Balancing Act

Contemplate Self

You ever have days you wake up and everything feels weird? I'm having a day like that and it's not even started yet! I'd like to announce, for those worried, that the squirrels are back! One appears to have gotten into a bit of trouble though as his/her tail looked some fluff had been removed. I imagine that's tough for a squirrel. I think they use their tails for balance but I could be wrong.
It's not just that poor squirrel with body issues. My parrot Guido has been in a hard molt for a few months now and last night lost his flight feathers on one side causing him to fall off his perch as birds DO use those for balance - poor thing. He's always touchy during these times, needing TLC but unwilling to accept it so I feed him and mist him in the morning then just leave him be.

Finding balance is one of those tricky things in life I have yet to master, if it can be mastered. It's as though I understand, or think I do, the ways to achieve balance in all areas of my life but fail to make it happen. It's especially challenging to balance your life during this time of year and on the heels of a year of personal losses. You start to wonder whether anything will ever make sense and then laugh at the arrogance that you think it should. I'm starting to wonder if life balance is an illusional unicorn best left to imagine rather than achieve. Depressing thought.

Our very lives and existence physically speaking is owed to a balance on just about any scale you measure it on. There's orbital balance - a little bit off here or there and poof, no planet. There's rotational balance - try to imagine if the planet didn't have a steady rotation, what that would do to gravity and in turn, so much else. We owe a lot to gravity. There's chemical balance both planetary and within our bodies without which we literally wouldn't survive. So many balances that have to happen just right to allow me to be here to question it at all. So many things in constant motion but still in some sort of harmony that creates balance. It's flat out amazing and awe-inspiring , no matter who or what you credit with it. Why is personal balance so different?

Normally I don't have too much trouble keeping up with changes in my life and by default, finding some measure of personal balance. But lately, I feel reactionary - getting wrenched from one change to another, unable to keep up. It's left me tired in every way I can describe. I just want to draw a circle around me, curl up and sleep while everything else spins out because there doesn't feel like anything I can do about it all. It feels like everything I've fought so hard for my whole life; kindness, patience, understanding and love for yourself first and then for others - feels like it doesn't matter anymore in a world where people 'troll' and where the news cycle is spinning so fast we're going from one headline to another without dealing with any of them. People are suffering everywhere and it's overwhelming. It just keeps piling on with no signs of stopping. And I feel like a very small voice in a hurricane of angry tweets. A very small voice.

I suppose every generation laments the changes that occur from when they were idealistically younger and the world seemed simpler - though it really wasn't. My idealism has been dying a slow hard death for years now while I held it in my arms willing it to live. I guess I just haven't given it a proper eulogy. "Here lies my idealism. It was fun while it lasted?" In the light of this awareness, that sometimes life pretty much sucks, sometimes for reasons, sometimes for no reason at all, I must also change and balance - or be dragged through life. Though I consider myself a kind person, I'll be kinder. Though I consider myself understanding, I'll be more so. I'll be patient where it's warranted. Because to contribute to the chaos of today's existence is just to exist and not help move towards what I know we can be and what I want to be. I may be a small voice among few - doesn't matter. I think that's where I got off balance was when it started mattering or I expected to see results of some kind. It's easy to forget in the storm that life is about the journey, to the destination or result. When it's my time to leave this life for whatever is next, I want to know I lived it as I chose, not at the end of societies leash flapping in the storms. Lately people are calling me 'wise' because of this kind of talk. It's really enlightened self interest and survival. It's changed from what I've believed, to a choice of how I want to feel in my life - then having the awareness to BE it. Anyone can be 'wise'. I'm the only one that can be me.

The squirrels tail fur will grow back. Guido's flight and tail feathers will grow back and he'll again be able to balance. Looks like I'll find my balance again in my new normal.