Balance

Isn't life crazy?

 

The last two weeks have been the kind that open your eyes in so many ways. And as I sit here trying to type this, I find myself struggling to find the right way to express the myriad emotions and understandings that these weeks have brought.

 

In fact, I just deleted about three paragraphs. In trying to be careful with my words, I'm not entirely being honest. I don't mean to say that I was trying to lie with this post. Anyone who knows me knows that I am probably too honest when it comes to matters of my heart.

 

What I find myself doing, though, is not fully opening up and simply struggling to adequately describe the profound power of balance in life.

 

My friend and I have noted over the years that our work life balances with our personal lives. The happier we are in our personal lives the more difficult our work life seems to be, and vice versa. Where we seem to be now is on the cusp, waiting to see in what direction the scales tip.

 

Balance has also presented itself in the types of people around me right now. I have my core group of families and friends, of course. It's not about them that I am thinking right now. What is fascinating to me is the people on the periphery of my life and the roles that they seem to be taken. On the one hand, I have that acquaintance who every once in a while shows me what a true friend she can be. And I think I need to explore furthering that friendship. On the other hand, I have that person who I once viewed as a true friend...who isn't so much anymore. And I don't condemn that person; I just think he is so stressed and depressed that he isn't capable of seeing the consequences of his actions.

 

And if I were a medical anomaly, I would have a third hand on which I could count that crazy stalker...but that's another story...

 

I think the most profound sign of balance comes via family and the balance between life and death.

 

Of course, there is my own loss that I wrote about in my last post. And that loss is balanced by the perfect little boy that is now in my life.

 

But this week has provided another distinct example of the balance between life and death. A few days ago, my uncle lost his mother. Though her health had been in a steady decline, the loss of a parent is still profound. And my cousins lost their grandmother which is equally profound. The balance? My cousin and his wife welcomed their first child, a beautiful little girl, into the world.

 

On the cusp of grief, joy.

 

Balance. Finding it. Recognizing it. Accepting it.

 

That last is probably the hardest. Accepting the balances in life. Accepting that with the flow must come an ebb...