Still thinking about rhythm

It's funny, how things can go so well for weeks, how I can seem to have a handle on life, how it feels smooth, and like I'm finally making progress with stuff, and then in one week it can all fall apart. I talked about that in my last post.

However, I'm still thinking about rhythms and the effects of losing them.

It has taken me a sick day, a full evening, a full day, and most of another day of doing nothing to begin to feel like I'm recovered and can face other human beings again. Crazy... I was thinking tonight about those moments during years of synchronized swimming where I would lose count in the middle of a figure or a routine as I was learning it. You'd pretty much have to wait until the next sequence came before you could jump back into the flow of the routine. That's what this week has felt like - those moments when I lost the beat of the music, the rhythm, and had to stop entirely.

Maybe this has been a valuable lesson... I certainly will guard my time and space more carefully in upcoming days and weeks...

And with that, I'm going to do a bit of vegging before going to bed soon.

When the rhythm disappears...

You know, after months of realizing that I was feeling far less stressed and far more at peace because I'd managed to develop a bit of a rhythm to living out my life, it can all fall apart in an enormous hurry.

I was so stressed this week that I became ill, because I ignored tendencies about myself and overcommitted myself in a number of ways. Some examples?

I know that I need to watch the balance of relational input/output in my life. I have come to realize that the various relationships in my life affect me one of three ways. They are either draining, neutral, or lifegiving. I have to work to make sure the time spent in draining relationships doesn't outweigh the life-giving relationships. I did a terrible job at this this week.

I also know that I need to make sure that I get a decent amount of sleep or my outlook on life becomes fairly dramatically skewed. Far too many late nights in a row caught up with me and took their toll this week.

I know that in order to recharge my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual reserves, I need to spend time by myself - away from all other people. This week I was with people for almost every moment of every day, waking to sleeping, and it drained the very life out of me.

When the rhythm disappears, my body tolerates it for the first little while, sending me warning messages that in this case the busyness of my schedule forced me to ignore. When I ignored them for two long, and made a major decision that will introduce a great deal of new freedom to my life, but is also rife with a minefield of unexplored fears, my body shut down. It woke me in the middle of the night, sick to my stomach, denied me the sleep I so desperately needed, and forced me to spend a day flat on my back, doing absolutely nothing.

You'd almost think a rhythm of rest had been input into the very design of the world and humans, at creation or something!

Ruth Bell Graham

Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, died yesterday at the age of 87. To be honest, I've never been that interested in Billy, but I've been fascinated by Ruth since I was a little girl and my dad first read me some of her poetry.

Since then, I've read a few of her books, laughed at the descriptions of her feistyness in her son Franklin's autobiography, and purchased my own copy of her book of poetry, "Sitting by My Laughing Fire."

She was a very cool lady, I think. And now, heaven celebrates at this feisty addition!

I was flipping through her poetry tonight, and came across the following poem, untitled, as all of them in the book are, and paused, remembering why I love this book, these poems, and why I thought that Ruth was a very cool lady.

Not fears
I need deliverance from
today -
but nothingness;
inertia,
skies gray
and windless;
no sun,
no rain,
no stab of joy
or pain,
no strong regret,
no reaching after,
no tears,
no laughter,
no black despair,
no bliss.
Deliver me
today
...from this.

Not just angst

Seems my middle of the night "oh crap I'm an adult angst" wasn't the only thing keeping me awake. I've developed a stomach bug. I'm out of bed just long enough to email my office and tell them I'm not coming to work today. Then I'll either be found crashed on a couch or in bed for the next quite a few hours.

3am

I just thought I'd mention that it is 3 am, and underlying the excitement is apparently quite a bit of "oh crap I'm an adult!" angst which has prevented much sleep in the last three hours. I'm feeling a bit better than I was when I got out of bed 10 minutes ago, and yawning, so I think I'll head for the bathroom and then back to bed... later...