As I have continued to grow, I have learned how important it it to be patient, to scale new heights only when I'm prepared. I have also learned the importance of the ability to hang on tight and ride out the storm, no matter what lies in my path. Lo and behold, I find I'm now strong enough to white-knuckle my way through the maze. At least that's how I feel tonight. Tomorrow? Screw tomorrow. Faith and bullshit are working for now. I'm big enough to ride the course. Ticket, please.
One of the biggest adjustments in my new world is learning how to cope with the ebb and flow of everyday life. I could always depend on Roxanne to act as my emotional shock absorber, to keep my ego in check when things were going well, and to pick me up when the world would bite me in the ass. And just as important, she could read me well enough to know when to gently soften the blow and when to kick me squarely in the balls and tell me to quit acting like a baby and get with the program.
I miss that stabilizing influence. And I worry that I'm really suffering in the absence of such guidance. I have no calming influence. The results have sometimes been chaotic. It's all a festive jumble, complete with steamy calliope riffs and confetti flying past as Greg Lake beckons "Welcome back, my friends, to The Show That Never Ends!..." There's chaos aplenty, but it's oh so familiar.
"Won't you stay a while? Won't you please come in? Open the gate sir. Step right up madam! Get your tickets for Steven's own personal amusement park. Looky here, boys and girls, looky here kings and queens! Every fear! Every prayer! All the nightmares, hopes, dreams, lies, the frozen lake, the rain... Pills, piggies, pale colors, and all your favorite moody characters who pop in and out of LIFE 4.0...
See the terror in our hero's eyes as he rounds the curves, closer and closer to the edge, hanging on to the tinnest thread of sanity. Will he make it? Will he snuff it? Does he even care? Don't bother with reality; it's such an unforgiving concept. Just grab your hat and hang on. It's one thrill ride after another, no time for rest, being whipped around so quickly and so often that reality runs for cover. Truth you say? Why, that's just another point of view, one of many perceptions to be enjoyed in our Hall of Mirrors."
Where emotional issues are concerned, I tend to run to extremes. If things are rosy, the world is a happy joyous place, we all share in God's wonderful creation and wondrous things lie waiting at every turn. When times are hard, black clouds descend and threaten to smother the even the faintest glimpse of hope, and that's when I head for the edge.
Happily, I'm on a run of high notes right now. Last month my cardiologist told me my heart is actually improving, not just holding steady as it has done for the last few years. Twice in the past two weeks, I've walked to work. Petty as that may sound, it's a major accomplishment for me. I've had days when it's been a struggle to walk outside to get the mail. Now I wonder how much of that difficulty is mental. It seems that it's physically easier for me to do things now that I've decided that life is worth living after all.
I have so much to learn about the way my attitude impacts my abilities. It would be silly to think the emotional ups and down will ever stop. Life -- especially LIFE 4.0 -- does not work that way. Staying with the amusement park analogy, maybe I can borrow a ferris wheel trick I learned a long time ago. To avoid the constant feeling of disruption, focus on a distant point on the horizon. With such a fixed point of reference it's easier to to appreciate the tossing and turning for what it is -- a temporary disturbance, rather than an end in itself. The horizon brings stability. The tubulent emotions are still there, but they're now in check. To put it another way, out of chaos comes order. (NOTE: if you did not just respond "Oh, blow it out your ass, Howard," please enroll for a summer session in cool school.)
So the positive and negative live on, but they can't hide from me now. I have learned to recognize the euphoria that comes from meeting and surpassing goals. Likewise I know the depression that beckons me to indulge in the comfort and solace found by abandoning hope. Could it be that in my quest to keep myself on an even keel, I'm learning the warning signs of the two extremes which can sink me?
Today's lesson? The horizon is not only the place that houses the end of the world. It can have an infinite number of meanings, whatever we choose to visualize. Tonight, it's a place of opportunity. It's a place where I'm learning to stand on my own.
Steven K
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