Debunking the search for equilibrium

 

For me, writing is liking throwing up. There's this extended period of time of twisting and turning and rolling about the universe as my brain ruminates on a particular topic and when it comes out in the form of writing I sort of hope I hit the target. I guess this is my disclaimer because there's no scientific basis for anything I write or any academic authority on any topic just a massive throw up of ideas that I've been ruminating on for, well a LONG time.

Brian and I talked about anything and everything and we would converse often into the long hours of the night about whatever was on our mind. I have less than a handful of friends who dare to go to the deep places of my heart and mind so I guess my throwing up in a blog post is my way of bringing a completed thought to myself and whoever else might engage with the idea because I have limited processing time.

That was my disclaimer, but the following idea is one I have ruminated on for a while and I'm finally ready to go on record and state that after years of searching for equilibrium, that is a state of balance in my life, I have discovered that it does not and cannot exist. It was like a light bulb went off and I thought, "shit that was stupid, I just spent 49 years searching for something that does not exist".

Merriam-Wesbter defines equilibrium as:
a state of balance between opposing forces or actions that is either static (as in a body acted on by forces whose resultant is zero) or dynamic (as in a reversible chemical reaction when the rates of reaction in both directions are equal)

This is a scientific definition, and of course, in the world of science, women CAN control the conditions to create a state of equilibrium. Not so much in life.

I have for years craved a state of equilibrium and have searched for it hard. You know that place where you find this really cozy spot and stay there, like forever, and it requires everyone else to stay put too. Sort of like when we moved our family from California and bought our own piece of private Idaho and thought "We found our piece, now everybody else stay there." (THIS TOWN IS CRAZY FULL where did they all come from?)

And of course, I did find this super cozy place in the world with my hubby of 23 years and bam one day he was gone. Lesson learned, you don't want to get too cozy anyway cuz you could wake up one day with all the shit turned upside down and then you'll ride off an emotional/spiritual cliff and then survive to tell the world about it. And by the way, I sure hope my mother doesn't read this because I just said shit twice, well now three times. But sometimes it is just the right word.

So any way my world's turned upside down and I'm like smashed and WASTED at the bottom of the cliff and I start taking baby steps toward and wondering where and what equilibrium while look like in the future. And I'm waiting and hoping for life to calm down a bit and be like smooth sailing or something and well it just never does. But one day out of the blue, I'm sitting at a conference for work and I don't know which motivational speaker said what but this light bulb went off ...

If you stay in one place, if you stop moving, if you stop changing, you stop GROWING and if you stop GROWING then what are you doing? Are you dying? And I guess you could choose to not grow but then what are you doing if you don't grow? Are you becoming a crotchety old woman? Ah heck who wants to be a crotchety old woman if you could be one of the nice ones, you know the cool old ladies that make you feel all calm and ooze wisdom and courage from their soul?

In that moment I was stunned to discover, to have it occur to me that the equilibrium I crave doesn't co-exist with growth. By it's very definition growth requires change. I had been searching an awful long time for a cozy spot that was absent of change and the reality is where would that get me really? And do I want it to exist? A life without change could quite possibly be boring. And the harsh reality is even though there is part of me that still craves my cozy little piece of equilibrium I DON'T HAVE THE POWER to control all the variables to make it exist and if I did ya'll know I would have written a different story for the love of my life, one where we grew old and wiser TOGETHER.

The open road unknown, you know the one that beckoned me when I was called to keep traveling beyond my extraordinary adventure with Brian, has been long and hot and dusty and I am a parched and weary traveler. I am trapped in these variables called TIME and SPACE. And despite my traveling exhaustion time continues to move on and space continues to expand. And these variables I cannot control.

So what's a girl to do when she feels beat up by the bumpy road?

Get comfortable with the discomfort. Stop and take breaks along the way. Take a nap. Get a drink of water. And when I bump throws you in a ditch just recognize that's probably the path you were supposed to take anyway. We were born to grow. Growth requires change, expansion, often beyond what we ever thought possible, so let's just embrace it.

A Time for Everything - Ecclesiastes 3

1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil?

10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^a no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God