You and I Are Too Old to Give Up on Our Impossible Dreams

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

Photo by Martin Wyall on Unsplash

I’ve been down with damaged ribs for three weeks. Plans are in the making. What about you?

Dear Reader: This article is directed to everyone, but kindly keep in mind that I am well aware that some of my readers are not mobile and may never be. That said, whatever dream you may harbor that is still within your reach and ability, I hope you feel inspired to just go do it now.

First, let me set the stage. On March 21st I underwent the second-to-last surgery on my feet, which I hope and pray will end the constant, debilitating pain I’ve lived with for nearly three years. June 20th is the last. God I hope so.

Three days after surgery I took a header and slammed my ribs into the bathtub, which put me flat on my back on the couch while my yard bloomed into spring. I’ve read some fourteen crime thrillers, waiting to be able to breathe without shrieking in pain. Bet you’ve been there.

The next foot procedure will make fourteen major surgeries since 2018. I still took some big travel adventures during that time, but once my feet were reconstructed and had staples in them in 2022, I was limited by the painful staples.

The pain has been brutal and debilitating.

Couldn’t run, hike, work out normally. I’ve paid the price for that, too. That said, I can already feel the difference in my left foot which is healing at warp speed. The pain is gone, and the future ahead looks like I may be able to start jogging again. Maybe even run at some point. There is always and forever hope. But I will be mobile.

And with mobility, after the price I’ve paid, I’m out of here.

So when I read this in Notes by

Lou Blaser

, it really hit home:

I have a list of “impossible things” I want to do but feel like I can’t. Because I don’t feel good enough. Too this. Not enough that. Like I need to become someone else first. Like the version of me who gets to do them hasn't shown up yet.

Funny how we treat some dreams like exclusive clubs, with future-us holding the key.

This is painfully true for a great many of us, especially women. ESPECIALLY women. So let’s talk.

To be fair to myself, I’ve already done plenty of “impossible things.” More on that in a sec, but to Lou’s point, let me share another story. I just submitted a profile to a Pacific Northwest magazine about the inimitable Barbara Hillary.

Hillary’s one of my sheroes. Here’s why she’s important to this piece:

Hilary was a Black woman whose mother moved her from South Carolina low country to Manhattan in the middle of the Depression. Her father died when she was barely two. She spent more than five decades as a nurse, getting bachelor’s and master’s degrees in gerontology.

She understood full well what life would likely be like as she aged in our society. She fought off breast cancer in her twenties and at 67, she had partial lung removal from cancer, reducing her breathing capacity by 25%.

Then she retired. Wanna know what she did?

She started photographing polar bears in Manitoba. Oh, wait, there’s more.

When she realized how threatened these animals and the people who lived near them were, she decided…wait for it….to hike to the North Pole.

At 74, with a partial lung removal.

So yeah, she did. Raised the money, effectively said bye bye to all the naysayers. On April 23, 2007, she raised her ski poles in triumph on the steps of Santa’s workshop, as it were.

She wasn’t done, either. Four years later she skied to the South Pole.

She started a magazine, spoke all over the place on climate change, and did her best to change the world. Finally, at the same time I was in Mongolia doing home says in 2019, Hillary visited the reindeer people on the Mongolian border with China. That was her final adventure.

She died at 88 shortly after. Her list of honors is endless.

Just an ol’ Black lady, doing her thing.

She was a tower of courage, pluck, humor, drive and an example to every single one of us who is past sixty and thinking, well….I guess I’m done.

You’re done when YOU say you’re done.

So what are you and I going to do about feeling like we’re done already when we have potentially years ahead, while at the same time, they are not guaranteed us?

Now. I challenge you. Just please, consider the privileges that Barbara Hillary did not have, and the obstacles that are NOT in our way, other than ourselves.

Victoria’s boat

My editor at 3rd Act Magazine in Seattle is leaving her post. She and her husband are 68 and 72 respectively. They are going to sail for three months this summer- see above- because of Trump, their finances (because of Trump), and age.

When are you going to go do your impossible? When?

What will it take for you decide that you are worth doing that thing that feels so impossible right now?

When that other future you shows up, which needs to be NOW? Or will you wait so long that your body won’t support your dreams?

When I was 58, I published my first book. At 59, my second. I was working 90-hour workweeks. Nobody is EVER going to give a flying shit about that, except those who really love you and wish you would go out and live, for once.

The moment we realize that nobody is going to give us that gold star for killing ourselves, we’re free.

I set myself free. At sixty I climbed Kilimanjaro after seven months of seriously hard training. That was November. By May the following year, I’d summitted Everest Base Camp, Macchu Picchu and started riding horses all over South America.

Like Hillary, I had my share of doom and gloomers and naysayers. Like Hillary, the moment I stood on top of Kili with a rock in my hand, I knew I was unstoppable.

Learned how to kayak. Tried inline skating, failed miserably. Took on other BIG HAIRY ASS GOALS.

For fourteen years, I spent three to five weeks in a country four times a year and did as much as I could to learn their culture, do the sports and come home transformed. I’ve never been happier, albeit busted up.

I’ve been to 47 countries, paragliding, skydiving, horse riding, climbing, kayaking, rafting, doing some of the most unbelievable things in some of the world’s most unbelievable places, from Mongolia to Croatia to Myanmar to Svalbard to Kazakhstan and beyond.

I don’t know any other person my age and gender who has done what I’ve done for this long, written about it and lived to tell the tale. I give myself permission to own that.

I’m Too Old to apologize for doing incredible things. I HAVE done incredible things. Things I thought impossible. Things lots of folks told me I could NEVER do. I did them anyway. Fuggit.

The only thing that stopped me were injuries and the need to get my body sewn back together.

That was my impossible dream. And as I heal up slowly, I am now planning my next impossible at 72. Launching a brand new business around my brand and my adventure travel. Alaska is on the menu, along with a return to Ecuador.

Bhutan, next year, barring a war or whatever the hell the Orange Idiot decides to dump on our heads. Who knows?

I’m not going to hunker down. I’m going to go live as best I can with the time I have left. Given how clumsy I am, I’m not guaranteed next week, much less next year. And I have training to do, especially once my second surgery is done and the boot comes off in August.

At that point, you’d better not be in the way as I head for the gym to start serious badass training. I can’t wait to have working feet again. Even so, it’s not guaranteed, but I will work with what I have. If I can’t run I will hike with a weighted vest. That vest is already in my coat closet, ready to go.

What is important enough for you to get out of your seat, your house, your comfort zone?

If the current chaos isn’t enough to convince you that it’s time to do something very big for you, I don’t know what is. You are worth it. You’ve always been worth giving yourself the gift of your impossible.

My buddy Ted Brownrigg did that for himself at the ripe old age of 57- he became a river guide for Oregon River Experiences, a client of mine. Read my story here, on or about page 56.

Let’s get back to that very important Note from Lou Blaser.

Lou has some comments to her Note that are worth sharing here:

Gary Gruber

wrote:

May have been Henry Ford who said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” If you can imagine it, you can create it. Go ahead and be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

Maria Hanley

wrote:

And then you realize that the members of that club are just a bunch of regular people and that you’ve had the key the whole time.❤️

Yes, you have had that key the whole time. So did I. It took me until I was 58 to really start. After heading to Thailand and Ecuador, I realized that travel really was my thing, along with all the crazy-ass extreme sports available.

Now at 72, some of those crazy-ass sports aren’t as available, as I’ve lost parts of my hands, my feet, hips and more from all the exertions.

That’s not stopping me any more than breast cancer and lung cancer stopped Barbara Hillary.

I am hungry for more. First, I have to deal with osteopenia in my hips and throughout my body from lack of weight-bearing exercise, thanks to bad feet. That makes me susceptible to far more serious injury, so I have work to do. I can’t wait to get after it.

Here are a few of my memories:

the author copping a cuddle on the way up Macchu Picchu

Boob shot, broken back after a horse threw me in Kazakhstan, private plane ride to Dubai. Oh, and a butt shot of the doctor

Working on our pack horses, wilderness packing trip in the Muskwa Kechika wilderness 2019

Kayaking in Greenland, Trump isn’t welcome here, 2017

What are you waiting for? Most of my best adventures were AFTER sixty. Get out there. Get after it. Do the thing that scares you. Just get started. You will be gobsmacked at what happens when you take the very first baby step. Just that will change your idea of what you can do.

Back to you.

Is your impossible only impossible because you’re not in shape for it? Then get in shape. Do the work. Barbara did. You can. I will. I hope you do what it takes to give yourself your impossible.

Go look up people like Joan MacDonald. There are a great many oldsters who have transformed their bodies late in life. My buddy

Penny Nelson

did. YOU CAN.

Jim the Geek

did. YOU CAN.

You will never, ever be the same. And that’s the best news ever.

Just. Do. It. NOW. Then write about it so that I can re-post and elevate your story.

I can’t wait to see what your impossible is.

Let’s play.

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Thank you for reading, thank you for subscribing. And thank all of you for hanging with me these last three weeks while I couldn’t sit up AT ALL but to go pee, and well, you know. Thank god for my neighbors who helped so generously. We are our communities. Build yours.