The Spirals of Life

I am navigating through interesting and different spaces in my life of late. Deja, the last of my three grown children, will be transferring to a four-year college in August. She is currently working two jobs, babysitting in her spare time and attending her last semester of Junior College (online). She already arranged for her father to drive her to school in August and he is helping her pay for the remainder of her education. The empty nest is imminent but the truth is she is gone so much now that it’s like a long, slow goodbye. I am strangely free since I wasn’t expecting to be on the outside looking in. Free from the bulk of the financial and logistical burdens of it. Oh, I know I’ll help here and there, but basically, she and her dad got this. It’s an odd feeling.

Watching my daughter so focused and working hard towards her goal has illuminated how lost and unfocused I’ve gotten on my own goals. That doesn’t feel good, but rather than deal with it, I avoid it in all manner of distracting dysfunctional ways. Nothing too crazy, but enough to have me off my game when it comes to dealing with my present life. It’s a symbiotic spiral. The lack of focus and energy on what matters leaves space to get tripped up by what DOESN’T, which can easily spiral downward. That leaves me feeling worse. Disconnecting from myself leads to disconnecting with people and things that feed and fuel me. Which leaves me feeling alone and somewhat isolated. Damn, I need to write here more often, I miss this. Writing into my truth.

What else am I navigating? A right knee injury since November of last year which is not going away. It limits the activities I used to enjoy and impedes the ones I need, like hiking and vinyasa yoga. The injury is pretty bad and I’ve avoided going back to the doctor because I don’t want to deal with the energy and courage it takes to advocate for myself in today’s health care system. I’ve gained weight because of it and that brings it’s own issues to my self-image/esteem.

Then I signed up for a six-week online writer’s workshop I thought I was prepared for. It was a scary writing premise for me but I wanted to expand my writing so I tried to dive in but I couldn’t. The best I could do was dip my toe initially. That left me an emotional wreck for a little bit. I wrote what I felt I could in the group but it feels as if I failed myself and the amazing facilitator of the workshop. Everyone, including the facilitator involved in the workshop, was nothing but encouraging and accepting. But I felt out of my element in a way that made me question myself in a session with my kick-ass therapist a couple of weeks ago. I am struggling with finding the lesson in all of this for me and my writing.

So, if I can spiral downward, it can also spiral upward. Right? It starts with awareness, perspective, and a little action. When I become aware of my spiral what were my choices? With my daughter, I was extremely proud of her rather than resentful or jealous. She is pretty fucking inspiring! With the writing workshop, I chose to try to the best of my willingness and ability rather than quitting. I faced how the workshop affected me and participated anyway. With my knee injury, I gave it a couple of months (longer actually) to heal like my doctor initially said. Now I get to use my healthcare plan to help me resolve this, no matter what it may take. The truth is also that while I can’t walk and hike like I want to, my job has a free gym with cycling equipment so I can get cardio exercise without any harsh impact to my knee.  I can eat in ways that won’t contribute to weight gain while my mobility is limited. With a willingness to look, choices in our responses and a little bit of footwork, we can alter the trajectory of our own spirals.