I’ve driven past this farm in rural Vermont for more than a decade, and it has been abandoned all of that time, decaying, collapsing, coming apart a bit more every time I drove by.

It’s become a symbol of me of change, and of my belief in radical acceptance, the practice of accepting life on life’s terms and not resisting what you cannot or choose not to change. Radical acceptance is about nodding to life, just as it is, not as I might wish it to be.

Every winter, the heavy snows collapse a different part of the roof and barns, the old abandoned farmhouse is literally caving in on itself.

I have come to call it the Acceptance House. It is always sad to see yet another abandoned farmhouse fall into decay and disrepair. We are in some ways a cold and callous people, I can imagine there are many families in our country who would be grateful for the chance to live in an old farmhouse and fix it up over time.

I see it is too l ate for the Acceptance House, I always expected to drive by and see a new, perhaps young, family love it and bring it back to life. But there it sits, a monument to many things, acceptance being one of them.

There are a heartbreaking number of abandoned farmhouses around here these days, the small family farm is being pushed into oblivion by an indifferent government and the rapacious expansion of corporate mega-farms. The old farmhouses are testament to a wonderful culture that we will miss more than we know.

I accept the end of this once beautiful old farmhouse, this is life, just as it is. And curiously, the old farmhouse has become somewhat beautiful, like a flower or leaf at their end, the snow gracing it, the blue, blue sky framing it.