Finding the Balance

I often accuse my husband of not thinking things through. It’s a lame thing to do, because I’m no full-circle thinker, God knows, but I guess it’s easier to point the finger than to look at it wiggling back at you. I tell him he needs to set goals, make plans, move ahead in doing what he wants with life. I harangue and cluck-cluck and just see his blocks so clearly. Of course, I don’t say a word about my issues. Out loud.

 

I don’t know, I just want to blame things on someone. Much of my life, I’ve felt like there’s invisible plexiglass surrounding me and however I try, I keep running into it. Sure its boundaries may change, but it’s always encircling and resisting me. But for it, I could move ahead. Break free.

 

And that is such bull. But still, I’m on some sort of track that I can’t jump. And do you remember that self-help passage from Portia Nelson?

 

Probably, but here it is again:

 

THERE’S A HOLE IN MY SIDEWALK

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

By Portia Nelson

 

Chapter One

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost …. I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

 

Chapter Two

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend that I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I am in this same place.

But, it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

 

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

 

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

 

Chapter Five

I walk down another street.

 

And let me clarify. By “moving ahead,” I don’t mean financially, or career-wise. I’m talking enlightenment. I make the same emotional mistakes again and again and do not seem to be taking another street. In quiet moments, like this, I resolve to stop taking the same road, to rise above it if I must, to stop being so angry, so unfulfilled, so uneasy. Because that’s just it. I’m not changing my ways. I want to be a better person, to achieve synchronicity in my life and relationships, to meet my goals, to write that book already, and yet, I fall in holes. And I dug those holes. How’s that for irony? I’m tired of fighting my shadow, and of watching it flit through my fingers just when I think I’ve caught it, calmed it, made it listen to reason.

 

And it is so surely my fault. Something in me wants to resist change, to do the same things I’ve always done. It’s like that something is a rubberband, or a surveillance ankle bracelet, letting me get only so far, then it snaps or zaps me back to the beginning, as if I never took a step in the first place.

 

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When I worked in Corporate America, I recall starting a project — something messy usually — a brochure or a newsletter from scratch; a deal that required me to conduct interviews, to string words into paragraphs, edit and polish; and I felt sure it’d never come together. But I’d make a call, get some words, massage the copy and the thing that seemed so impossible became a thing that got mailed, that people read, that had artwork and a design, a theme.

 

If only I could apply those principles to me. To know that one step taken is never subtracted, that there is no back to the beginning. That moving forward can feel like bricks or it can feel like butterflies, but as long as you feel it, as long as you want it, hard or easy, it’s as it should be.

 

Just words. Those are just words. Action. I crave action. And air moving through this house, and peace settling in my mind, and muscles contracting, and music playing, and doing. I want to be doing.