The Whole World Could Cave in

At my team tennis practice this week, about an hour in, our coach told us to warm up some serves.

“Aim for the pie,” she said, referring to the slice close to T of the service box.

After a few minutes, someone asked, “How many should we take?”

“End on a good one,” the coach said. “When you feel good about yourself.”

“Hmmm,” I responded. “I just had a good one. But I don’t know about the feeling good about myself!”

I brought a few balls back to the basket, and one of my teammates said, “You should! You’re a coach!”

Ha!

Just because I’m a coach doesn’t mean I feel good about myself.

I had to gently correct my colleague. “I help other people feel good about themselves,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I feel good about myself!”

We both laughed.

This weekend, I was missing my mom. I was feeling grey about the war in Ukraine. I was stressing about my workload and business travel coming up in the next month. We celebrated our friend’s 60th birthday and I feel old. We are probably ¾ of the way through COVID and I'm ¾ of the way through life.

I am a slug. I haven’t had the time to work out lately. I want to lose 15 pounds—the same 15 I’ve been wanting to lose for a decade. I’ve lost touch with some friends who are dear to me. Others have lost a family member in the last month or two and I can’t manage to get sympathy cards out.

Our basement is a catastrophe.

And, I went to a coach friend’s book launch party on Friday and while I’m immensely proud of her, it also reminded me that I have been wanting to write a book for 30 years.

Literally, 30 years.

A friend reminded me last week that climatologists are saying that Earth and the human species may not survive another 100 years. Our systems are crumbling. And darn it, many of them need to.

To top all of that off, while I was getting my nails done today, they had Benji on. When his mom and other puppy siblings were taken away and when he was forced outside in the pouring rain, I just about lost it. It reminded me of when I saw Bambi as a kid. Any movie with five letters that starts with B and ends with i is not good.

Sometimes, it’s just too much to take.

This makes me think of that Kelly Clarkson song:

He drowns in his dreams

An exquisite extreme I know

He's as damned as he seems

And more heaven than a heart could hold….

And if I could hold on

Through the tears and the laughter

Would it be beautiful

Or just a beautiful disaster

Let’s admit it: We’re as damned as it seems. There may not be a happy ending to this long, inhumane story.

But what do we do about this in the meantime?

Um...write blog pieces that depress everyone?

And, just keep going. Wake up every morning and face the new crazy day that we are all in.

Maybe name it? It becomes less scary that way. Once something is named, Jung said it starts to free itself. Name it, so these crazy limiting-belief, locked-up ideas can start to loosen up.

And remember, it’s not all dark. There’s a lot of light.

There’s more heaven here in this life than any of our hearts can hold.

I think life is a beautiful disaster.