The Electric Idealist

This has been a good week and I’m enjoying life in the middle. Not really muddling all that much, though, and that’s what’s made it feel so good. I have felt comfortable this week resting in what is – who I am, what I’m doing, and the way in which life is unfolding in every moment. Content to be present and able to welcome life as it comes. It wasn’t a kidney stone week, and that helped, for sure, but it wasn’t easy-peasy, either.

It was just regular life – some happy things, a couple of scary things, some annoying things, some sad things, and one or two downright disheartening things. Nothing extreme on either end of the spectrum, just the regular stuff, and a little bit of Spring thrown in to give the heart a leg up to start.

Doesn’t happen all that often, and I know it won’t last that long, but for the last few days I’ve felt steadfast. Ready. Willing to go on. Hopeful, even, that somehow everything will work out for the best – even if it’s not what I want, whatever happens may be just what I need – if I just get out of my own way and just let things be.

That’s not easy, and I’m not usually very good at it, but this week it was like a gift. It’s been effortless. I’m grateful for it cuz the week before that nearly sent me spiralling into the abyss. I was muddling through, frustrated with the again-ness, beating my head against the wall of familiar intractable problems – at work, at home, with the house and my health – and so so so discouraged.

I kept getting out of bed and facing the days, though, getting through, and somehow, now I’ve gotten over that wall. I can’t honestly say I know what changed, but Tuesday it was all just different. I was different. I surrendered. Instead of giving up, I gave in. Instead of apathy, acceptance. Another layer of resistance peeled away; scraped off by the abrasion of life.

So I’m reminded that all I have to do is show up. Be present. Muddle through the middle, as Anna Quindlen says. What matters is the middle. Rest easy in the knowledge that everything passes, and then comes again. That’s just the way it is. There is only now, and me, and what is. There is no way to live life so perfectly that there are no problems. Somehow I keep thinking that I’m going to get to a place where everything is all right all the time. Rationally I know there is no such place and that there is no way to get there. There is still a part of me that’s not convinced, though, so there’s more to learn.

My challenge is to welcome the problems as lessons, the again-ness as the opportunity to learn them well; to reach a deeper level of understanding and acceptance over and over again. That’s why I’m here, and that’s what’s best for me, even though it doesn’t always seem so.

I’m probably not ever going to fully accept that, but I think I’m getting better, and this week I had it knocked. Next week I’ll probably trip all over myself again and fall flat on my face. Whatever. I know I’m doing the best I can, and that my intention is on track, and that I’m heading in the right direction. That’s all that’s necessary.

Just muddling through until I get to a good place to rest for a while. I’m happy to be here.

Now.