WHAT COMES
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
What comes next?
What happens now?
More rest, more holidays – or back to work, back to school, back to the creative grind, back to the vacation, or back to sleep?
Rest, R&R, and holiday times are essential parts of balance – if you have time, if you have the budget, and if you have the resources of family/friends to share them.
For many of us, we get that; we take some time, stretch out our time to recoup our energy level, get away from it all for a few days or longer, vacation and recreation, and when we do, we can easily relate to others who are doing the same thing.
But what about the rest?
What comes next for them?
What happens now for those without companions, lovers, family, workmates, roommates – or, better said, for everyone who doesn’t fit some ‘formula view’ of how we should live out our lives?
What do we know about those who cannot rest because they are one day away from starvation, bombings, or one of life’s many crushing defeats?
We can empathize with everyone not as fortunate as we are, but should we do that to the point that we lose the joy in our celebrations and relaxation? That’s a difficult question – because we need this rest; we need space from the pressures of life and to meet the needs of others.
Or do we?
Is the value of our life and time a measure of how we kept ourselves happy or of how we contributed to others being happy? When we bandy about terms like life-work balance, our views tend to be narrow and self-centred. That might be more natural or more important to our successful survival than we give credit for in our balance of needing to survive and wanting to thrive.
Is this something we hold in reserve so we can ration it out later, or do we use it all, or use it as a foundational element in our everyday mantra because it cannot be saved in a bank or given to others?
What comes next?
What happens now?
What comes to mind is the realization that we might all fit someone’s described combo of feathers and benefits, we might fit into someone’s dia-drama or melodrama checklist, or we might fit some description or diagnosis in the textbook or manual.
When all is said and done, we are done.
This finality of life and choices becomes clearest for me on days when the world is not hyped or fearful, but at times when we rest in the calm at the epicentre of our private hurricane – then we know what we long for, what needs aren’t being me. That’s both a stark and lonely realization. In the privacy of our own minds, we know what we wish for, we know what we’ve missed, and we recognize what cannot be recovered or restored.
That doesn’t prevent us from trying …
What comes next for you?
What happens now?