So it is with my life sometimes. There is a decline in my emotional state followed or preceded by an emotional high – a forward motion. I often experience a seesaw effect.
There are many positive times, when the river is flowing, when it is present, when all is right with the world. The sun is shining – even in the winter, and the birds are singing cheerful songs outside my window as I snuggle up to the warmth inside.
And then there is the season of the ebb, the decline, the absence, when hope seems to have flowed away with the tide. At these times all I am aware of, all I am conscious of is the uncomfortable rocks, stones and pebbles at the bottom of the riverbed that I feel on the soles of my bare feet.
It is tempting to remember the ebbs in my life more than the flow as when I am in the drought it seems more pronounced. When I am visited by the reality of a lack in my life I stop and think. Sadness often accompanies these thoughts as my heart becomes thirsty for whatever it is I am missing at the time. This is usually the company of a particular person. A person who no longer features in my life in the way I wish they did. At times like this I either go into myself or reach out to friends.
I fight against my own internal tide. It is often hard to make myself reach out when I feel vulnerable, but I am learning to do so. It has proved to be better for me to talk to someone when I feel low. Failing communicating my feelings to a friend, sometimes accompanied by tears and halting sentences, I will find another activity to take my mind of the subject. I know that dwelling on that dry area, that past area, of my life will not bring forth fruit for me in my present presence so I make a resolution:
right now I grasp the weakness in me and send it out to sea.
If I stay with my sad memories I am allowing the matters that I am pondering to become a major part of my internal life. By constantly including the sadness in my thoughts I am giving it the ability to change me. It’s never easy, but it does get less painful with time. Even where I am now, how I feel today, I never thought that I’d reach this position when I first stood in the dry riverbed with only my tears for company. I know I still have a long way to go, but I feel I am moving in the right direction. A positive healthy destination for me.
When my life has swung towards the ebbing times I have reached back into my memory for an occasion when I felt presence not absence. A time when I was conscious of happiness in the ordinary things of everyday life. I reach into my immense sea of happy memories and reflect the blissful moments that I have experienced …and there are so many.
I have a tendency to forget this fact or not want to remember it when I am clouded with sadness. But it is usual that by the time I have revisited and enjoyed these events, the experience that seemed like a dry riverbed will have passed away.
And I will again be present in the bountiful flow of my life.
I will be the river that reshapes my own landscape.
A past relationship is like a painting. It is fixed, forever - in the past. There is no movement in it, no future. It is just a memory like the painting is merely paint on canvas holding the memory of a single moment in time. No feelings, no cares, no love, no future – no worries. The relationship is not alive. It is gone. It is past.
Like paintings you can still enjoy the beauty of that past time, but you cannot go back there. You can remember the joy, the fun, the happiness. They were all real and are part of your life. However, your greatest pleasure can be found in the present, your time is now. It is your responsibility to make a living art work from your life – for you to enjoy, right now.
I remember the last time I was in a pub and the staff moved between the tables like they were on roller-skates picking up the empty glasses and bottles. There is a system to their routine. They remove the finished product and you replace it with a new one, a fresh one. As I watched them weaving between the tables, making increasingly impossible loads of empties balanced on their free arm, I began to question whether they would reach their limit before they reached my table. The calculation went through my mind quickly. Then, suddenly I realised that they are on a different agenda to me. There was a moment when I saw them coming directly for me and I knew what they are going to do, so I reached out, but I was too late – the bottle has been whisked away.
'Hey,' I say indignantly, ‘I hadn’t finished that.’
The staff member donned their most scornful look as they turned back to me with my unfinished drink in their hand. They looked at me, then at the bottle. The bottle was turned slightly towards the fading light that came through the window behind me in the cosy alcove.
‘Oh,’ they said, and then a reluctant obligatory apology without any real meaning, ‘sorry, I thought it was finished.’ Then they tipped the bottle towards me and feeling embarrassed but determined to hold on to my position, I reach for the bottle. I no longer want the bottle as they put their finger in the neck of it but it's at this point I begin to feel that it’s the principle that matters.
‘Thank you,’ I say, while wondering why I am thanking them when I know that they have just done me a disservice. Nevertheless, I still feel as if I should not have let the bottle go.
I reclaim my drink and feel just how light it is. I’m not sure that there is even a full mouthful left in the bottle, but I know I was right to claim it. The drink was mine, I had not finished with it. I know that I’ll give it up when I am ready, and not before.
The people with me smile those knowing smiles and shake their heads at the staff member who has decided that they will wait for the bottle that I have reclaimed.
‘It’s ok,’ I say sheepishly, ‘I’ll just hang on to it …’
‘Are you sure?’ comes the sarcastic response, ‘I could just wait, as it’s nearly done anyway …’
Suddenly this has become about more than the dregs of liquid in the bottle.
This is unfinished business.
I am not ready to let go. My time for closure with my beverage has not arrived. But another person has decided that they have a prior claim on the drink and they, without consulting me, have decided that my business is in reality now finished.
I sat there wondering how to resolve this ordinary situation that had somehow become extraordinary and was the focus of not just my attention, but several people on my table and the adjoining tables.
Did someone else really have the right to decide that my short connection with this bottle was over? Surely it was only down to me.
The pressure was building. Light conversations began around me but my only focus was on the soiled bottle in my hand and the overbearing staff in front of me who was becoming uncomfortable with the load of collected empties that they had already gathered.
I asked myself '... at what point am I willing to let go of things in my life or would I always hang on to remnants of the past?'
I could not see myself as a rat in bags of rags that I refused to let go of so I sighed deeply and accepted the truth. I had a tendency to burrow in the past but I needed to face the present and the future. I accepted what they said. It is finished now anyway, I thought. I smiled reluctantly and handed the bottle back to the staff. I had not made the decision but that didn’t matter any more. Circumstances meant that closure came - although not on my timeline - there was no going back.
‘It’s ok,’ I said with a resigned acceptance, ‘yeah, you’re right – it’s finished.’
Anyone involved can call time on the business. When it’s over for them, it’s over.
I have broken bones in the past – in the pursuit of sporting activities. I had committed my all to the quest for the ultimate goal of achieving victory. I always did exceptionally well, I was proud then, and I remember the times with pleasure. The fractures that I received are now constant reminders to me of those times.
The bones that I broke were never as firm as before the incidents. I do not see the breaks now but I feel the effects of them occasionally. And then in my mind’s eye I look back at a time of intense pain and discomfort.
Those breaks may be invisible to the eye but they are there, below the surface. Too much stress on those parts of my body and I know about it all over again.
They are like the road surfaces in our towns. For months the small cracks in the road are invisible. Then pressure is added to the break. Water is one of the main culprits. When the water on the road becomes ice it expands and the stress on the fracture from the water below and the vehicles above cause the road to crumble and holes appear.
These visual fractures in our road surfaces are no longer rare occurrences, unfortunately.
I know that sometimes I cause my fractures to hurt because I am the culprit. I do things I know will exacerbate the pain, yet still I persist – and then suffer.
This is my personal pothole.
I know I must avoid causing the damage and then I will not have to repair the site repeatedly. The same goes for my heart. If I look after myself I will not have to fix the damage I expose myself to. There is always a cost associated with experiencing a pothole.
Some potholes can be avoided, others just have to be repaired.
I vow to care properly for all the potential and actual potholes in my life.
What is present in most human interactions? Some of the common occurrences are love, desire, fear, hatred, anger, need and competition.
Competition is there in the desire for improvement in comparison with others. Also present is the need for attention and affection which are usually learnt as a child – from an early age we hone the skills needed to seek and gain these things in our lives. Because people consistently have different points of view there is an ongoing battle for the resources - natural and manufactured - to do better than the next person in order to achieve each one’s personal aim. This means that there will always be conflict.
Is all of life destined to be a competition?
From the cradle to the grave people are competing for something. We live in a competitive world and what we have others want, so they compete for it. Our time, our affiliation, our intelligence; how we vote, study, worship can all become affairs for personal advancement.
American Senator Henry Clay wrote, “Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition”.
21st century television is awash with shows based on competition: who is fastest, who can last longest, and who has the most, who is biggest, who is smallest, and who can endure the most. It seems that for every human interest there is some contest for supremacy.
How then does humanity decide the differences of religious faith?
Is global terrorism the answer to the competitions of which religion is right, which faith follows the truth, what belief holds sway against the errors of the masses? Will this ultimate competition lead to the end of all contests as humanity destroys each other to prove that their own creed is the basis of light and truth?
How can we cease religious rivalry? Can we cease religious rivalry? Is there only one right way or are there many ways to illumination? Is the only way to answer this found in the annihilation of all opposition? Will there ever be one supreme religious conviction on this earth? Questions continue because the terror continues relentlessly in the name of devotion to one’s belief.
There is no dispute from me … terror in the name of faith is always shown as hostility and destruction, not a demonstration of holy persuasion and love. With religious terror there are no winners. Religious terror is destructive. That competition will never have a winner.
Reflection is a good thing. Looking back has its benefits, however, we must be careful of spending so much time looking backwards that we miss the good that is in our present and the openings to a better future. With our hearts and minds constantly cast over our shoulders we can stumble past a bright opportunity to happiness in our future.
