Decrepitude

embracing frailty

Decrepitude is such a fun word to say. Sometimes I’ll start a small conversation with Tim by saying, Even in my decrepitude I can still…it’s a way of lightening the load of living with a non-repairable feebleness.

Seems like I’m not the only one whose life is drooping a bit lately. Look at my Lupine. As of last week she can’t stand up straight anymore. And my poor Bruce the Blue Spruce, planted in memory of my dad Bruce who loved blue spruce trees, and who died right after we moved in here, has got himself a fungus. He barely has any new growth to offer this year, and you should see his bark. His days on this earth are numbered now.

All of this makes me sad. But then I step back and pause a minute. Why should the natural cycles of life and death, drought and plenty, sickness and health make me sad? These things come and go. Every year is different. Every season is different. What has thrived in one season may be experiencing its own decrepitude in another.

If I’m honest, I think the sadness comes from the fact that I want to control and manage everything. I planted all these things for a reason. I have in mind a plan for how they are to thrive and grow. All for my pleasure, of course, more than theirs. It’s hard to let them be themselves.

I want to control my own decline also. I want to stop the pain and encroaching stiffness. I want to boost the energy. I want to regulate the nervous system. I have in mind the way I should get old, but my body doesn’t seem to be following it. Sometimes I get caught up in this way of thinking and wonder over and over, what can I do to make it better?

A more fruitful way, perhaps, is to stop trying to make the old way become better and simply embrace the frailty of this season of life. Stop trying to force my reality into a form it can no longer take. Relax into what is already possible, wait, enjoy what is here now, be curious about what’s up next.

Sometimes all there is to do is to endure. - Douglas Wood, The Things Trees Know

So I’ve begun thinking about grass. Even though grass can look very sick, I happen to know that the roots are often fine. They go very deep. New growth will eventually appear. My job is to endure this season with it and wait for the new growth to appear.

The same is true of my body, especially when the symptoms flare and the pain rises and sleep disappears and the muscles freeze up. When that happens, I am realizing more often that my job is to endure, generate patience, and wait for the new growth to arrive in whatever form that might take.

It won’t be like it once was. Some things go on by. But that often leaves space for new things to be noticed. New life from the deep roots. A new way of being in the world.

And here you are living, despite it all. - Rupi Kaur