Why is it that there are these things I try so hard to build in my life, and they end up just falling to pieces? It's as if the harder I try at something, the more quickly something else crumbles before I can catch it. I've got my little finger stuck in this crack, my foot propping up this weight, and my forehead pressed against the whole thing, just praying it'll hold for one more day.
And then a thought flashes through my head: "Just let it all go". And I imagine this thunderous crash and this cloud of dust, and then me, standing there with my hands empty. And I know that if I do that, then there isn't a chance I can go back to playing SuperWoman. There isn't a chance I would put myself in that position ever again, or expect anyone else to either. And I would get to choose the story I tell: did everything just fall apart? Or did I let it fall?
The subtle difference between those two things? Choice. Sometimes I forget I have that little word in my back pocket, always. Last year when my husband and I went though our separation, we could have just kept going on our destructive track. But no, we had a choice. And so even though it seemed like a crazy and horrible thing, we split up for a few months. Everything we had painstakingly built suddenly started to come apart at the joints... and we let it come apart.
This cycle seems exhausting and not just a little desperate to me. Either I am perpetually holding something up and keeping it from falling, or these things in my life keep crumbling and I keep rebuilding. The notion I hold onto is what I mentioned above: choice. Maybe life is a constant process of building and destroying and somehow every time we build something, we build it better and different and stronger.
And so now I find myself surprised. I have painted myself into a corner again: I am working in a job where I am carrying a lot of stress and responsibility. I am working nights and don't have a social life anymore. I have been neglecting the relationships in my life that are most dear to me. I don't see my children enough. But the job has also brought me immense satisfaction and I have learned more than I even know now. Despite what I thought I had learned, I have retreated into SuperWoman mode again, and once again have my forehead pressed against the whole damn thing, praying for a way out.
And again I am faced with a question that feels bigger than I can handle: is it all going to fall apart? Or do I just let it fall?
3 comments:
I love this post, it just rings SO true. This is how I feel about grad school in combo with everything else. Every once in a while I HAVE to let something slip, so I don't fall. : )
Mummy,
Think of kids playing with blocks (Big Fish). He started with simple blocks, not able to do much more than stack a few and then they or he would knock them down. But as he grows and understands more and sees more beauty in different configurations he builds more amazing things...but sometimes you can see his little brain processing that he has to change things in his design, and yes, even sometimes start over to make something better.
That is life. We are all part of this crazy cycle, and yes, sometimes we feel like hamsters in the wheel.
Stop. Breathe. Look at all this amazing beauty all around us every day. Breathe some more. Enjoy your wonderful family. Know that though some days nothing makes sense, it will all prevail into something good. You are a great and smart person.
I always turn to Whitman in the frustrating times. Think on happiness friend.
"SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green, 5
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d bank—the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)..."
~ Spontaneous Me, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Thanks guys -- sill feeling this way, but maybe a little bit more ok with the reality of it. :P
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