Sometimes in my life, I feel like I am juggling six balls in the air while tightrope walking on a slack line. There is my writing life, my partnering life, my concern for adult-children life, my housekeeping life, my gardening life, my participating in the community life all to keep polished and in good shape. Yes, I know others could add caregiving-for-parents and any number of items that need to be kept in balance, but at 80, six things are more than enough for me.

Still, I feel stretched as I plan meaningful time with my husband only to have writing deadlines loom large, or I pick up the phone to keep contact with my children and the neighbourhood collector for breast cancer funding knocks at the door at the same time. I realize I have a roof over my head, have paid the mortgage and have enough food in the freezer and clothes in the cupboard to last me until I kick the bucket, so you may find that what I need to keep in balance is trivial. Still, as energies decline, to meet the demands that define my life and make it worth living, I scurry around most days trying not to neglect any of them.

Scott Nearing, the organic gardener who influenced us "back-to-the-landers" in the sixties, at age 100, came in from the woodshed with the day's firewood and told his wife that he could no longer fulfill his household duties. He decided not to eat any more and three weeks later was gone. While the story amazes me, I don't feel we have to be that extremely dutiful to the demands in our life. In the last 20 years, I have let whole chunks of my "duties" drop away without the slightest guilt.

Still, keeping mentally, emotionally, and physically sound while meeting commitments made to others and to ourselves is a fine art that bears further inspection. I'm sure keeping mental powers in shape by doing crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, and Sudoku helps. Trying a new language is often recommended too. After vaguely looking at the Japanese language, I'm thinking of taking a look at the Arabic script, which while looking like angel-writing, is a complete mystery to me.

Besides learning a new skill, re-exploring some you already have can be fruitful for those neurons. For example, I can vaguely read music at a Grade 5 level, but I don't really "understand" music - the way it is written, the harmonies, and the construction. So by taking a deeper look at how music is written may well be another way to keep my brain in shape, that is, by exploring an old skill in a new way.

As far as emotions go, I am no longer under the whims of a menstrual cycle; still there does seem to be an ebb and flow, and overflow of my emotions that affects those around me. As a former therapist, I am well aware of when my emotions tip over, for example, from natural, reasonable fear into paranoia. Awareness is the secret to stopping negative feelings from swamping you and using up your energies needed to keep functioning well and cheerfully through most of the contingencies that life throws us. Buddhism extols the "middle way" and that is, of course, the ability to keep things in balance; to not let sadness move over into depression, or cheerfulness to get lost in manic behaviour that you'll later regret.

Relationships, another area that needs to be kept in balance, require compromise. For my first husband, I gave up eating kippers; for my second husband, I gave up reading in bed. As a child, he loved to read with the book on the floor at the head of the bed, with himself lying on his stomach and reading over the head of the bed. In order to facilitate this childhood pattern, our bed is placed away from the wall and therefore I'm unable to sit up in bed, well-pillowed against the bed-head and enjoying a good book until I fall asleep. What have you compromised in order to keep your relationship running smoothly, I wonder?

For keeping one's physical state in some condition of equilibrium, a dog is recommended, for then you will be sure to get outside at least twice a day, dragged along on a leash by your eager pet. Our house, full of my husband's sculptures, is not pet-proof, but we do have three floors and so I run up and down stairs frequently, stopping for breath occasionally at the top. In season, the bending and stretching of gardening adds useful exercise. When you are very old, it's said that "breakfast seems to come every 15 minutes," and indeed meals do seem to take on a certain importance as we age, that they didn't when we were rushing madly to work each day.

In order to keep our weight in check, the rule in our house is the old one, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper." My husband has the same shape he had in high school (although the muscles bear little resemblance). I am not doing quite so well, for I no longer seem to have a waist; but then I never had much of a waist anyway.

Our body presents limits. If we are trapped too much by its outward obligations - to family, job, community, etc., we will feel drained, and it can lead to depression. On the other hand, if we concentrate on our own "inner quest" to the extent of ignoring any social, family or community responsibilities, it can lead us into a kind of narcissism and isolation. How to keep the balance?

The balance is between two extremes. In the first case, it is wrong to concentrate too much on "developing" oneself to the extent that one loses touch with the outer "reality." At the other extreme, it is also wrong to merge too much with the world around us, for that causes us to lose the elements that make each of us unique. Somehow, living fully implies finding a balance between the two extremes. As Goethe put it, "All reflection and no plunging drives us mad. All plunging and no reflection, and we are brutes." Otto Rank simplifies this advice by recommending that we mustn't "separate too much, or unite too much."

Life is complex, but I think, even as I age, I have developed techniques for living great chunks of it perfectly satisfactorily. The parts I can't cope with, as I mentioned earlier, I just let fall by the wayside, with no feeling of failure. You may be able to juggle more parts of your life than I can, and keep all those balls in the air at once. If you can, I am agog with admiration. For me, the less I need to do (or have) in order to survive creatively and keep my writing life flowing, the less I will do (or have).

You've probably been reflecting on your own juggling act as you've been following mine. Please don't feel too guilty about imbalances, for I'm sure you have come to the same conclusion I have: at some times, and in some situations, it's healthiest to just throw the juggling balls wildly in the air, jump off the tightrope, and skip joyfully away into the meadow.

SEPTEMBER 2011 SENIOR LIVING MAGAZINE VANCOUVER ISLAND