I am many things today that I wasn’t even a couple of months let alone years ago. I am wiser, more self-nurturing. I understand more about what it means to love and be loved, and how to tender compassion without strings attached. And yet, on any given day, I may also be devastated at some point, ecstatic at another; and the rest, I am often just doing, well, whatever.
At my best, I suppose I am in that state for which I have so mightily striven over the years: Simply living in the present moment. But since the whole point of “being here now” is devoid of commentary or concern, there is quite simply no witness to render judgment—happy or sad. And all of this came about not because I ascended into the light, but rather I was finally willing to dive into the shadows to take an honest inventory of myself and the nature of life.
When we finally surrender to age as a time of descent rather than of shoring up, our first thought is that there will now be no end to the darkness. What courage it takes to jump off the edge of who we once thought we were and plunge headfirst into the shadows. We brace ourselves for encounters with old wounds, aspects of ourselves and others we judge to be incorrigible. We expect our broken hearts, so poorly patched, to burst open again and we shudder at the thought of what awaits.
But at last there comes an end to it. And what a surprise when at the very bottom we are met not with a crash, but silence. There is no horizon large enough to contain the enormity of it. And from the infinite depths, a wee voice, whispers: “But ah, what a great adventure this life we’re having!”
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