Balance

There are no even measures in this life.

Does it really matter? The birth order, marital status, social status, employment status... who won the lottery, who waits tables? What does it matter? We're all trying to keep our balance in a shifting world.

I try to balance my desire to be successful and competent with my urge to live simple and be reclusive. I try to balance my urge to write and my urge to read. :-) How do I reconcile my desire to go, with the sure knowledge of how good I have it here? What disparate desires are you trying balance? I think we all have these inner battles.

I sit with my Mom in her care home, and I see the uneven measure of her present life. She is at once more herself than ever, unencumbered by social mores and polite filters, and yet she is slipping away from herself because those niceties and filters were always such an important part of her being. The proper woman she once was would be mortified by her present indignities, but dementia kindly lets her forget what would once have shamed her forever. There is no even measure to these trade-offs.

We don't always get what we deserve, and we don't always deserve what we get. If we are lucky and if we are wise, we can keep our balance on those shifting sands and learn to see the joy in what we have.