Life in the Balance

Life in the balance. Let's park here for awhile, since it is such an up and down and often unbalanced ride, kind of like sitting on a see saw. And you know what happens when someone abruptly decides to get off. Down it crashes. So balance doesn't only depend on us, it depends on the others in our life as well. Ithink that's what happened last week; I ended up with a thud on my butt, in the mud.

But for the time being, I want to settle in on the fact that the only one we can control is ourselves. As much as my inner control freak (especially the control freak mother in me) would like to break loose here and micro manage my household's life, the truth of the matter is the only one I can control is myself. And inherent in that revelation is the realization that I have choices.

Every day,day in and day out. I have choices, to react or respond, to speak or to remain silent, you get the idea...but choices that allow me to control myself. And here's the great part! Ultimately our choices can affect other's choices as well, which is about as close as my inner control freak will get to micro manage.

I think this is especially true when our response is different, unusual, or a surprise.

Here's an example. I am a pretty "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of person. Howie loves routine. Balance (or seeking balance) in my life has allowed the light bulb of revelation to go on in my head that routine helps to eliminate chaos, which, after all, is what I would love. So we were talking about what we each imagined a great marriage would look like and were taking turns making statements, and I made a statement about craving routines. The poor guy almost fell off his chair. It took him about five minutes to recover until we could go on to the next one. But it was true. And he listened, and he heard. Good stuff.

So balance looks like saying "no," putting people first, letting the dust bunnies collect in the corners, not flipping out when someone tracks in dirty, snowy gunk all over the white tile floor (what was I thinking putting white tile on the floor in the first place? I choose to own that choice!) and including as much margin as you need. Oh, and getting that darn edge out of my voice...more margin and lots of prayer will help that!

And Matt also seemed to have some revelations of his own. I listened, encouraged and affirmed. It is the first time we have really spoken with any depth in the last week. Silence on my part helped a great deal (a choice). I have a tendency to react at the extremes; especially with him. If he is doing great, I am ecstatic; not so well, I'm in the dumps. What has changed I think is a decision to also be more balanced in my relationship, responses and interactions with him.

So instead of living on the edge, I am trying to stay in the middle.

Peace.