Help, I'm out of balance -- again!

Do you remember the myth of Sisyphus? Sisyphus was a dishonored king who, punished by the gods, would – day in and day out -- roll a huge boulder up a hill, never making it to the top, that elusive point of equilibrium.

Like the movie, "Groundhog Day," Sisyphus was forced to repeat the process, again and again, forever rolling the damnable boulder up, up, up the hill and, always, to no avail.

I´m a lot like Sisyphus, but, I have to admit, I don´t try as hard. There are days when I leave my personal boulder at the bottom of the hill and say something like, "What the heck!" That does not speak well of my character, but it is truth.

There are days when equilibrium is the furthest point on my radar screen. In fact, I can barely see it. I am weightless and free; there is no boulder; therefore, there is no balance. Yes, my continuous struggle is with that seven-letter word, b-a-l-a-n-c-e. They are not particularly big letters, yet that one word packs a wallop. It reverberates in my psyche; finding balance has been my Sisyphean task for many a decade. It is my boulder; it serves as the ungainly albatross around my neck.

You see, I have found great fun swaying high up in the air on one-half of the teeter-totter. My legs are dangling. I am literally uplifted so that the blue sky feels like it is there just for me. I feel I can snag a cloud and ruffle the leaves on the trees. It is all within my reach.

All that suspended height gives me a sense of well-being. I am puffed up with possibility. There is something to be said for reveling in mid-air with a full view of all before you. I am close to heaven and riding high … until there is the inevitable, surprising clunk coupled with my teeth making unexpected contact with my tongue.

Yes, those laws of physics are accurate: what goes up, must come down. And with my teeter-totter life, that is down, down, down – crushingly so.

I have recently had one of those weeks where, metaphorically speaking, I have ended up with a bloody tongue from falling hard and fast to the ground. My flight was terminated, and my landing abrupt. To say the very least, it hurt.

Everything that I was holding came crashing down with a thud, and so did my good humor. And, then, of course, I hate myself for being such an idiot. I know better; I even have an advanced degree, you´d think I could get this right and get in the groove, but, oh no-o-o-o-o, I am still learning this lesson.

In review, I look at my role models. With the exception of my grandmother, there were all pretty good at high-flying rides and noisy, clunky landings.

My grandmother, who was born in the late 1800´s, lived a life Confucius would have hailed as exemplar. She was a paragon of balance. (I do wonder, though, how she could have birthed such unbalanced children, but that´s another thought for another day.) She drank spring water before it was fashionable, took a daily walk as well as an afternoon rest. She ate one, yes, one, piece of fancy chocolate everyday. Her meals, hours and routines were part of her normal ebb and flow of life. And, I understand, that in her early adult years, she was a bit wild; that makes me happy for her, and probably explains a lot about her progeny. And, perhaps, that portends hope for my dotage that I, too, will find some modicum of balance -- along with a box of French chocolates.

Yet, as much as I say I want balance; it can seem so boring. It reminds me of a flat line on a medical device. "Sorry, Doctor, the patient has died." Do you know what I mean? Where is the fun, the excitement in just plodding along doing all the requisite daily drills? Flossing, meditating, journaling, stretching, exercising, bed before midnight, vitamins and more vitamins; not to mention green food, whole food, unprocessed food, the lists of good things to do are endless. The thought of keeping all of this – and more — in balance is exhausting.

And let us not forget the Atlas factor. Atlas was the mythological god relegated to carrying the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. Just the sheer mechanics of carrying all that extra weight has to make balance an impossibility. It´s a lose-lose situation equilibrium-wise.

The world is fast, fast, fast. Time has sped up, information flies, technology reinvents itself regularly. And I continue to be terribly balance-challenged.

I found some wisdom in this urban legend that is circulating the Internet. Here´s the tale:

A woman is in her yard and a well-fed, well-cared-for dog complete with tags approaches her. She pats the dog´s head; the dog follows her inside, walks down the hall and finds a corner, where the dog promptly takes a nap. After an hour or so, the dog wakes up, stretches and goes to the door waiting to be let out of the house. This event repeats itself for a few days. Growing more and more curious about this dog, the woman of the house decides to write a note that she attaches to the dog´s collar. The note reads, "Your dog comes to my house every afternoon to take a nap." The next day, the dog returns with a note attached to his collar. This note says, "This dog comes from a house with six children, two of whom are under three years of age. He is trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?"

This tickles me, but it is, also, a good example of how a dog -- and he has no degrees, mind you -- is smart enough to get the sleep he needs.

What is slowly surfacing in my psyche is that I need to understand who or what is on the other end of my teeter-totter. Really, who is holding the fort, so to speak, as I fly myself to the moon?

With much chagrin, I realize that I know who is there. I have been playing against myself – and against is the operative word -- hence, the resounding thuds and bloody mouths. I have been unconscious or, perhaps, I have neglected, ignored or denied those other parts of me that stay on the ground, holding the weight, so the other parts can fly. There has been the child vs. the adult, the personality self vs. the soul self and, of course, fear vs. faith. I really have been blind or dense, or both.

Yes, I like the flying, but, then, again, who doesn´t? And yes, I even like the hunkered down position; it feels safe and solid, and there is no worry about falling.

In retrospect, what I really like is the bouncing back and forth that allows both parts a chance for give and take. A mutual rhythm is established; this is fun, all parts of me get to play, and all parts get to fly. And the best part is that there are no crash landings, which I hate.

I, now, get it. I have forgotten that I am holding both positions, up and down. When I look at it that way, balance seems like a pretty good place to be.

copyright 2008 by Adele Ryan McDowell