The Weariness That Comes at Sixty

There comes a point in life when a man realizes he is tired.

Not depressed. Not hopeless. Not wishing for death. Simply tired.

Tired in his mind, tired in his body, tired in his soul.

He looks back and sees years of striving. Years of carrying responsibilities, meeting expectations, building projects, teaching, caring for others, solving problems, remaining accessible, pushing himself forward through discipline and determination.

Much of it was good. Much of it served others. Much of it may even have borne fruit.

Yet with age comes a terrible clarity.

He begins to wonder how much of it was truly done from love and how much was driven by something else entirely.

Perhaps there was anxiety beneath it. Perhaps fear. Perhaps the need to justify his existence. Perhaps the desire to become someone. Perhaps an identity that had to be maintained at all costs.

St. Philip Neri once remarked that we are often the carpenters of our own crosses.

The older man begins to see that he has built many heavy ones.

He carried burdens that God never asked him to carry. He accepted identities that became difficult to lay down. He mistook constant activity for faithfulness and perpetual accessibility for love. He pressed himself forward for so many years that he scarcely knew how to stand still.

And then life changes.

The world grows smaller.

Aging parents need care. Old certainties disappear. Positions and communities that once gave identity become distant memories. Energy decreases. Hidden wounds become impossible to ignore. The soul no longer possesses the strength required to maintain its old illusions.

One begins to limp.

Yet perhaps this limping is not failure.

Jacob limped after wrestling with God.

Perhaps there comes a moment when God permits a man to grow weary of himself—not because He wishes to destroy him, but because He wishes to free him.

The old way no longer works.

The endless striving is exhausted.

The need to prove oneself becomes unbearable.

The identities carefully constructed over decades begin to crack.

A painful question emerges:

Who am I if I can no longer do all that I once did?

Who am I if I become hidden?

Who am I if I am no longer useful in the ways I once imagined?

Perhaps this is one of the final purifications of life.

To discover that God does not merely desire our work.

He desires us.

Not our accomplishments.

Not our usefulness.

Not our reputation.

Us.

Perhaps the vocation of later life is not primarily one of building but of consenting.

Consenting to limitation.

Consenting to hiddenness.

Consenting to dependence.

Consenting to small acts of love.

Consenting to not knowing exactly where one belongs.

Consenting to become poor.

This poverty feels like dying.

Perhaps it is.

But perhaps it is also the beginning of freedom.

For there comes a moment when a man can no longer carry the crosses he built for himself.

And in that moment he discovers that Christ has never asked him to.

He has only asked him to remain.