The retirement countdown clock my son gave me for Christmas reads 76 days.
Plus or minus a few days depending on what day it really happens.
For sometime now I (and others) have known this day was coming.
The last several months and the next 76 days or so are something of an unraveling.
Learning to let go.
Learning to step away.
From programs and details which have been so much a part of my life for so long.
The tendency for much of my life has been to say yes.
Yes we can try this.
Yes we can do this.
Yes I will help.
Today, I pry back my fingers and force myself to let go.
The meetings and the details are easy.
The dreaming about tomorrow and what we might do…
Much harder.
The people…
I can’t even begin to go there.
Letting Go
I hold his hand
As he walks along the stone wall.
Arms outstretched.
Testing each step before it is taken.
I easily hold his hand
As we walk along.
But for him
The stone wall
Towers like a mountain.
In this moment
Far above what he can see
When standing on the ground.
He walks near the sky.
Then
A few steps along
He shakes his hand free.
Determined.
Confident.
He can do it on his own.
What is he learning
I wonder
That I have forgotten?
Slipping Away
I think I know how they feel.
They look around and what they knew
The work they knew
The community they knew
The way of life they knew
Is slipping away.
No longer there.
Yes, there is new.
But it is different and unfamiliar.
And the cost of letting go of that which defined their lives for so long in order to make space for the new is HARD. We all like progress. It is change we can’t stand.
The intersection of my life with their reality comes as I wrestle with the reality of growing older. What had, at one time come so easily, now requires effort. More often than not I grit my teeth and hang on for dear life. I have not found my way towards that myth of aging gracefully.
Is fear a part of what I am feeling?
Or, anger?
I don’t think so, but I understand how whatever it is I am feeling (I am trying to find the right words.), can come out that way.
As I try to find my way from what was to what will be
What I need is those who will walk with me
Helping me to let go with one hand and reach out with the other.
How can we do that with and for each other?
