Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Living Off Balance






From time to time, I do a weirdly unhealthy thing.  My life gets so very off-balance that I literally lose my footing.  No metaphor.  I fall over.  Like, a lot.  It's the craziest thing.  I'm not an uncoordinated person when all is well.  Yet, I get to this place where I am moving too fast to keep up with myself.  It's particularly charming when I lose my balance in the middle of the street, which has happened.  It turns out I'm not alone.  Check out this post, Falling Off Things, from Fit is a Feminist Issue.

Here's the thing.  This morning I fell in my own bedroom.  There was no cat underfoot to trip me.  There was no naughty puppy jumping on me and knocking me tail over teakettle.  My slippers caught on the carpet, and I went down.  I was dressed for work, lacking only my shoes, and was grabbing things and running (literally) out the door.  I had to stay on the floor for quite a while before I felt ready to get up - and of course by then all the animals were sprawled around me, either in commiseration with their friend or plotting how to exact their revenge if I couldn't get up to feed them. So, when I got up, I was covered in fur from stressed out companion animals and had to start the whole getting-dressed process over.  Along with being painful, this is not what you could call an efficient way to get your morning underway.

The nerve-wracking thing is that the first place I look for "blame" is aging.  Perhaps I am becoming one of those little old ladies who doesn't have enough core strength to protect herself.  THAT would be unsettling. I have been working so hard to ensure that is not my story.  Admittedly, I had let things get wildly out of hand in the fitness department, so I'm nowhere near the elite fitness I have in mind.  Nowhere even in the same galaxy, but I don't feel fragile.

Instead, I really think it's the universe telling me quite literally - as in, with a blow to the knees- that I have to get centered.  For all the universe cares, I can stay this busy, but I have to get a grip.

To complicate matters, I like all the categories, if you will, of my life.  There is nothing that stands up and shouts "you can let this go!"  I love my job.  It makes me feel powerful to be able to take care of myself.  I love helping people extend their intellectual curiosity and supporting them as they solve the world's problems.   I'm besotted with my companion animals, and enjoy caring for them well.  I love my house.  It deserves better care than it gets, but I truly enjoy the process of making it mine.  I love cooking.  I love exercising.  I love my family and friends. 

Indeed, there are things I would love -need,even- to add to the mix.  Where did creativity and making beautiful things go?   Where did social justice work go?  Where did political engagement go?  Where did travel go?  Where did writing go?  I wish I could get my house back to a point where it could serve as a haven, a gathering place for political engagement, a social place.... but it's in such a state of flux and mess from the remodeling that it can not currently serve that purpose.

So, you see the problem.  How might one balance having a lot -everything, in fact- to do, with being centered and grounded?  I get the feeling that we're talking radical self-care here - on beyond getting a massage, although that's good, too.  I have to meditate, do yoga, somehow tend my spiritual side; there has to be calm in the eye of this storm.  I need to journal and explore the process of allowing myself to move forward, however imperfectly.  But the real thing is that I need to be fully present in each moment - and to do whatever it takes to make that possible. As Susan Tarshis says in her much more eloquent post, it's about "alertness without anxiety."  For me, it might be more about focus without grasping for total control of all life's details.

So, doing MORE is the answer?  How can that be right?  It's not the activity I need to let go of, perhaps.  It's the internal chatter of panic.

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