Many Selves in One Person

On Sunday I visited  two of my favorite long-married couples, late seventies, early 80s.  It was wonderful to spend an hour, first with one couple, then the other, in their houses. I've loved these four friends for half a century, give or take a few years.  

We talked about regrets.  Septuagenarians and octogenarians have plenty, but we rarely talk about them. We've reached an age when it's freeing to say what was once un-sayable. 

When I've done things I regret, I think, "That was not me!" But it was.  It was just a part of me doing what the part I like better disapproves of. 

We talked about whether we remember most the wrongs we've done, or the wrongs done to us--a fascinating question, I think. 

Spontaneously, in a light-filled room filled with plants and art, we each shared actions of our former selves that still, after decades, make us cringe with guilt, remorse, or regret.  I won't list them here.

The older we get, the more selves are packed into each other, like the various sizes of wooden Russian dolls nested inside the largest one.  Inside the 80 year old are all the selves the elder self has ever been. 

Being with friends who go back so far is a great pleasure.  We know not only each other as we are today, but former versions, as well as stories we've shared that go even further back.  

Conversations are wide, deep,  layered--what (and who) we've loved and lost, our passions and plans. 

A party of two or three expands to way more. Out comes the 40-year-old professor, the shy seven-year-old, and a whole birthday party of goofy sweet brilliant befuddled former selves.  We say odd things like "twenty or thirty years ago"--not particularly interested in specific dates.

Sometimes "this self" fell in love with another person and somebody outgrows or out-loves the other until one decides to travel solo.  Some pairs grow old together, happy.  It's all part of what my friend Mary Locke calls "Life's Rich Pageant." 

So here we are, old, without some of our original parts (knees, hips, uteruses, and shoulders), some without our original partners.  Every day we grow more transparent and real. Nobody ever told us this stage of life could be so interesting.