Like everyone else, I have a lot of plates spinning. The work plate, the parenting plate, the taking care of yourself plate, the diet plate, the animal plate, the friend plate, the writing plate, the relationship plate, the sobriety plate. This week I hit critical mass in just about every single area. And all the plates came crashing to the ground. I was no longer able to keep them all spinning.
After days of being agitated and calling me obsessively, my son went AWOL from treatment and ran away to Riverside. We didn’t know where he was for hours. When he finally did make contact, he was with some man in his car. I was a wreck. The police finally got him and “rescued” him. The treatment center said that he was a flight risk so he needed to be picked up. In Redlands. On Tuesday night. In the rain. So my 6+ hour drive began to retrieve my son from “treatment” that really felt more like not-treatment.
I haven’t been able to work because I am in constant motion. I haven’t called anyone because I don’t even know where to start and I am too tired to talk about it. I haven’t written because I just didn’t want to own or face this whole ordeal. I have barely been eating because I am just not hungry. And my relationship hit a wall because of my son and all his issues...again.
On a positive note, I have made it to the gym, mostly because lifting really heavy shit helps. I have stayed sober because getting drunk would solve nothing and be a horrible example to my kids who are both struggling right now.
I spent all day yesterday running around trying to get him admitted back in school. Which was harder than I thought it would be. He will go to a new school but not until Monday so I now have to navigated him home and demanding things for five days. I am going to attempt to make him help me around the house. I just made myself laugh out loud with that thought.
I feel trapped. I have a cold and sore throat that will not go away. My sleep is interrupted and in bursts. I do not feel well. And I have so much to do around my house because I have to accommodate my son who I was not planning on living with anymore. Again.
My relationship is foundering for a lot of reasons. It would be easy to say it is because of my son. And that would be partly true. He is a lot to handle and completely understand why someone, not his mother, would balk at the idea of having to live with him. I mean, I do get that. But I need support, not another problem. And I am at the point now where I am just numb. Either show up and help me and be nice to me and this kid or don’t. I can really take it or leave it, not because I don’t love my partner but just because doing it alone is easier than fighting with someone else about it. Alone I can do. Partnered and fighting, I can’t. I just don’t have the bandwidth.
I think I have also felt like I shouldn’t be coaching because I mean, my own life is kind of a mess. Taking advice from someone whose life is falling apart is not really a good practice. So I have felt just a little hypocritical. But coaching isn’t advice giving. I am not coaching because I have some crystal ball and can see the future of others and can hand them truth. Coaching is about showing up and walking a person’s path with them, helping them make their own decisions, by being a good sounding board and thinking partner. That I can still do. Just as soon as I get my own house in order. And I have decided that day is today.
Life is messy. And we, ok I will just say I, I make it messier. But always on the way to better organized. Always. My life has been one falling apart after another. I never knew that the falling apart was so my life could be rearranged. Some things have to go, some things have to change. Some things have to be different in order for anything else to be different.
I love my son. I love my daughter. They both need me acutely right now. I need to work. I need to support us. That is my focus. Well, that and staying sober. Which thankfully, after all this time, isn’t an issue. I know what to do. I know where to go and who to call. I have a lot of practice staying sober one day after the next. And I am so grateful for that in times like these.
I love my partner too. But I do not have the energy to fight about it all right now. He is a grown up and I have to trust that if this is meant to be, we will find a way. And if it isn’t, then there is nothing I can do to make it work.
I am tired. Like really, really, bone weary kind of tired. But the day still dawns and beckons me onward. Onward to what, I am not sure. That is where faith comes in. If I do the next indicated thing, it will all work out. The kids. The boyfriend. The job. The health stuff. My friends will understand. And I will be ok. I will likely be better than ok because every time this has happened in the past, I have grown exponentially and for my own higher good.
Evolution is painful. And I guess there are a lot of shattered plates that litter the ground of progress. I have come to believe that what happens is that any particular plate that is spinning falls because you need a different sized plate. Perhaps smaller, perhaps larger, the plate you are spinning for whatever reason ends up being insufficient to accommodate the load it needs to carry. And so it crashes to the ground in what seems like a fucking disaster and mess, because it is. But really the larger picture is that growth is occurring right there among the ceramic shards. Your life is getting bigger or smaller or different and you are right there in the thick of it. And that is the best news ever.
It seems that the more life I live, the more I learn that it isn’t about outcomes. It isn’t about getting the guy, or the job, or the house or the kids. It is about who you are in your pursuit of all those things. How do we show up for this messy, complicated life of spinning plates?
Lately, I have been superhero like. And I am superhero tired right now. And that is all good. It is how it should be. I am tired because my life is changing. Lots of plates in different degrees of spin, it is hard work picking up the pieces of all the plates you have dropped and finding new plates and getting those fuckers going again. Hard. Fucking. Work.
But it is life. At least mine. And I have this amazing faith that everything that has ever happened to me, has and did happen for me. And this too shall pass. And it will all work out. And the plates will spin again until the next time it is time for them to crash. And I will clean that up, like I always do and I will move forward. One day at a time. Trusting that all that happens is meant to wake me up and teach me something. And I have learned that sometimes I will love the lesson, hate the teacher and other times I will love the teacher and hate the lesson. Regardless, I am here. Living, loving and learning. Always doing my best even when I am allowing all the plates to smash into the ground. Sometimes the only thing left to do is just let go. Or take a nap. Let go or take a nap...they might be the same thing in my world.
I am tired. I do not see how this all works out. But I trust that life is supposed to be filled with plates spinning and falling and breaking and being replaced. Everything is as it should be...again, still.