Typically, we stay by months and years which can be impossibly heavy and arduous to explain. Laborious to fathom. For my household, this yr has usually appeared so heavy, just like the parade of hits that retains on coming. And that’s solely once we look inside our residence, with out daring to peek on the challenges and horrors of the surface world.
Typically, I look again over 2024 – although it nonetheless has a number of extra months left on its seemingly endless clock – and discover myself laughing on the variety of insanely arduous and darkish and heavy issues we’ve skilled. As a result of if I don’t giggle, the choice is to cry. Which I do, typically. Or I sit in shock, befuddled by the how and why of this unusual wrestle.
A variety of weeks in the past, I found myself disproportionately reassured by a sure metaphor I considered whereas perplexed by this yr’s chaos. So I believed I’d share it with you at this time, within the occasion it helps you when your life and the world appear too heavy. This metaphor includes a bit of playground tools my youngsters used to like: the seesaw.
Think about your self sitting on one aspect of a seesaw, along with your toes firmly planted on the bottom. On the opposite aspect are some rocks and pebbles – the every day challenges of life as a working dad or mum – that weigh roughly what you do. As extra pebbles arrive reverse you, you straighten your knees a bit, possibly being pressured to face up. However typically, you’re in a position to 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 youngsters on the blacktop.
Then sooner or later, with a jolt, you hear a thud and fly skyward. Your butt actually leaves the seesaw for a second. And when you’re reacquainted with the board, you discover your toes dangling. Throughout from you, there’s a large boulder the place these pebbles used to sit down. “The place did that even come from?” you marvel. “And the way do I get down?” As you bounce round a bit, attempting to find out if wild motion may shift the burden in your favor, one other heavy rock crashes by the air. You see it coming this time, nevertheless it nonetheless lands on the opposite aspect 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 stay unmoored ceaselessly.
Extra boulders fall, and, resigned to your destiny, you understand you possibly can’t block them or transfer them. (That is life, pricey one. Typically, it merely crashes. And OH, how we’re not in management.) With that consciousness, although, comes the spark of an concept. A reminder of how seesaws work. Even in the event you can’t transfer the large child off the opposite aspect, you possibly can at the least, 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 the sudden appears a tiny bit much less far-off. You intend a factor to sit up for. Although you’re scared you may nonetheless be caught within the seesaw and never even in a position to do this completely satisfied factor, you intend away anyway. And the planning brings you pleasure. Brings you one other rock in your lap, that strikes your aspect down one other inch.
You retain going, with tears, typically, when extra rocks pile up on the opposing aspect. However with extra pleasure, too, as you discover extra methods to create your individual, highly effective carin. And when your aspect 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 bit nearer to regular whenever you flail? My very own counterweights this yr 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 rejoice his birthday. And the one I used to be positive wasn’t really going to occur however in some way magically did, going to the Olympics.
As we speak, as I sort this, our household is in disaster once more, and my toes flail with the misery of having the ability to do nothing to take away this subsequent boulder from the seesaw. Up to now, I might have canceled my very own delights. However in 2024, I’ve realized to ask within the counterweights. So I saved the joyful plan we had for the weekend. I hopped in our minivan with considered one of 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 think about pleasure as a traitor to my sorrow. However I’m coming to see her as a essential – and worthy – playground companion.
