I have not long moved into a Retirement Village.  It is a big step.  I came to the realisation that I needed to move quite quickly after being scammed by a tradesman and then suffering a medical emergency.  I realised that I needed to live in a more supported environment and I didn’t want to live alone in my house anymore.  After the flurry of selling the house and finding a lovely new place to live I began to settle down.  But I was mildly depressed.  It’s a big thing to accept that you can’t cope alone as well as you’ve been used to doing.  Old age is encroaching (in fact it has arrived) and its companion fear – death.

Despite everything going so well (the unit is lovely, the people are welcoming), I have been waking up in the night feeling very low. I realised that I was walking the path of darkness rather than the path of light.  Having given many talks about this very thing I had always assumed that the path of light was mine, not the other one.  Other people became sad and unhappy with old age but not me.  What is wrong with me, I thought? I decided to take my own advice and revisit the talks I had given to so many.

What are these two paths – Light and Dark – all about?

The Theologian, Henri Nouwen, writes that seniors either walk the Path of Light or walk the Path of Darkness and Despair. These two paths are spiritual paths. I know that many good Christian people suffer from clinical depression. This is something different. Many people, when faced with the challenges of old age, become despairing in the face of it. Others do not. They cope and lead peaceful, happy lives.

Similarly, the psychotherapist Erik Erikson writes about the eight stages of life.  Each stage of life has its own crisis which he describes as two ways the person can go.  The last stage – old age – interests me the most. Erikson called this stage “Ego Integrity versus Despair”.

Ego Integrity is much like Nouwen’s Path of Light.  The older person looks back on their life, wondering what it all means. If they follow the Path of Light they can accept that what is done is done and what is not done is not done.  Acceptance of that reality is the key.  If they can accept their life for what it is and has been then a sense of peace ensues.

On the other hand, many older people live in despair. This may not be visible on the outside but still it is there.   As they look back on their lives they experience regret about past choices and actions.  They wish they had done things differently and now it is too late.  For example, why did I not take the opportunity to travel? Why did I choose that career rather than another? Why did I marry him/her and not someone else? And so on.  I have seen and heard many such stories in my work in aged care.  Nothing can now be changed about these choices except one’s attitude toward them.

In my own case I do not regret my choices but I know that my time is running out.  The clock is ticking.  I won’t live forever, and have I done enough?  My past mistakes rise unbidden before my eyes at 3 am.  Not a happy time of night.

Losses in the Senior Years

There are other causes of despair besides regret about choices made.  The senior years are a time of continual loss: loss of friends and family as they pass away before us, loss of health and strength, loss of home if it is necessary to move into residential care,  even loss of familiar actors, politicians and people of note who formed the background of our lives.  Everything constantly changes and that is hard to bear.  Elizabeth McKinley writes that all these losses need to be transcended if we are to live happy lives in our senior years.

But how can we live happy lives in the face of all this?

Nouwen’s paths of Light and Darkness mirror Erikson’s analysis.

How can people be helped to move off the path of darkness and despair and onto the path of light and hope?

The good news is that there are many ways to do this.  It’s quite a journey but I’ve begun to take my own advice and friends report that I’m looking a lot happier.  At the moment, I hop between the two paths.

More of this journey will be explored in the next few blogs. Click here for Part 2: Is an easy life a necessity for walking the Path of Light?