Ebb Tides

How can one learn to live through the ebb tides of one’s existence? We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow and resist in terror its ebb…    ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
 
Last month I didn’t write, and this month I had to force myself to do it. Somehow, I feel like I should only write when things are going well and I can be upbeat and inspiring. When I’m feeling uncertain, anxious, sad… then I want to curl up in a corner and hide. Why is that?
 
On the surface, nothing particularly terrible is going on. In fact, I moved to a lovely new apartment that feels so much homier than the one I’ve left. But there are money worries, and getting used to orthodontia, and not knowing what to do with my future, and watching my daughter’s struggles to get established as an independent adult in this tricky economy. There are worries about the world, and animals, and looking old.
 
And, most of all, the unconscious worry that this ebb tide will never end. That I’ll feel this way forever. The water will never come back in.
 
But that’s not how the world works. I can look back on my life and see the ebb and flow of my circumstances. I see evidence of death and rebirth everywhere in nature. It’s only the ego that screams out: Something is wrong here! You shouldn’t be feeling like this! You’re supposed to be happy all the time!
 
I look around at friends and Facebook and feel embarrassed that my life seemingly isn’t Insta-worthy. How come that 50-something woman got divorced and instantly found a handsome, rich new husband to travel the world with? I haven’t had a date in five years! How come other people’s children leave college and walk straight into great-paying, fabulously interesting jobs?
 
I think when our lives were circumscribed by the village or neighborhood we lived in, there was a more realistic set of references for what was normal to expect. We knew that hard things happen, and people keep going. Or not much of anything happens, and people still keep on going. We don’t reach the summit and expect to stay there the rest of our lives. In order to reach a new summit, we have to go down the mountain and back up another one. We have to let the water go out so that it can come back in again.
 
I write this for myself as much as for anyone else who is reading. Ebb tides and long slogs across the plains are part of life too, just not the parts that people like to admit to or commemorate on social media. I want to stand up and be seen when my life is just blah and worrisome, rather than hiding away until I feel all bright and shiny again.