I was asked last night why I haven’t written here in a while. And I answered “Because I’m happy”. That is true, but that’s not why…not really.
I’ve actually written here a hundred times this year, in my head. Maybe a thousand. And yet I never came to put those words onto a page. I never got them out of my head and into the world. I had, for lack of a better term, personal blog constipation. The desire was there, but nothing was happening.
So maybe that question last night was like an intense laxative – one that works overnight and promises success in the morning. Because here I am, writing again. And I don’t know if I can write fast enough, or long enough, to get it all down on “paper”. So thanks, Christine, for the nudge and the reminder that I’m not here solely alone, talking to myself in a dark room.
So…moving targets.
I think there is some sort of cliche about life being a moving target. If there isn’t, there should be. For me, it’s not life that is the moving target, it’s balance.
Balance is my struggle.
Balance is my joy.
Balance is my goal.
Balance is my nemesis.
The fact is, as soon as I think I have this balance thing all figured out, the target moves and I’m teetering on the edge again.
Take this year, for example. I was doing pretty well for a while there. My kids were happy, I was spending “quality time” with them. The business was humming along, deadlines were being met, my friendships were growing, and I was content.
For a while.
And then it happened. I’m not sure what “it” was, but suddenly there I was, on the edge of a dark abyss, wondering how I got here, and how to get back. We took on too much. I took on too much. I panicked, I stumbled, and I fell. But, as I always do, I just kept going, taking more and more on, struggling under the increasing weight of this burden, knowing I would eventually carry so much I couldn’t get up…
So I dropped it. All of it. Right there on the ground. There was a huge pile of stuff in the middle of my life, that I simply refused to acknowledge.
Until I had to. It’s not in my nature to simply let things go. I can’t ignore anything, let alone that kind of pile. So I picked it up again, sorted through it all, and did my best to set things right again.
I fell.
I got back up.
And I started to sight that target again, moving closer and closer to the bulls-eye, until it became a certain possibility, rather than a remote one.
The journey, as it seems, is truly more important than the destination.
