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Withdrawing

One of the things I have prided myself on is not quitting things. Part of it is ego (this shall not best me) and part of it is the knowledge from experience that there is more pay-off from a sustained commitment than from dipping my toes into something.

One of the things that I have had to acknowledge with age is that I have less stamina now. I would not trade the small wisdom I have acquired with age to get it back but I have less physical stamina, less mental stamina, and most importantly less emotional stamina with each passing year. Part of that small wisdom is to face these changes head on and make the best decisions I can about how to proceed.

For a number of years I have been a member of a support group that is confidential, and I will be vague about its details. I mostly received the support I needed at the beginning, and have stayed to try to return that support to newer folk. My participation had to do with wanting to support loved ones facing challenges that are real to them and to me but nowhere near as severe as those facing others. I know that I have led a blessed life and try never to take that for granted.

This past two years the stories that the newer folk have brought have been full of more that their share of pain, and I along with others have tried to listen, to ask questions that help rather than interrogate, and to take seriously what they are going through. It has kept me out late some nights and left me weeping on the drive home.

So I have let the support group know that now is a time for me to pull back and marshal my emotional stamina for the other needs in my life. Part of me feels cowardly for doing so and all of me knows that it is the right time to do so.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV)

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

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