Can I find peace?

I think my life has been waiting for me to make peace with it for a long time now. I think a part of me was waiting for things to change, and then I would make peace with it. But my hair is now officially more gray than black, so the time has arrived. This is my life, not another life. And I love so many things about my life, and there are also things that are difficult and demanding. Welcome, to the human experience. Has it taken me almost fifty years to come to this simple realization.

I sort of know that at this point making peace with my life means acceptance. Acceptance of certain things that I just didn’t want to be in my life. After fifteen years, I am still coming to terms with my sleep patterns — with awake nights and sleeping nights. And from experience, I have noticed that there are more layers to things than I could have imagined.

Like last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Oh, that again! Fortunately, I’ve learned how to relax my body and engage in deep breathing to bring myself some rest, which helps. But, I am tired right now as the early morning arrives, and it’s not just learning how to cope with the nights when I don’t sleep well, but also with the days — how to pace myself, and how to be gentle with myself when I am fatigued and weary.

I have a choice. What relationship am I going to have with the things in my life? Are we going to be enemies or can we become friends or can we at least co-exist more peacefully? What’s the practice? Lately, I have been asking myself if ‘love’ can be the foundation of all my relationships, including my relationship to my body, my imperfections, my difficulties. Love is an action of full embrace. It’s the thing that whispers in our ears, “I accept all of you.” Can I say to my difficulties: I love you. I accept you. I don’t know yet. That’s a tall order. But rejection and anger haven’t changed the situation, so why not turn in another direction.