Housekeeping

Today has involved a lot of walking and a lot of cleaning (with a sidewinding excursion to sunbathe in a secluded corner of a graveyard), and both of those activities invariably mean a great deal of thinking has been accomplished. Which means I managed, over the course of the afternoon, to mentally outline at least five blog essays to be written in the next month. Whether they will actually reach completion remains to be seen.

 

It's one of those days again, one of those days in which, during some mundane task or contemplative moment, I realise This is it, this is what life has been missing for the past three years. Not happiness, not some upsurge of positive emotion, but just being fine. This is it. Except this time, after with the distinct sense of wonder and satisfaction, came the immediate rebuttal: You know you'll be exhausted and despairing again in hours. You know this doesn't last, so who are you kidding? This is it? You're still as messed up as ever.

In most instances I would agree. That nasty little inner voice that insists upon countering every contented thought with a bitter rejoinder is too reasonable for me to dare deny it. I know all too well my own proclivity to go in less than a minute from stable productivity to abject discouragement that makes what might have been an active day one that ends with no more than a meagre goal or two checked off as accomplished.

But this afternoon, following the sharp internal rebuke came words, someone else's words, a reminder from the midst of a common struggle.

In an archived post, Meg Fee (one of my very favourite bloggers) said something to the effect that slipping from a desired state of equilibrium is not only inevitable but necessary, required in order to allow for learning to re-enter that state.

It's true.

The longer I entertain the idea that my environment must create my equilibrium, the less I will find myself able to control my emotional reactions to what happens around me. The weight that I give to extraneous events in relation to my personal sanity will inevitably directly translate into the weight swinging the pendulum that will eventually send my mentality regarding life careening in the opposite direction. While emotions tend to arise from variables in personal surroundings (along with a host of other factors) and cannot be dictated to or scheduled, general attitude towards life is, arguably, almost entirely within the grasp of the mind, which means that yes, I can pick myself back up again. I can breathe when sucker-punched by despair and tell myself the inability to see beyond a certain situation won't last, and then get up and with that knowledge move forward.

Which basically makes the erratic absence of equilibrium practice runs.

And practice runs aren't failure. Practice runs are hope. A promise for the future. Habit building. All that and more. They count for something.

Every time I go from a steady walk to being flat on my face with my nose crushed against metaphorical asphalt I get the chance to learn how to rise to my feet again. Every instance that feels like failure is one in which I have the opportunity to define success. Losing my marbles is just another lesson in finding them again.

Frankly, I like that idea. I like being able to remind myself that the space in between point A and point B is worth something in life, that making that relentless journey back and forth is not a waste of existence. It is good to know that learning and hopeless mess are not equivalent and never will be, and that the only real failure here would be to subscribe to the futility of those inevitable hopeless moments.