Copies of my 2019 essay collection, Twilight Time: Aging in Amazement, are available directly from me (signed) or from Amazon or your local bookseller.
Hi Susie, Linda Gillespie here. I used to live in Stockbridge and moved to Maine in June. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to connect before I left. Needless to say, I’ve had lots of changes this year. But honestly I think my survival as a human being depends on change. I might even be a change junky. And as I grow older there are so many changes that are out of my control…so choosing to change and having unplanned change are different to me, but we need to be able to embrace either, because that’s life. This year I lost two friends of many years, not a good change and I’m still struggling with those losses, but both these friends were wonderful models of adapting to the changes their life brought them, even until the end. So for me I try to embrace change, because it’s a constant in my life and all of our lives. And for a persons who likes to have a sense of control this seems like the opposite, but I believe in going with the flow, so for me sometimes letting go of control allows me a new freedom, like when someone is trying to get out of a rip tide, if you swim against the tide you will die, but if you float and let the current carry you, you get out…maybe not where you wanted to get out, but alive! Worth contemplating!
It seems that the capacity to tolerate change comes with practice over time. Choosing change then becomes part of the strengthening that allows us to deal with the unplanned vicissitudes. Thanks for writing!
Thanks for the good strong question. I wasn't prepared to answer it when your post arrived, and it came at the same time as another connection on the same line. I sat with that synchronicity, thinking, "This must be for me!" Big change is always scary, and I never know where or when it will be coming from **glancing over shoulder**. To welcome it through the image of the threshold (portal to the new) gives me something to manage, so it doesn't sneak up on me. Face the unknown, not looking over the shoulder, but stepping through on my own steam. And then, comes the thought, "There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" I think that the strength gained from facing the change and going through the archway consciously (as much as possible) gives more ability to find depth and meaning to the process. In the loss of what was, that strength persists into the new. And if even the strength is lost? Then surely something else takes its place.
That seems to be the key. Walking through the threshold consciously, seizing some agency over a situation that may in reality be out of one's control so that some "strength persists into the new." There's always some continuity, even if it feels like "nothing is the same."
I love change. I look forward to change...I mean, who wants things to stay the same forever and ever, amen? I think of that never ending repetition as something I have to endure in order to reside on planet earth. It is the way of things, here. We take our relationships to the altar of some religious institution where we stand before an audience and promise that we're always and forever going to feel the way we feel on that day. We used to keep our jobs until the bitter end where we'd end up with a gold watch, if we were lucky, for our 25 years of dedication to making money for the man. By the time we toddled off with the intention of enjoying our twilight years, our bodies are paying the price of our servitude and our inadequate health care system prescribes a few drugs at exhorbitant prices, to take the edge off.
I've never been good with the repetitive motion of sustaining the status quo. I tried, I failed. I blundered and stumbled and eliminated what didn't work for me until I ended up with a lifestyle that allowed for as much spontaneity as possible while still providing me with an income and the ability to stretch and explore new ideas.
It can be shocking when change unexpectedly appears on your horizon. I have friends who are shaken to the core at the mere threat of change. Fear consumes them and they can no longer think clearly. Panic sets in and their lives explode into shards.
I like to take a little minute when change appears imminent. I like to sit quietly with it, zoom out so I can look at it from a distance. Check it out, run through the possibilities and in the end accept the inevitable. Change happens whether we like it or not. Resistance is futile. I choose to get on board, get in sync.
Almost no one every says "I love change." It's very refreshing. Someone else wrote about that pause that you identify in the last paragraph. I realized that that's the key in so many situations. Not hanging on for dear life, but also not rejecting. Just sitting quietly with it. Thank you.
If we hadn’t had that blowup, we wouldn’t be so close now and…
(Through the arch)
Where’d that bald spot come from? Must be the thyroid pills, I never thought I’d be losing my hair at this…
(Through…)
Every time I look in the mirror with the handheld mirror to see that pink area on my crown, my newly arrived Friar’s Pate, I’m focused on what’s behind me instead of what’s…
(Through…)
When I was younger, what people might think of me was such a cross and thorny headband to wear. Now…
(Through…)
It’s too much work. I’m too old for this. I’ll never get it…
(Through…)
God. I’d forgotten how good it feels to have a mission to accomplish again…
(Through…)
I used to run up that mountain, now I can barely…
(Through…)
Stopping more often I see the trees, the path, the stones and grass beneath my feet, the distance traveled more than what’s…
(Through…)
I was always so worried about so many things. More and more I want to go (Through…) by asking myself, “What don’t I know?
(Through…)
What can I do that I couldn’t…?
(Through…)
Who might need me to help them and what will I have to go (Through…) to…
Life is good. You never know really what’s coming. A new baby in the family. A death in the family. Life is what we go (Through…) to grow brighter souls.
This is a marvel. The way you laid it out to convey the understanding that we go through the archway over and over again, generally kicking and screaming. Love it.
Hi Susie, Linda Gillespie here. I used to live in Stockbridge and moved to Maine in June. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to connect before I left. Needless to say, I’ve had lots of changes this year. But honestly I think my survival as a human being depends on change. I might even be a change junky. And as I grow older there are so many changes that are out of my control…so choosing to change and having unplanned change are different to me, but we need to be able to embrace either, because that’s life. This year I lost two friends of many years, not a good change and I’m still struggling with those losses, but both these friends were wonderful models of adapting to the changes their life brought them, even until the end. So for me I try to embrace change, because it’s a constant in my life and all of our lives. And for a persons who likes to have a sense of control this seems like the opposite, but I believe in going with the flow, so for me sometimes letting go of control allows me a new freedom, like when someone is trying to get out of a rip tide, if you swim against the tide you will die, but if you float and let the current carry you, you get out…maybe not where you wanted to get out, but alive! Worth contemplating!
It seems that the capacity to tolerate change comes with practice over time. Choosing change then becomes part of the strengthening that allows us to deal with the unplanned vicissitudes. Thanks for writing!
Thanks for the good strong question. I wasn't prepared to answer it when your post arrived, and it came at the same time as another connection on the same line. I sat with that synchronicity, thinking, "This must be for me!" Big change is always scary, and I never know where or when it will be coming from **glancing over shoulder**. To welcome it through the image of the threshold (portal to the new) gives me something to manage, so it doesn't sneak up on me. Face the unknown, not looking over the shoulder, but stepping through on my own steam. And then, comes the thought, "There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" I think that the strength gained from facing the change and going through the archway consciously (as much as possible) gives more ability to find depth and meaning to the process. In the loss of what was, that strength persists into the new. And if even the strength is lost? Then surely something else takes its place.
That seems to be the key. Walking through the threshold consciously, seizing some agency over a situation that may in reality be out of one's control so that some "strength persists into the new." There's always some continuity, even if it feels like "nothing is the same."
I love change. I look forward to change...I mean, who wants things to stay the same forever and ever, amen? I think of that never ending repetition as something I have to endure in order to reside on planet earth. It is the way of things, here. We take our relationships to the altar of some religious institution where we stand before an audience and promise that we're always and forever going to feel the way we feel on that day. We used to keep our jobs until the bitter end where we'd end up with a gold watch, if we were lucky, for our 25 years of dedication to making money for the man. By the time we toddled off with the intention of enjoying our twilight years, our bodies are paying the price of our servitude and our inadequate health care system prescribes a few drugs at exhorbitant prices, to take the edge off.
I've never been good with the repetitive motion of sustaining the status quo. I tried, I failed. I blundered and stumbled and eliminated what didn't work for me until I ended up with a lifestyle that allowed for as much spontaneity as possible while still providing me with an income and the ability to stretch and explore new ideas.
It can be shocking when change unexpectedly appears on your horizon. I have friends who are shaken to the core at the mere threat of change. Fear consumes them and they can no longer think clearly. Panic sets in and their lives explode into shards.
I like to take a little minute when change appears imminent. I like to sit quietly with it, zoom out so I can look at it from a distance. Check it out, run through the possibilities and in the end accept the inevitable. Change happens whether we like it or not. Resistance is futile. I choose to get on board, get in sync.
Almost no one every says "I love change." It's very refreshing. Someone else wrote about that pause that you identify in the last paragraph. I realized that that's the key in so many situations. Not hanging on for dear life, but also not rejecting. Just sitting quietly with it. Thank you.
Change sucks.
(Through the archway)
Well that wasn’t as bad as I…
(Through the archway)
Why do I have to change? He was the one who…
(Through the archway)
If we hadn’t had that blowup, we wouldn’t be so close now and…
(Through the arch)
Where’d that bald spot come from? Must be the thyroid pills, I never thought I’d be losing my hair at this…
(Through…)
Every time I look in the mirror with the handheld mirror to see that pink area on my crown, my newly arrived Friar’s Pate, I’m focused on what’s behind me instead of what’s…
(Through…)
When I was younger, what people might think of me was such a cross and thorny headband to wear. Now…
(Through…)
It’s too much work. I’m too old for this. I’ll never get it…
(Through…)
God. I’d forgotten how good it feels to have a mission to accomplish again…
(Through…)
I used to run up that mountain, now I can barely…
(Through…)
Stopping more often I see the trees, the path, the stones and grass beneath my feet, the distance traveled more than what’s…
(Through…)
I was always so worried about so many things. More and more I want to go (Through…) by asking myself, “What don’t I know?
(Through…)
What can I do that I couldn’t…?
(Through…)
Who might need me to help them and what will I have to go (Through…) to…
Life is good. You never know really what’s coming. A new baby in the family. A death in the family. Life is what we go (Through…) to grow brighter souls.
This is a marvel. The way you laid it out to convey the understanding that we go through the archway over and over again, generally kicking and screaming. Love it.
Thank you for that thought…and the photo, Susie!