When Things Fall Apart

Finding a sense of calm and equanimity in the midst of the difficulties of life

None of us gets through this life unscathed. There will always be something that tests our ability to handle crisis and change. If we are lucky, it will be one thing at a time. But often, as is the case in my life right now, the universe isn’t interested in playing small. “Go big or go home” it seems to say as it hurls one fiery ball after another.

One of our best friends is in his final months of his battle with cancer. My sister-in-law is fighting breast cancer while she cares for my mother-in-law who has Alzheimer’s.

Our daughter, who is 25 weeks pregnant with her first child, is in the hospital trying to keep the baby in for as long as she can. She is on a roller-coaster that is taking her from crisis to stable and back again. We don’t know how long she will have to stay in the hospital and we feel certain we will be dealing with a preemie no matter what.

My mother is ill with pulmonary fibrosis and is not able to do the things she wants to be doing at this point in her life.

And, then, this morning, while I was on my deck watching the sunrise, a truck pulled into the pasture behind our property. Then another one. Then another one. And before I could turn around there were 7 or 8 work trucks on that property, which can only mean one thing. Someone is building a house on that lot.

This possibility sent my blood-pressure sky high. Our neighbor promised he would give us first right of refusal on that property if he ever decided to sell it. We did not want a house to go up behind us. We wanted to keep the view clear to the mountain.

Of all the worries we have right now, this one seems petty, at best, but it was this one that made me see how much I am resisting the reality of all these difficulties. It was this one that sent me over the edge and brought all the other difficulties to the surface. I don’t want any of this to be happening and I threw a fit.

We all do this. We want things to go our way. We don’t want the things we don’t want. We seem to be stuck in a holding pattern from our toddlerhood when we screamed for what we wanted and cried when we had to do something we…

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