Gone for good are the days of pappa and his baggy slacks and suspenders, waist hitched up half-way to his nipples, sporting a fedora and sucking on a stogy. Vanished too are the ankle-length plain black dresses accessorized with the equivalent of high-heeled combat boots. The image of the two of them, rocking side by side on the veranda stays absolutely stuck in your mind. That Grandma and Grandpa image is so last century! Now, as long as we’ve taken care of ourselves, we’re doing other kinds of rockin’ . . . if we’ve both still got the energy when we get home from work. When they say that 60 is the new 50, they ain’t kidding! The retirement train has left the station, and, if you’re not already on it, you’ve probably missed it for good. That paradigm has done shifted.
Just because we need two birthday cakes to accommodate all the candles (and, we hope, all of our friends at the party) doesn’t mean that we’ve installed ourselves in death’s waiting room, awaiting the next departure of the ferry across the river Styx. I hope that, by this time, we’ve learned to cope with the vagaries of menopause and andropause with at least the same measure of grace and style with which we once managed to deal with puberty. It may surprise younger people to know that, in most cases, Mom and Dad (and yes, Grandma and Grandpa) still ‘do it.’ It’s just a little . . . well . . . different.
Perhaps, these days, the hormones aren’t ‘raging’ so much as once they did: and that’s OK. They’ve probably already gotten you into enough trouble for one lifetime, anyway. You probably remember the days when you could look into one another’s eyes, see that certain raise of the brow, that indefinable curl of the lip, and you both knew; and suddenly the two of you found yourselves in a sweating, exhausted heap. Theoretically it could still happen in maturity, but it’s about as likely as winning an Olympic gold medal at our age. The hormones that keep those fires stoked just aren’t flowing quite as freely as they once did. But, that doesn’t mean that we post-midlife folks have been transformed into eunuchs by the Menopause and Andropause fairies. On the contrary! The passions are as hot as they ever were: their fires just take more tending than they once did. The result is a passion that can be at least as intense as it ever was, and it’s a whole lot more focused.
The road to becoming and staying a ‘sexy sexagenarian’ is actually very clearly and plainly marked. Physically, there really aren’t any surprises. You’ll want to pay attention to your health. That means watching your diet and nutrition carefully. As your hormone levels shift, your body becomes less efficient at processing what you used to be able to scarf down with impunity. It also means keeping up (or increasing) your level of exercise. It now takes more work just to maintain your conditioning. If you want to improve, you’ll need real effort, and lots of it. In addition, it means getting plenty of sleep. Aging sometimes affects peoples sleep patterns, but proper diet and exercise can help regulate that. Finally, since everyone’s body chemistry works differently, your personal experience may vary from the ‘norm.’ Don’t be afraid to consult outside experts in nutrition and exercise and, if necessary, to get medical advice and/or pharmaceuticals.
In sum: to live an energetic life, you need to commit to an energetic lifestyle. Doing so not only makes you feel more attractive, it also makes you be more attractive in fact. People — including your partner — are naturally drawn to those with a more vibrant life force. It makes you more desirable.
Now comes the challenge that goes along with being a ‘sexy sexagenarian’ (you knew that there had to be one, didn’t you?). Once you move past the stage where sexuality means hormones calling out to one another, you enter the amazing realm of sexual intimacy. This requires that you become increasingly self-aware as well as ever more sensitive to your partner and her or his Sitz im Leben (‘life situation’) from day to day and from moment to moment. As you both age, you’ll experience a growing number of limitations that will negatively affect your mutual ‘window of opportunity’ for expressing physical intimacy meaningfully. You should become more aware of the toll that stress, illness, and aggravation take on your ability to summon up the conscious ‘presence’ that true intimacy requires. “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache” is funny mainly because it’s too true.
Beyond the physical, there are two essential requirements for creating the ever-deepening physical intimacy that can be the hallmark of post-midlife maturity: humility and openness. Humility demands that, as was written in gold letters on the temple of the Auricle at Delphi, γνῶθι σαὐτόν (‘know yourself’). Know what’s going on with you, but inside and out. Know (and be prepared to accept) your limits as well as your limitations. Likewise, know your partner. Learn to read the subtle signs that tell you whether he or she is ready to connect with you or not. Always be ready to defer; just as you’ll want her or him to be willing to defer to you. And be open. If you don’t know what’s going on, have the humility to ask. Talk about what you want openly, without assumptions. Listen to what s/he has to say. Be open to suggestion. Be open to finding new paths and routes to intimacy should you find any of them closed to you — temporarily or permanently.
In any event, remember this: intimacy evolves with you. As you grow, and your partner grows, and your relationship grows, your intimacy can grow, too. There is no limit to the heights and depths of passion in the lives of people with humility, openness, compassion, understanding and, above all, imagination. Age is irrelevant to how intimate and how passionate your relationship can be. Age demands only that you become more consciously aware of and more determinedly committed to one another. People’s lives are not like novels where, eventually, you come to the end and there’s nothing more left to learn. People are both infinitely complex and ever-evolving in new ways. So long as you live, so long as you are both humbly committed to being open and honest with one another, at no time can you ever exhaust the possibilities of your relationship. That’s a promise.
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown
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