One of the challenges I am facing as I grow older is the acceptance that everything has a shelf life, and that shelf life eventually ends.
At some point in our lives - at least for me, younger - I believe that there were things I can do and that things would go on forever. That is not true of course: it all starts somewhere (for me, college), as things began to slip away from what they were. Sometimes things replaced them - until they, too, slipped away.
It grinds harder in the 50's, when the body starts reminding one that the warranty really is gone and they are not making those parts anymore.
There are two ways to deal with this.
The first is to go out raging and kicking. And perhaps there is some argument to say that "fighting" is the right correct response. On the other side, I have seen people physically or mentally damage themselves chasing after a thing that for one reason or another has passed on beyond them.
The other way is to simply accept such changes with humility and grace.
I have heard of a Jewish saying that man is born with his hands clenched and dies with them open, that we truly cannot take anything of this world with us. To accept that at some point, things simply pass is an act of humility.
Corrie ten Boom is quoted as saying she learned to hold things loosely, because God had taught her that if she held the tightly, it would hurt when they were pulled from her hand.
I have a long way to go in this regard.
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