Mid-Crumble

There's a point when sanity stops being easy. Done right everyone will be fooled. They won't see the unraveling, won't even guess. It won't make it any better. Ok, maybe slightly better. Nothing worse than seeing people see the unraveling. Trust me on that one. It'll change a friendship. They say it won't. But it will. It will. 

I structure my life a certain way. I haven't always but after teetering on a crumbling precipice a few years back, I don't have a choice. If I want to stay on this side of...well, if I want to stay on this side. Let's just go with that. 

My goal is always to 'win today'. Not next month or even next week. One day. Today. Truly, it's all that matters. And once I win today, I can move on to tomorrow. Winning isn't always easy. Even with the most rigorous vigilance, things happen. Elbows get hurt and jobs change. In an instant, two of the three things that ensure sanity can abruptly disappear. Winning, once maybe not easy but at least reasonably do-able, suddenly becomes a huge question mark. How do I navigate this new landscape? How do I adjust? 

Rise. Yes, rise. My other watch-word, catch-phrase. Ok, how do I rise? When I'm rising in a completely different place, I mean. When what used to cling to is gone? 

These are the anxieties that plague me. Buck up? Deal with it? Take a Xanax? Maybe hop back on the AEPs ("Anti-Everything Pills", aka Zoloft). I would like to say right now that there is nothing wrong with a bit of pharmaceutical intervention. Absolutely nothing wrong. For other people. People who are not me. I don't want the drugs. I want to live a life that doesn't require them. I did the drug thing for years and it's ok. They help, I guess, with the basic day-to-day stuff, but when the chips get down, way down (i.e. that critical moment upon the crumbling precipice), they don't necessarily do a damn thing. 

Here was my thought - if I could take care of the day-to-day by structuring my life differently and monitoring that structure with the vigilance of a hungry bird of prey, I'd be able to string a series of wins together. One today at a time, of course. I counted on certain things, created them, manufactured them, set them in place. I was good, the best I'd been in a long time. Calm. The only stress in my life came from a more than occasional case of the yips on my serve. 

Then in one moment that changed. Now weeks of struggle and fight later, the rabbit hole...it looks more and more enticing. I've been there. I remember well the absolute stillness, the peace. It's a place where there is no struggle, no fight, no fear. 

If I let myself go again, I may never come back out. And if I don't come back out, who will tell the stories I've been chosen to write? Out of millions of writers of the English language, they picked me. They entrusted me with their truth. I cannot let them down. 

So because of them, I look into the cool, calm, recesses of that beautiful darkness, and I say, 'No thank you. I have stories to write, voices I must answer to.' I wonder, though, what will happen when all the stories are told and the voices go silent? What will keep me here? 

Maybe they will continue to find me indefinitely. Maybe if I work on my craft, my story telling, more and more will come. Maybe the voices will never stop. Maybe the precipice will stay right where it is - mid crumble. Maybe I will rise. Maybe I will win. Maybe.