"Rest in the Way Things Are"

I received an email last week in response to my newsletter from a reader in her 80s, which I'm sharing with her blessing.

This woman happens to be an extraordinary writer - I know this because I've had the privilege of having her in some of my groups in years past. Her prose pulls no punches and expresses love and irritation and humor and wisdom in equal measure without apology. She has been married for longer than I've been alive and has great-grandchildren. She has experienced unspeakable grief and unexpected joy. She recounts childhood scenes as if they occurred this morning and revives lost worlds and heals wounds you didn't know still needed healing in her stories.

And what she wrote in her email to me?

"Rest in the way things are."

I keep thinking about these words, which were exactly what my heart needed to hear. I can't even say why exactly, why this variation on "be here now" landed so solidly in my being, bringing as they did a newfound calm and openness. But the "why" doesn't really matter, does it?

In a culture that sees aging as something to fight and delay at all costs, we lose something so valuable, it can't even be qualified.

I don't know where the crossover is from midlife to elder, but I do know that those six words are both instruction and permission, imperative and reflection. They tell me: Life is many things at once. They tell me: You are in the thick of it. They tell me: I see you. They tell me: You don't have to fix anything. They tell me: Accept the complexity and let it be simple in its way. They tell me: Wait. Time is a river. They tell me: Everything unfolds. They tell me: Exhale. They tell me: Hold on. They tell me: Let go.