Sometimes when Wile E. Coyote was up to something venturesome he would run really, really fast and suddenly stop in his tracks. His dramatic hault-slide created plumes of cartoon smoke to artifact his exsertion. Our current global situation has screeched me still and my metaphorical smoke plumes have settled and Sister, what lies in the wake is not pretty.
These extreme times put a magnifying glass on, well, everything. And it turns out I was running really, really fast and much like Wilie, I am not sure what I was hoping to catch was actually attainable.
Juggling is cool. Everyone knows it’s cool. The more items you can juggle the more impressive the art. And then if you add really hard things to your juggling, then it is even more impressive. Thus, if I kept really busy and juggled all the things successfully, no one could say I was not talented or cool or successful. Right?
The thing with intensive juggling is that you can’t really look around while in motion. You can’t pause, dig deep, or breathe fully. It buries the shit you don’t want to deal with, because, well, you are juggling and that takes lots of energy, attention and motion. More importantly, there is no end to juggling: cyclical, spiraling, dizzying. And somehow that is both comforting and numbing.
I never understood on TV shows when a person is crazy delirious, someone slaps their face and that instantly brings them back to reality. I now completely understand this desperate act of love. Being aggressively halted has acquainted me with reality. I have no photos to edit, no pictures to click, no talent casting, no modeling adventures, no events to emcee and no grad school. Oh yeah, I was in grad school, again, but I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid you would stage an intervention. So here I am. In stillness. And it is so damn triggering. Also, thank goodness - My juggling routine is over. I am not sure what that means, but after I drink all the wine and deal with some other addictions, I’ll let you know. First things first.
Perhaps all this is a cosmic shift. I know I am not the only one who has had their issues blasted forward as a result of this modern living scenario. It’s like the Universe sent out collective memo to us all, “I had to make you uncomfortable, otherwise you would have never moved.” Heed the call, Sisters. It is painful as hell because growth and comfort do not co-exist, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck. This collective energy is a messy, aggressive, celestial push off the diving board to deep dive into all that desperately needs to come to the surface to be dealt with. Also, this is so damn hard and for the first time, perhaps ever, we have time to sit with it.
AND I am mom + wife.
Sister-friends, you know that is a whole other post. We can do hard things.
Love you,
autumn