The Twilight Of One’s Life

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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the twilight of one’s life—what it is and how it’s experienced. It’s different for everyone. Like a bridge to a far-off destination we can’t see yet.

I wake each morning, light seeping in my bedroom window, eager to see and be a part of the world.

I tend to the cats’ needs and have breakfast, then typically check email and do other daily tasks. Then I go outside and deadhead my flowers. As I’ve mentioned, this is a serene time for me—a time for reflection. I often hum while I remove spent blooms.

I love living alone with my kitties. I’m happier than ever in what could/might be the beginning of my twilight years. Like many older individuals, I’m happiest at home with my pets. They are my comfort and my precious daily companions.

I don’t need to be around people. After about two hours of anyone’s company, I’m ready for silence—or silence with soft piano music.

Many people say they hate to eat alone, but I prefer it. I don’t need or want conversation while I eat, and eating with others can also be taxing.

I like my routine, and I need it to keep me grounded. So it rarely varies as I enter the twilight of my life.

When Is The Twilight Of Life?

The stage “the twilight years” is late adulthood, which typically begins around age 60. People experience various physical, cognitive, and social changes during this time, often after retirement.

My friend Steve is 80, and he’s virtually unstoppable, which makes me smile every time we’re together. We make one another laugh, and we share the same ideology. He goes and goes like a roadrunner from morning until night, even though technically he’s in the twilight of his life.

He takes his volunteer work very seriously and spends a lot of time with his girlfriend. Steve and his girlfriend are traveling to Paris in early fall. They go on lots of trips. I don’t know where he finds the energy. But he has a zeal for life at age 80; I admire that. He’s lucky to have good health.

Steve is a retired biologist who worked for the federal government. He attended to this country’s worst disasters and witnessed much during those times, which he has shared with me. Steve is a fantastic storyteller.

He lost his wife in 2022, and he hated to eat alone, so we often ate together. That seemed to ease his feelings of loneliness.

What Happens During The Twilight Of Life:

I often misplace things and get easily distracted.

The “twilight of life” is often a time of reflection, acceptance, and purpose. During this phase, individuals may experience a range of emotions and physical changes.

This might include focusing on loved ones and having a heightened awareness of mortality. Do you think you’re standing on that doorstep, but aren’t anywhere near ready to cross the threshold? Are you getting older but still have a real zest for life?

I still haven’t found that one-hundred-dollar bill I lost a month or so ago. It’s probably in a landfill somewhere. I hope that if someone sees it, they need it more than I did. That would almost make it worth having lost it.

I tire easily and have less energy, which could also be due to age.

At each end of life’s spectrum, we are dependent. As babies, we need others’ care completely. Then we often become dependent once again in our later years.

Our bodies may fail us, and we may become more dependent on our children. In some ways, we become their “children,” as our needs may supersede our longing for independence.

More than anything, I want to stay independent. If I have to crawl to get things done in the twilight of my life, I’ll do my best to do that.

Contemplation:

Contemplate as a verb: to view or consider with continued attention: meditate on.

Many people become more contemplative as they age, focusing on inner experiences. This shift recognizes life’s finite nature.

I think we become more engaged with our quieter side, seeking meaning in the twilight of life, of things we might have overlooked earlier.

Contemplation helps us process past regrets, mistakes, and failures, and hope that it leads to self-acceptance and peace.

I’m a Thinker:

I’ve always been a thinker and a contemplator. I write things down to reflect on later, as though I might need to recreate them in another time and place.

I’m a person who thoughtfully considers most things, whether they’re problems, experiences, or simply the beauty before me.

As a child, I sometimes got up and ran straight out of the schoolroom. There were too many contained thoughts that seemed to interfere with my thinking. I was gone before anyone could act.

I wanted to be outdoors, to look up into the depths of the trees and listen to the birds. Like many before me, I have wondered what it feels like to fly, and I often dream of it.

Such freedom! Like they say, free as a bird.

It’s hard to explain what I feel in my dreams: I am soaring over the trees, and it is usually dark. There are stars to guide me, and a sparkling path left by a firefly on a hazy summer night.

As A Child: The Other End Of Life’s Spectrum:

As a child, I was not lonely; I just felt alone. I mainly lived inside my head, where my thoughts were peaceful and reassuring.

There were always loud noises in a church where fundamentalist religion was penciled into the calendar three days a week. No one had to remind me of the dates. I absolutely hated it there.

It struck something raw in me—a fervent need to get away. I am still sour on organized religion to this day. And I can still recall that stifling feeling that descended on me when I walked through the doors.

It was like walking into a spider’s web where gauzy strands cover your face, and you desperately want to be rid of them.

It made me feel like I couldn’t catch my breath. I mainly just wanted to escape that building. There seemed to be grief there without anyone having died.

But I was just a child, and my needs were secondary to what adults wanted.

The zeal and fervor I witnessed happening within those four walls scared me. It still does. If only I could have morphed into a bird and flown away.

I remember feeling safest in our big garden. There, butterflies landed, opening and closing their wings, drifting from plant to plant.

Maybe that has made me the gardener and nature lover I am today.