Generally, we reside by months and years which are impossibly heavy and laborious to explain. Onerous to fathom. For my household, this 12 months has usually appeared so heavy, just like the parade of hits that retains on coming. And that’s solely once we look inside our house, with out daring to peek on the challenges and horrors of the skin world.
Generally, I look again over 2024 – although it nonetheless has a couple of extra months left on its seemingly endless clock – and discover myself laughing on the variety of insanely laborious and darkish and heavy issues we’ve skilled. As a result of if I don’t chuckle, the choice is to cry. Which I do, generally. Or I sit in shock, befuddled by the how and why of this unusual wrestle.
Plenty of weeks in the past, I found myself disproportionately reassured by a sure metaphor I considered whereas perplexed by this 12 months’s chaos. So I believed I’d share it with you right this moment, within the occasion it helps you when your life and the world appear too heavy. This metaphor entails a chunk of playground tools my children used to like: the seesaw.
Think about your self sitting on one facet of a seesaw, together with your toes firmly planted on the bottom. On the opposite facet are some rocks and pebbles – the day by day challenges of life as a working guardian – that weigh roughly what you do. As extra pebbles arrive reverse you, you straighten your knees a bit, possibly being compelled to face up. However typically, you’re capable of bob up and down gently, soles of your footwear nonetheless touching that humorous rubbery playground substance that forestalls the variety of bone breaks we used to have as children on the blacktop.
Then someday, with a jolt, you hear a thud and fly skyward. Your butt actually leaves the seesaw for a second. And if you find yourself reacquainted with the board, you discover your toes dangling. Throughout from you, there’s an enormous boulder the place these pebbles used to take a seat. “The place did that even come from?” you surprise. “And the way do I get down?” As you bounce round a bit, making an attempt to find out if wild motion may shift the load in your favor, one other heavy rock crashes by the air. You see it coming this time, but it surely nonetheless lands on the opposite facet of the seesaw. And this time your toes and arms flail. Your reminiscence of the bottom’s security begins feeling foggy. As if you may reside unmoored endlessly.
Extra boulders fall, and, resigned to your destiny, you notice you may’t block them or transfer them. (That is life, pricey one. Generally, it merely crashes. And OH, how we’re not in management.) With that consciousness, although, comes the spark of an thought. A reminder of how seesaws work. Even if you happen to can’t transfer the large child off the opposite facet, you may a minimum of, simply possibly, add weight to your individual.
You summon the forces of pleasure and groundedness. You conjure a delight. A particular occasion, or a hug, or a flower that brings you a smile, if even for a second. And a small stone lands in your lap. The seesaw strikes, if solely a hair. However the floor all of a sudden appears a tiny bit much less far-off. You intend a factor to look ahead to. Although you’re scared you may nonetheless be caught within the seesaw and never even in a position to do this joyful factor, you propose away anyway. And the planning brings you pleasure. Brings you one other rock in your lap, that strikes your facet down one other inch.
You retain going, with tears, generally, when extra rocks pile up on the opposing facet. However with extra pleasure, too, as you discover extra methods to create your individual, highly effective carin. And when your facet is lastly low sufficient for others to achieve, you invite them to climb on with you. To carry you tight, as your breath floods out and your toes lastly, as soon as once more, discover the bottom.
Expensive working mother and father, what are your counterweights? What are the forces of pleasure and grounding that carry you a little bit nearer to regular once you flail? My very own counterweights this 12 months have been issues like lengthy walks with my mates. Binge watching Bridgerton on my own, and The Good Place with my household. Writing. Occurring a date to the Bruce Springsteen live performance at Nats Park with my husband, to have a good time his birthday. And the one I used to be certain wasn’t really going to occur however someway magically did, going to the Olympics.
Right now, as I sort this, our household is in disaster once more, and my toes flail with the misery of with the ability to do nothing to take away this subsequent boulder from the seesaw. Prior to now, I might have canceled my very own delights. However in 2024, I’ve discovered to ask within the counterweights. So I stored the joyful plan we had for the weekend. I hopped in our minivan with one among my sons and drove to Pennsylvania anyway. And this weekend, we celebrated my nice aunt’s eightieth birthday with meals, and cake, and household…
I used to consider pleasure as a traitor to my sorrow. However I’m coming to see her as a vital – and worthy – playground companion.
