Witnessing someone getting old
Nearly 20 years ago I met a gal who at 40 on a scale of 1-10 she was probably a 15 inside and out. Two things in her life that literally broke her spirit was her inability to adapt to simultaneous crash and burn in her career and personal love life.
She had been a high power public relations executive for many years and when the job markets started to get volatile about 12 years ago and was let go she simply was never able to adapt, evolve or manage to come back on top. About 10 years ago she had turned 50 and found a first class private clinic in Mexico that did comprehensive plastic surgery. Because her field required a certain look and on top of that happened to live in Southern California she saw it as viable solution. Personally I told her that it was silly and that better alternate solutions for her path were available. So she gave up the whole plastic surgery idea.
Throughout her life and possibly because of her “good looks“ as define by society she simply was never able to distinguish between men who ultimately were abusive to her and men who would love her for her. By this time she is 51 and I personally witness her go through her last break up with someone she had considered the love of her life. This last set back literally killed off her spirit. I had never witnessed anything like that as I did not think it was possible to be alive and for your spirit to be dead. So for the next 10 years I tried as best as I could to revive her spirit and breath air into her soul.
The one two punch of career and personal set back simply took her down into a funk. She sold her very expensive L.A. house got rid of everything and retired into a low budget existance. About 5 years ago she started to have grandchildren and about three years ago she started to focus solely on the grandkids as it gave her some measure of joy.
Although she was never suicidal I could see that she had resigned herself to simply wait for death. Today I saw her briefly online and when I asked how she was doing she said “same old stuff.”
It dawn on me that she had officially become an old person and that she had decided not to have anything to do with me or anyone in the outside world. So I wish her well and that death is everything she hopes it is.
I have got to re connect to a younger crowd because if she is any indication of how most people become old it is way too depressing to be around anyone like that.
She had been a high power public relations executive for many years and when the job markets started to get volatile about 12 years ago and was let go she simply was never able to adapt, evolve or manage to come back on top. About 10 years ago she had turned 50 and found a first class private clinic in Mexico that did comprehensive plastic surgery. Because her field required a certain look and on top of that happened to live in Southern California she saw it as viable solution. Personally I told her that it was silly and that better alternate solutions for her path were available. So she gave up the whole plastic surgery idea.
Throughout her life and possibly because of her “good looks“ as define by society she simply was never able to distinguish between men who ultimately were abusive to her and men who would love her for her. By this time she is 51 and I personally witness her go through her last break up with someone she had considered the love of her life. This last set back literally killed off her spirit. I had never witnessed anything like that as I did not think it was possible to be alive and for your spirit to be dead. So for the next 10 years I tried as best as I could to revive her spirit and breath air into her soul.
The one two punch of career and personal set back simply took her down into a funk. She sold her very expensive L.A. house got rid of everything and retired into a low budget existance. About 5 years ago she started to have grandchildren and about three years ago she started to focus solely on the grandkids as it gave her some measure of joy.
Although she was never suicidal I could see that she had resigned herself to simply wait for death. Today I saw her briefly online and when I asked how she was doing she said “same old stuff.”
It dawn on me that she had officially become an old person and that she had decided not to have anything to do with me or anyone in the outside world. So I wish her well and that death is everything she hopes it is.
I have got to re connect to a younger crowd because if she is any indication of how most people become old it is way too depressing to be around anyone like that.