Between today and tomorrow the winter solstice will occur. Apparently this year the actual shortest day is the 21st, but I have always thought of the 20th as the first day of winter.
To call the winter solstice a day is a misnomer, for the solstice itself is not a day, but an instant. The earth’s northern hemisphere’s tilt from the sun reaches its apex and gradually moves in the other direction. The exact moment of this solstice is 2:23 pm tomorrow PDT.
Charting the flow of a human life, or any human endeavor, is not as simple as charting the seasons. We can chart life expectancy and other key events, but where major transitions take place is less clear. A peak cannot be recognized except in hindsight. The people of Rome never thought, “This is the apex of the empire. From here we will go downhill.” Though there must have been a peak from which the fading empire never, though the fits and starts of decline, reached again.
Likewise human stories are often told in terms of rises and falls. A person grows in competency, ability, experience, and power through a period of accomplishment before a gradual decline and letting go, ending in the ultimate letting go of death. To quote a sports cliche, “Father Time is undefeated.”
This is all a (very) long way to my own reflections this solstice. I wonder if I’ve peaked…or more realistically, I wonder if I peaked about 5 years ago.
In the coming year I will be turning 60, and though I am not days away from a retirement home (though I qualify to purchase at Leisure World), I’m not going to be an astronaut. Every year more and more doors close permanently because life is limited, and you don’t get to try all 31 flavors.
Though I am very happy with my new job and enjoy the work and the travel, my climbing spirit, which used to consume me, has gone dormant. There are a number of prestigious positions for which I could be considered, but I have no interest and no energy. I did my time at the tiller, and I don’t want it any more.
This fading carries over into my life. I live a much smaller existence than I did in my 40s and early 50s. I live in a small apartment and though I am comfortable, I don’t want a lot of things. Even cycling this year has taken a step back as the drive that used to get me up before the dawn and push me over hill after hill has a quieter voice (I need to address this in 2019).
However, as I shrink in some ways, my life is grown in others. I may no longer possess that drive to do it all. In some ways I have even more. For the message of the solstice is that it is the shortest, but everything grows from that point.
So as I rode today (!), I thought about the many good things that are growing in this next stage. I have an amazing daughter who brings me joy and terror as I watch her ascend. I have friendships at a deeper level that bring me more satisfaction than ever before. I am blessed with a wonderful girlfriend with whom to experience so many good things in life and to help each other bear the burdens. Though I don’t know if I am accomplishing as much, my life is fuller than ever before.
Seasons change and each one brings its losses and blessings. I hope that this solstice will bring a new birth of good things in your life!
As always, I welcome your comments.
Image: https://www.google.com/amp/s/people.com/home/winter-solstice-2018/amp/
Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam