1.21.15 Sinking and Swimming and Being Younger and Growing Older

Not everyone who lives... gets to live a long time. Ants bears trees humans. But sometimes we get to have a life, where we are around for quite awhile. And that while, if we're gifted with living somewhere not filled with poverty and hunger and war and such, can be pretty wonderful, interspersed with the difficulties present in every single existence.

     And then, if we are lucky, we get to still be here and grow older.  

     Some of us end up crashing and burning sooner than old age, and yet, the whole deal is very similar; only unanticipated.

      I imagine that whenever it happens to any of us, it catches us off guard, maybe takes us out at the knees.

But here's the thing. Not everybody gets to have nice stuff in their lives. Good friends. Or family that matters. Beloveds. A moment of true love. A stable place to live. An income that allows it. An occupation that means something to you and contributes. An ability to go contribute in other ways that are meaningful. Being able to climb mountains or drive places you love or travel or teach or care for others or innovate or parent or relish your neighbors or discover the wonder of horses or rescue animals or care for the land or love reading or learn to navigate connecting with others or being compassionate and patient with your self or creating interesting things that bring you pleasure or watching winter birds happily feed on a freezing cold day or be close to kind enough parents or have an ok enough boss or work environment or making a living wage or be able to live with the pain and suffering of someone you love or exchange love and support with others. 

     So when we do, we realize it's a gift. When we have inherent abilities, we get that they are not automatically included in the 'having a life' package, and as we get older, we begin to realize how lucky we are for our particular gifts.

     And if we get to grow older, we at times are less able to do things than before, especially if we get older enough; either that, or taken out at the knees. It is then that we begin to relish both what we can now manage, and all that we have had, enriching our whole lives.

    For some of us, it seems to take awhile to realize that not everyone 'gets' everything. Most people don't 'get' to own a house and having a living wage and have kids if they want and have a love of your life and live someplace safe with kind people about. So if we have some of these things, even for awhile, as we become wiser and more circumspect, we feel grateful for what we have received.

     And as that awareness deepens, often rendered by challenges, we have the option of sinking or swimming.

     Sinking sucks. It just does. It's miserable and painful and lousy and if we have our wits about us, we realize that swimming, even treading water, is far less miserable than giving in and sinking.

     When we find a way to swim, all by ourselves, or exchanging support, its more manageable to do that good old 'radical acceptance', which is simply the latest moniker for the old Serenity Prayer. To realize that what is going on just IS. And to sit with it, not fight it, and then it will ebb and flow, and when its a bit more manageable, we can have a bit of ease.

     I remember when our oldest was 4 years old, and tripped over a slide and broke his femur in HALF. He was in traction, and getting injections of Demerol, which they said he could have, for the pain, until he began asking for it, and then they'd have to figure something else out.

     We stayed with him night and day, never leaving him alone for more than an hour, on good days. The hospital and nurses thought this was both nuts; and wonderful. I actually wondered why on earth you would leave your little in-huge-pain-in-traction-in-a-hospital-four-year-old alone, if you could possibly help it. We would often be up in the middle of the night, due to the pain, at which times we were grateful we had no TV, because he would watch anything at all, no matter how boring.

     And we began teaching him Lamaze breathing, because between the inhale....and the exhale...there is no pain. So he would do the breathing, and despite the horrible pain, he began to notice that small moment where there was no pain. It was miraculous, to watch his awareness grow in such circumstances. And yeah, he wasn't a cancer patient with multiple hospitalizations or a kid in a war zone. Just imagine those.

     And I remember sitting on that chair, trying to sleep, holding his hand, waking and responding and finding that way of being upbeat when he needed it, and thinking about the Serenity Prayer on my mother in law's kitchen wall, right right next to her phone.

     Which, at first glance, seemed kind of hokey to me, a silly 25 year old. But as time went on, and yeah it was all over the world, that prayer, it began to seep into me. See, it's a cousin of radical acceptance. Where you use your wits to figure out what can be changed, acknowledge what can't right now, and then accept what is.     

     Sit with it. Walk with it. Cry and pray with it. Meditate with it. Sit outside with it. Hold hands with what cannot be changed. With what is.

     These days, with that 4 year old 35, and the other kids grown and ok, a huge blessing in itself that does not always happen to be one of your things that you 'get', I think often both of my mother-in-law, a kind, loving, wise woman, and her prayer on her wall. I begin in retrospect to imagine what it was like to be her, silently dealing with the things that were difficult in her life, that I had not the wisdom nor perspective to see or appreciate then. Maybe this is how it works, you know? The retrospect thing, when the person is dead and gone, and you begin to realize certain things and are taken aback by their strength and adaptability. As you yourself grow older. With all that your life 'gets' and doesn't 'get'.

     And you begin to realize it's ok. It's not easy, whatever your hard bits, not at all at all. And most people see you and don't dream of what is so very hard for you to bear. To hurt from. To yearn for. To sit with, even while it hurts or is such profound disappointment or loneliness or pain.

    But somehow, you grow older and wiser and stronger. You begin to not be surprised when you go to bed at night and wake in the morning and the things that cannot be changed right now are sitting there, aching.

     Yesterday dusk I went outside and the clouds again were breathtaking. I took a photo and then lay down in the snow so as not to get so dizzy while watching them morph and transform and curl. I was imagining what lay beyond, and what lay beneath me in the deep ground, as the adolescent crows began their early evening journey of coming from wherever they all were all day, seeking out survival and food and some play, and then realized it was time, sought each other out, hundreds of them, and began their flight, together, on their way to their night time roost.

     There were so many, and so many swooped and danced, but all wanted very much to keep up. So I sat up, there in the cold snow with the beautiful blessedly clean air on the foothill of the mountain range and I watched their sleek black selves as they danced their way home.

       Just being grateful for the world sitting there for us, when we need to sit with hard things. For the beauty that surrounds us and buffers us and soothes us into the night and onto another day.