’s interesting how some trauma survivors spend their entire lives just surviving, while others people’s trauma can almost catapult them into living life more vigorously than most.

I think it was always in Oma’s nature to be a doer, a go getter. And her experiences only strengthened her. I wonder what my Grandma Sophie was like before the concentration camps. I wonder if she had that type of strength but was stripped of it because of the severity the trauma she endured.

I think a lot about intergenerational trauma. I feel like there is an inherited darkness that was passed down to me as a result of the Holocaust. I like to think about generational healing.

I’m not sure exactly what I believe in regards to reincarnation but I do have this sense that souls are connected through generations and can suffer or heal in different bodies at different times in history. Maybe we share souls. I feel my grandparents’ souls are part of me.

Maybe the work I try to do in healing myself and growing stronger is a continued effort towards healing Grandma Sophie’s soul. Maybe the part of Oma’s soul that lingers in me is what helps me stay strong enough to fight for what I need and appreciate what I’ve got.

One thing that is pretty clear though is that if I want to live a life of growth and healing, I have to get strong now and stay strong. I’ve got to be strong both physically and emotionally. And like the old baboon runner in BoJack Horseman says, I have to work at it every day. It gets easier if I work at it every day, but the hard part truly is working at it every day.