It’s been an emotionally bumpy day or two, I must confess. I sort of knew from the moment I woke up this morning that today might be a bit rocky–I wrote about it in my journal. It wasn’t so much that something in particular happened, it’s really more that nothing did and that my circumstances remain unchanged. I realize that I am weary of the struggle. I have stood up after having been knocked down a number of times now. I have buoyed myself as best I could through physical activity, volunteerism, healthier diet, meditation and spirituality, traditional therapy, etc. I have lost heart, then found it again. I have saluted back at my father through tears, anger, fear, and depression and soldiered on. I have offered prayers of lovingkindness and compassion, practiced forgiveness, worked on equanimity and joy, studied the four Noble truths, the Eightfold Path. I’ve prayed and cried out to the God of my parents. And now, I am weary.
It’s not that nothing has changed (how do you like them double negatives); I believe I have experienced some significant internal shifts in mind, heart, and spirit. At the moment, these changes are too subtle to have much of an impact on my weariness. My vision of myself, of my life before my personal tsunami of 2011 and after is markedly different. While I was never brimming with self confidence, events of the past 16 to 18 months have been dramatic enough to pull the plug on the little bit that I did have. It all makes me want to either shout and curse and swear at the top of my lungs and let out all the anger and emotions that I’ve stuffed down over the past year (longer actually) or curl myself into a ball under my desk. I won’t do either, unless I decide to engage in some watered-down, morphed version of the two choices in which I bury my face in my pillow and howl while curled into a ball under my desk. It has its appeal.
Three hundred words in and not a single use of the “G” word. I will use it before the blog is finished, not to worry. I get mad at God about that too. Even when I am righteously pissed off and splashing around in ill-tempered renunciations of my basic, lifelong belief in a supreme Being, some wonder will catch my ever-wayward attention–the call of the turkeys, a flitting ruby-throated hummingbird, a wandering butterfly, a snatch of my favorite song, the clash of surf and rock, and the many wondrous things–and all my mutterings are silenced, even if only temporarily. It is enough to break the grasp that those less noble emotions had on my heart and I am able to once again drag myself back from the edge and keep climbing. It’s what I do; it’s what I’ve always done. It’s not that big a deal. So very many other people around the world, even in the small suburb where I live have faced challenges worse than mine. It’s also what they do.
I am grateful. As I prepare to lie down in my clean, comfortable bed in my warm, secure shelter having eaten a small but relatively healthy meal, and review all the times over the course of this day that something made me smile or reminded me that I am blessed, I can do so knowing that I have the power to change my perspective all by myself in an instant. That at the end of a emotionally bumpy day I can go to sleep with the hope that I will wake in the morning and see better things ahead. That, as Julian of Norwich said back in the 14th century, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” And so it shall.
