Acceptance and the end of the world

Last night as I was lying in bed, I found my mind dancing through the past, revisiting incidents from different parts of my life.  Not the significant events, just moments from childhood, adolescence, young adulthood.  And suddenly I realized: I'm at the stage of life when I have more past than future.  I've been at this stage for a while, of course.  But it never quite came home until last night.  I understood it in one of those lights-turning-on sorts of insights.  And I don't find it distressing at all to think that quite a bit more than half my life is behind me.  In fact, I find I'm feeling quite calm about my approaching end of life, in this moment at least.  I certainly don't feel ready to check out, not yet.  But I also don't know how hard I want to fight to stay in this world.  Of course I don't want to leave Sweet Hubby, my friends and family.  There are plays I'd like to finish writing, states and countries I'd like to visit, and I'd like to keep learning, trying new things, meeting new people.  

But along with the acceptance of the coming of old age and eventual death has come the understanding that it's too late for the human race.  We were doomed, we doomed ourselves in fact, as soon as the Industrial Revolution happened.  We've been poisoning ourselves and the planet since, and it's clear we're not going to stop.

I say it's clear because I look at my own life, the way I live, the choices I do and don't make.  Supposedly I'm one of the smart, informed, educated people who understands the dangers of climate change and the role of humans in that change.  SH and I take the right actions of composting and recycling.  We bring our own doggy bag containers when we go out to eat.  I reuse plastic bags for as long as possible.  But I still use them.  There is plastic everywhere in our home.  We drive a hybrid, very fuel efficient.  But I still fly when I want to go somewhere farther from home.  Air travel is supposed to be one of the major causes of air pollution.  And what materials did it take to make my car and the billions of other fuel efficient cars on the road and how are those materials mined?  And the battery in the car is eventually going to go into landfill.  In fact, ultimately, everything is going to go into landfill.  As was said in a documentary, we throw things away, but there's no such place as 'away'.  Everything goes somewhere, and somewhere is either the land, the air, or the water.   Thwaites Glacier, also called the Doomsday glacier, is melting and will collapse.  It is inevitable now.  And I know it, and still, I continue to live the way I live.  So much easier than to make the drastic changes which every single person would have to make if the human race were truly to reverse or even slow the decline of our environment.

I know this must seem dire and depressing, but for some reason, I'm not depressed about it.  I accept that my end is coming and that the end is likely near for all of us humans.  Not for the planet, which will immediately begin to heal once we aren't around to frack and strip mine and pollute.  That's part of why I feel sort of sanguine about this all; the Earth is going to be fine, because the Earth has all the time in the Universe.  We humans, despite these great big brains and our wonderful, dangerous imaginations, despite our amazing technologies and industries, are primitive beings who are able either see trouble coming and just not do anything about it or simply don't/can't see it because we're so busy thinking about our little selves.  Just as I am.  And that's just how it is.

Reflections on death and stuff

About a week before Christmas, Sweet Hubby and I flew to Santa Barbara to say our final good-bye to Chris, my brother's wife.  She had been diagnosed with cancer five years ago and given a two year prognosis, and although she had beat the odds and lived several more mostly good years, it was clear that this was going to be her last.

Chris was someone who was able to talk openly about how she was feeling, what she was thinking about, how this journey has affected her sense of herself.  These last few years have been for her a process of letting go: letting go of things, of relationships, of long-held spiritual beliefs, of all kinds of attachments.  We had several conversations with her which lasted as long as her waning energy allowed.  Finally, it came time to say good-bye and walk out the door, knowing it was our last time to be with her.  I had to work on my own sense of attachment, my own hard, reluctant letting go of someone who has been a central figure in my life for about a quarter of a century.

I came away from that precious good-bye reflecting on how much I hold onto that is completely unnecessary.  Mostly I have reflected on the things, the stuff, that clutter my life.  I've got a huge box of photograph prints, for example.  I don't look at them, have no intention of organizing them into albums. Those who have to clean up after me, my nieces and nephews, aren't going to want any of them.  Why do I keep it all?

I will admit that a lot of what I've held onto, such as photos, journals and diaries, etc. I've kept because of the crazy notion that someday I will be famous enough that someone will want to write my biography and will need research materials.  Finally, at 73, I'm ready to give up on that fantasy.  Time to let go of these useless things.

Useless yes, but also precious in a certain way, because they are the evidence of the unfolding of my life, of my evolution as a person, of the experiences I've had.  But it's time for me to acknowledge that this evidence is precious only to me.  And so I avow here and now that one of the major projects for this new year will be to let go and let go and let go.  It's clear to me that I will not be diminished in any way by no longer having these boxes which give evidence of my life, because the evidence doesn't matter.   What matters has been, is being, the living of this life.  

Chris died the day after Christmas.