Struggling with Balance

When I was still a very new blogger, I wrote posts that were full of emotional turmoil, loaded with great angst. Reading at The Swan's Heart is like riding along on the roller coaster ride of my emotional volatility. Later, there were great periods of upheaval, and again, I poured out my frustrations, fears, and struggles here.

In those early days, I wrote with huge passion and depth of feeling. I did not self-censor, and I did not filter the words that flowed from my fingertips. Over time, though, I have come to understand and believe that there is a limit -- an absolute and immovable limit -- to how much of that sort of self-absorbed obsessiveness can be absorbed. He got very tired of it eventually, and I began to pull in and filter what I offered of my internal dialog here -- or anywhere for that matter.

There has to be a balance in a relationship. If things are to go well, partners need to come to understand the needs and moods and ebbing and flowing of the other. I know that ... and still I struggle to find the balance. We have so many challenges; so many stressors; so many demands on our time and energy; so many changes that we are working to accommodate:

His father -- in his 90's and still plugging along, but encountering more and more physical and mental hurdles as time passes.

T's mother -- improving; regaining capacity with each day, but still far from where she was before the strokes in August.

Both Master and T -- still learning their way along the post-surgical recovery path. So much has changed forever in terms of the place of food and eating in our lives. We are coming into the holidays, and there WILL be meals to be eaten in the company of "normal" people (family and friends). There have been huge health benefits in these 8 months, but there have been enormous changes and demands to get us to this place.

Work -- Master's agency continues to struggle in the economic downturn that has dramaticlly reduced the level of charitable giving everywhere. The needs, however, have not diminished. In fact, with the reductions in funding, the needs grow ever more critical. We were at our city council late last Wednesday evening, engaged in a pitched political battle, and we'll be at it again this week, on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday. We may win or we may lose, but we will fight the fight.

He's so often frustrated. He is so often scared. He is so often anxious. He is so often preoccupied, tired, weary, desperate, unsure.

I am so often frustrated. I am so often scared. I am so often anxious. I am so often preoccupied, tired, weary, desperate, unsure.

He has his longings. I have mine.

We are into our 10th year together; approaching the 8th anniversary of living with one another fulltime. Some of what we struggled with in the beginning has been washed away in the commonplace pattern of our lives. Some of what we struggle with today, we never would have imagined in those early beginning days. Somehow, still, we mostly find our balance.

swan