Juxtaposition
My life is full of pleasure and pain, deep satisfaction and profound disappointments. In the midst of stress and chaos, there are always small moments in which to rejoice. Recently I took pictures of my 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter building “fairy-houses” when I needed to leave to pick up my 10-year-old daughter. The mixture on the inside of me was delight and irritation, peace and fatigue, gratitude and annoyance.
Shann, you say, aren’t you being overly dramatic? Did you really have so many conflicting feelings in such an insignificant moment? The answer is yes, I am being overly dramatic and yes, I did. I always do.
Fairy house building serves as a simple example of my current state: delight in watching my children use their imaginations and get lost in nature, crafting little houses out of stones and sticks and acorns and bits of weeds they strung together; irritation because I didn’t want to be late picking up my daughter and because my children tend to dawdle and are able to tune me out completely based on their whims; peace because I could acknowledge for that moment in time all seemed right in the world (Graysie at her horseback riding lesson, doing something she truly loves. Navy and Belle getting along, a rare and delicate treasure); fatigue because my ever-accumulating list of to-dos was piling up on it’s own accord at home in the leftover late Sunday afternoon light, etc.
So I have relaxation mixed with guilt when I get to relax. I have pangs of worry tangled up with overwhelming love when I study the faces of my children asleep in their beds and try to push away the fears of something bad happening to them. Deep satisfaction is intermingled with failure when I accomplish something that I am proud of at work but stay too late to get home to read that book to the kids and too tired to engage with my husband. Laughter and gratefulness when I take a few days to just do nothing and spend time with my family and twisted up with stress for not being productive. I wrote parts of this while my toes were drying after having just gotten a pedicure that I thoroughly enjoyed and also felt contrition for in the indulgence. I am forever irked by this ongoing internal conflict.
People say things like “everything in moderation” and “seek balance in your life” and I nod in agreement but in reality I don’t live like this or really want it. I guess I feel like a moderate life is a boring life, lacking passion and intrigue and adventure. To achieve balance you have to teeter between two scales, ever careful not to lean too far. I don’t think it is possible. Show me a person who has achieved a balanced life and I will be looking at a fake person.
It would be easier if there were only two sides to the scale, but it seems there are many, which makes for a very awkward looking scale. Perhaps it’s more of a tightrope balancing marriage, children, extended family, church, volunteering, work, friends, health, hobbies, relaxation, personal growth, finances, organization, and it goes on.
Leaning too far over into one area throws everything else off and investing too much in any area makes that area unhealthy. You can go too far and become a suffocating helicopter parent and screw up your kid. A clean well-organized home is stress-reducing and inviting but if it’s too clean, it becomes sterile and makes others feel uncomfortable. Frequent exercise and healthy eating is correlated with mental, physical, and emotional well-being, but obsessing about health leads to over-emphasis on body image, and irritating, and often unnecessary, dietary restrictions.
So I understand the focus on wanting balance. Maybe moderation is best but this means a life of juxtaposition for me.
Perhaps my ongoing internal tug-of-war is the way I moderate my own zealousness and ensure I don’t lean over too far into any one thing? Perhaps instead of balance, I need to seek contentedness in the conflict, satisfaction in the confusion, forgiveness for myself when I disappoint me again, and thankfulness for the complexity?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately but I couldn't get it right. Both the scale and tight rope analogies require me to perform that tense, teetering dance throughout life. It means that something inevitably loses and I do too. Plus I have always been rather clumsy and picturing myself “balancing all life’s demands” looks something like an I Love Lucy episode where Lucy has gotten into another mess and she’s wailing on the floor in the middle of the chaos while the credits roll and the audience laughs.
Rather than a scale or tightrope state of constant conflict, it could be just a choice. Yes or No. Choosing one feeling in the moment over another so that I can fully enjoy that moment without the exhausting emotional clashing.
When I met Johnnathan one of the things that most fascinated me about him were his immovable principles. Things in life were either right or wrong, black or white, true or false. There were no relative truths, gray areas or vague generalities with him. Whether I disagreed with him or not, his stance was something I could be sure of. His feelings were firm, not teetering or swaying based on circumstances or the weak opinions of others. He wasn’t confused and he doesn’t feel guilty in his relaxation or irritated while he’s enjoying something. Some would say this is just bullheadedness (and my beloved does not suffer from a lack of this either). In fact, though, his sense of moral and immoral, pure and impure, life and death was a sweet comfort to me in a time when I felt blown about in a wind of uncertainty. His mind can be changed but it is from Yes to No, not from Yes to Maybe and he is rarely, if ever, conflicted. I love this about him.
A scripture that I've been meditating on for a few months now is Deuteronomy 30:19-20a. I am not an exegetical expert, nor do I claim to understand everything that I read in the Bible but this verse seems very clear to me. "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Therefore choose life that you and your children may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days..." It's amazing to me that God has to tell the children of Israel to choose life. Who would choose death? The alternate to life gets chosen when we forget, as we do too often, what or Who life is.
He is your life. How often do I forget this truth in the midst of all my internal conflict?
1 John 4:8 says God is love. Love is what brings vitality to my soul and soothes my shattered nerves as I remark at the restful faces of my sleeping children. Why do I let the lies of worry sneak in? In Matthew 11:28-29 Jesus says that we will find rest for our souls when we go to Him. The Lord encourages and even commands rest throughout the Bible. Why do I let the lies of guilt sneak in?
I can choose delight, peace, and gratitude instead of their counterparts that invade my psyche. I can choose to fully appreciate my work and then fully appreciate the time with my family. I can choose to stop teetering and instead, lean as far over as I can in the one area where I am, as long as the One I'm holding fast to is not a trembling, feeble tightrope, but an immovable bridge, a strong tower, my life and the length of my days.
Certainly this will be a moment-by-moment work-in-progress for me but I thought I'd share the lessons I'm learning: be bullheaded like Johnnathan. (I had to include that for his enjoyment.) Not really, rather, choose life.