I’m starting to lift out of this grey place I’ve been in now for almost three months. I know this because a few days ago I found utter joy in teaching Addie to tolerate me balancing food on her head. She is not a dog with a huge sense of humor, and for 20 minutes or so, I later realized, the sum total of my worries centered around not blowing up the dog’s brain while finding, for purposes of gradual increments to my holy grail of either a stack of pancakes or a sunny-side-up fried egg, something I could stick to my dog’s head that she wouldn’t object to overly much. An ancient slice of diet American cheese, found while rummaging through my fridge, did the trick.
Acceptance is not something I have an easy time with. I’m more a bailer by nature, trying my best to plug leaks in sinking ships while insisting the boat must get to shore. Tranquility is not one of my virtues. Acceptance, though, I am starting to grow, and while I’ve killed off a million seedlings, I am finding, as I get older, that a few stalwart sprouts are taking hold.
I think it started with the graduated lenses. Better, I thought, than bifocals. But not, it turns out, for picking up poop in the dog yard. I can’t see a damn thing for a radius of about two feet around me; the reading part of the glasses don’t care what lies below, nor what I’m about to step in. Younger Me might have gone back, tried a different prescription, insisted I not have to live with the constant threat of that annoyance. Older Me started watching where she walks. Hmm. Oddly easier.
I had tea with a friend the other day, who asked me how it was going with the departure of New Ex. I explained my frustration at his utter lack of communication, awareness, intent or consideration. I’ve worked so hard, I said, to understand something that really doesn’t actually exist. Nothing I thought was true because it was never that complicated – there never was an “it.” There really is no there there.
Well, she said, that’s so… anticlimactic.
Acceptance. Though I have a relatively even keel in so many situations, for the hardest stuff it is not my go-to. Too many years of bailing can leave you unaware that you’ve run aground and it’s time to get out of the boat. And it’s no fun to realize you could have swum to shore the whole time.
To be honest, it still looks pretty deep from where I’m sitting. Necessary change and necessary losses do not come easy, and I’m not even halfway through this time of boys leaving, and of learning to live in this shifting world making plans only for me, shopping only for me, being home in time for no one in particular. But like Addie, though neither one of us can say it’s #1 on our Things We Enjoy list, I’m starting to accrue small bits that stick to my head with a minimum of discomfort. It’s a start.