that place

so i just unloaded this on my spouse earlier today. it was a busy day yesterday, followed by a night where i just didn't want to be alone. but the universe lined up to make it so...everyone was busy. and that was fine. i mean, it wasn't...but i KNOW there are times in life when it is good to be quiet, to be alone, to spend time with yourself...i was just doing all i could in my power to not go along with that last night. i wasn't in the mood. didn't feel like cooperating. whatever. so i finally just read twilight...brain candy...emotional candy...and i think i have a cavity today. oh well...you buys your ticket, you takes your chances...

so last night's anxiety...it's about that place....i was thinking about marriage, i was thinking about faith, i was thinking about parenting, even. i came up with this analogy about working out...

there's that place between working out hard and working through pain to reach a new level of work out vs. working out until you're in pain and hurt yourself so badly you need surgery. one kind of pain you work through, the other you should listen to, right? i mean, from this angle it's clear...but sometimes when i work out, i'm not so sure which pain it is...

marriage...you make a vow, put on the rings, have the party and then life continues, right? and sometimes it's good and you feel good, keeping the vow isn't so hard. then maybe it's not good, but you keep the vow and eventually it's alright. but then there are those times that things are hard for awhile...don't get good...don't even get alright....how long's too long? how long's long enough? (these are rhetorical...each person has to decide i realize...)

faith...certainly there are times that faith requires obedience to the will of a higher power in times of uncertainty. but that high power also gave us the gift of free will. and my philosophy students and i were talking about plato's cave the other day...and even they realize that sometimes it's just easier to stay in the cave....but there's that whole free will thing...

parenting...my husband says i like for everyone to feel good about what they're doing. he says sometimes the kids need the cold, hard truth. (which he seems uniquely able to give them, fortunately or unfortunately)

and all of this has landed on opposite ends of the same general continuum for me lately. (oh, i forgot aging, but that just has to do with realizing i'm getting older...not much of a continuum there. well, there's a continuum, but it's going in just one direction, you know? bahaha) anyway...all this continuum stuff leads me to....

balance...sigh. and here i am, feeling so out of that. but it reminds me of the email i posted a few days back and how the writer talked about the continuum being "better" and "not so better" and how you don't know which way is up because of all the variables you can't account for. and THIS is exactly how i feel today.

whew, i feel better for getting that out...
peace