Pat Taub
There are too many mornings when I wake up with a heaviness. Sometimes it’s the weight of the world. Sometimes it’s the accumulation of years, recognizing there is less time ahead of me than behind me.
I have been an activist for much of my life. I have marched, protested, written, spoken out and stood with people who were fighting for a more just and compassionate world. I didn’t spend much time thinking about whether I had the energy. I simply did what needed to be done.
Now that I am older, my convictions haven’t changed, but my body has. The kind of street activism that once gave me a sense of purpose is harder now. Sometimes I feel trapped between the woman I was and the woman I am—a woman who still has the same outrage, the same longing for justice, but no longer has the physical stamina she once took for granted.
I struggle with friends disappearing. People I have known for decades are dying. I find myself looking at old photos, recognizing several of the people in them are gone. When I mourn them, their deaths force me to confront my own mortality. This knowledge can rest heavily on my chest.
Two of the friends in this photo have passed
I find myself thinking about the soul and what it needs in dark time.
I cannot live inside the news. I cannot read about another injustice, become angry and carry that anger around all day. Anger has been an important fuel in my life, but it cannot be the only fuel.
I need beauty too.
I need my country retreat, an engaging novel, music, a meal with a friend where we laugh. I need to sit quietly and watch the light change. I need to recognize that despite everything that is wrong with the world, there are still moments of extraordinary tenderness.
A spectacular sunset, seen from my country retreat
For a long time, I thought taking pleasure while others were suffering was selfish. Now I wonder if the opposite is true.
Perhaps joy gives us the strength to continue caring.
I don’t want to become numb or cynical. I don’t want to spend whatever years I have left mourning the years that are gone.
Maybe this is the work of aging: learning to hold grief and gratitude in the same hands.
I can grieve the woman I was without abandoning the woman I am. I can miss my physical strength, recognizing the wisdom I have accrued. I can mourn dear friends no longer with me, while cherishing the friends that are here. I can be frightened by the future and allow myself to enjoy this particular morning.
Relishing stillness
I have spent most of my adult life trying to change the world.
Perhaps now I have another responsibility: to keep my small corner of it alive.
To keep writing. To keep loving. To keep questioning. To keep speaking out against injustice.
At my desk
I don’t want merely to survive these dark times. I want to remain capable of joy, curiosity, tenderness and love. I want to keep the part of myself alive that can still be surprised by beauty.
Perhaps that is my activism now: not surrendering my soul to despair.
I have spent a lifetime fighting against darkness.
I don’t intend to let it take up residence inside me.
