You and I Are Too Old Not to Love Our Problems

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Robin Jonathan Deutsch on Unsplash

The best part of life is shit sandwiches. WHAT???

Before you bean my noggin with a ball-peen hammer, stay with me here.

The other day I came across an article, which I will share shortly, which underscored a great truth that so many of us today are trying to side-step. But first, let’s pick apart our problems.

In a strange way, many of us love our traumas to death. By crying out “trauma,” all too often we avoid the very thing that the traumas are trying to teach us. I’ve done it, and paid the price for it.

When we weaponize trauma to prevent more pain, we miss the point. I am not saying you should love what hurts us, but when we avoid all pain, we guarantee far greater hurt and reduced competence in dealing with the inevitable hurts which are the cost of being alive.

We end up living in limbo, caught between a life event likely shared by billions of others, and using that life event to build backbone so that the next trauma/life event doesn’t beat us down.

I’ve suffered incest and multiple rapes. Billions of women and men have. Of course it’s awful. That it’s so common that it’s nearly banal makes it even more horrible. BUT IT HAPPENED.

What you and I do with what we are given, with the things which happen to us, is what makes us who we can be.

Of course it’s hard. That’s why more people weaponize trauma instead of using it as way of being a Phoenix, rising from the ashes.

Deposit photos

All childhoods contain trauma. Some worse than others. Those sheltered too much from life’s beatdowns learn nothing about how to handle the disappointments, failures, deaths of parents, pets, friends, faceplants, fuckups and all the other absolute guarantees of any life.

Yet we so often popularize our problems in ways which sound as though having problems makes us special, deserving of pity and protection.

Loud GONG. No. They are our best friends.

I read a wedding vow wherein the groom told his bride “she would never shed another tear.”

REALLY NOW. I’d have left him on the spot. I don’t want someone to rob me of the very experiences I am here to live.

Photo by photo nic on Unsplash

You and I are WAY Too Old to bitch about our problems. They are the gateway to growth.

Look. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, which is why I write about it. I grew up with folks who complained bitterly about everything. They were Depression-era young adults. They had limited ability to embrace what faced them and make it their own. My father felt victimized by the Depression and that tinged the rest of his life.

Why are problems so good, especially when some of them threaten to erase us?

Problems invite, even force personal growth. Let’s talk.

Perhaps the greatest point of pain for anyone who aspires to personal growth is that moment when we realize that what we're studying (the Bible, the Koran, the a Torah, Winnie the Pooh) is for US.

WE are the ones challenged to make our faith into a muscle.

Millions of people read holy books. Sit in pews. Listen to sermons. Millions of us, billions of us, earnestly study sacred texts, memorize millions of words, parrot catechism (me too).

Some of those same people are pedophiles, murderers, thieves, adulterers, sex traffickers, Mafia operatives. Just because you can recite a holy book by heart is meaningless. Doesn’t mean you live by it.

Window dressing.

Many are called, few are chosen. The way I hear that is that the opportunity to grow is given to all. Few choose to rise to the occasion.

This past week I watched the charming anti-fairy tale Damsel. The ads give the story line away, so I feel quite comfortable with a spoiler.

The other point: your kids need to see this movie because the princess becomes the badass, and the prince pays the price of being a dickless shit.

Seconds after she’s married, our lovely princess is sacrificed to a pissed-off dragon. Then our princess gets REALLY pissed off. Burnt, cut, bloody, bruised, busted up, scorched, stinking and filthy dirty, she finds her mojo.

The confidence she has at the end is what she gained from the pain and the ordeal she endured.

The point of this article in a nutshell.

Her problems were her friends. Had she not been sold off, sacrificed and made to suffer a bit, there is no way she’d have what she earned by the end of the movie (THAT I’m not telling, but I will say the prince wasn’t part of the prize).

Here’s that article I promised at the beginning.

One quote I love from Chelsea Harvey Garner’s piece:

Your experience is probably not reflected in anyone’s social media feed or represented by standard-issue sympathy cards. But regardless of how sad or strange things have gotten for you, your story is worth telling. Even with its bewildering side quests and meltdowns on aisle four, your broken life and your broken heart are worth celebrating. What if you stopped waiting to arrive at some imaginary destination where all your problems are solved, and started embracing your life as it is, today?

and finally, this:

You have the right to redefine – for yourself – what happiness looks like. Instead of trying to live a life that’s free of problems, aim to live a life that fascinates you and feels meaningful. When you can, choose problems that seem worth the challenge, and for the problems imposed on you, try to shift your perspective on them. True wellness is less about avoiding struggle and more about appreciating the full spectrum of experience, from moments of awe to exhilaration and even terror.

I know it’s tempting to believe some future moment has your happiness. That, someday, you’ll figure out how to solve your problems and finally arrive in that place where you can really enjoy things. But your life has already begun. This is it. We don’t know what happens once we die but, even if we lived forever, all we would ever be able to experience is the moment we’re in. Stop and feel how it feels to be you, in this place, this body, and this moment. And the next time you feel something difficult, ask yourself: what if this is a beautiful problem? What if you came to earth just to experience this? (author bolded)

Oh my god what a terrific challenge. What if, indeed, we stop hollering WHY ME and start saying THANK YOU I’VE GOT THIS.

For those of you who have the courage to write about your pain, I salute that effort. I do it, too. I have gained community, friends and followers when I also work to find a way to embrace, laugh at and live with what hurts.

Those of you who are Wonder Woman fans recall this scene from her fight with Aries. She gets battered, yes, but ultimately she absorbs his final attack and uses that energy against him:

THAT is our Godkiller. Mine is humor, and walking right into what hurts me. I don’t always do it well. I often find myself desperately wanting to be kissed, cuddled and protected, saved, if you will.

The cost of that is unconscionable. We deserve our problems, for the problems we have are what can make us into a wonder. We save ourselves.

Eugene writer Cai Emmons, who died January of 2024 of ALS, laughed right up to the end. Hours before she chose doctor-assisted suicide, she sent in her final transcript, and left this world with gratitude, grace and the humor of superwoman. That’s how you do it, in my opinion. That’s courage.

It took me years to learn gratitude for life’s pain. It took me longer to re-frame what I said when I wake up every day.

These days I say- I kid you not- today I “get to” deal with (name the issue, problem, pain). I throw my pillows on the floor and smile and say TODAY I GET TO….

TODAY I GET TO DEAL WITH THIS DRAGON.

Burnt, cut, bloody, bruised, busted up, scorched, stinking and filthy dirty, let’s make friends with our problems. Let’s use them to become who we came here to be.

Let’s play.

2024 is the Chinese Year of the Dragon. That’s my sign. This is the dragon who lives on my desk.

I hope this was valuable to you, and above all, I hope the perspective was helpful. If so, please consider

If you know someone consumed by their problems, and if this piece might be useful, please also consider

Either way I sincerely hope you befriend your dragons and that they make you into the person you always dreamed you could be.