Striking a Balance

It's true.  I didn't even come close to following through on my commitment to being a dedicated blogger.  The funny thing is, I don't even feel like a quitter.  Or a slacker.  I made the promise to myself, for a good reason, and then chose daily not to follow through.  On one hand, I think I'm just distracted.  My thoughts have been consumed with things I just didn't feel much like writing about.  Mostly with the DSM-IV - how to make a multi-axial diagnosis, what the five axes are, what the different decision trees are and then the disorders themselves, paired with case studies and charts.  Phew.  This will eventually get easier, but laying the groundwork for this knowledge has been hard work.  Scientific learning and rote memorization don't come as naturally to me as theories of communication and interpersonal dynamics.  I think I learn best in stories and there is less imagination involved in memorizing lists.  But I am fascinated by this stuff and committed to learning it because I want to be a good, wise, well-rounded and educated therapist.  So I've been consumed with creating notecards and pneumonic devices and with staring at lists and charts in hopes that the information is being seared onto my visual memory.  It's hard to sit down for some creative writing when my brain is repeating over and over the difference between agnosia, aphasia, apraxia...

I digress.  So yes, reading the DSM-IV for my psychopathology class takes a big chunk of my time these days.  But it's also the daily stuff of life that is being squeezed in.  It's the business of work and my landlord and my professor from a summer class who gave me an "F" in the course for 30 pages of "missing" papers which turned out to have been in his inbox the entire summer.  There's been a baby shower to host (yes, turns out I am that old), exercise to squeeze in, friends to catch up with and listen to and pray for.  I've got Bible studies to finish, holiday travel plans to get nailed down, laundry to sort and wash and fold, and feelings to wrestle with and analyze, over-analyze, and apparently become swept up in and paralyzed by.

So it seems I'm only doing okay in life at the moment.  I sometimes feel a little bit confused, a little bit lonely, left behind and tired in this stage of life.  I feel like I am waiting, waiting, always waiting.  Waiting too long, waiting not long enough.  But also in many ways it seems I am racing the clock.  Things are changing too fast and not fast enough and I'm struggling to discern when I should bend, when I should act, when I should hold back, and when I should let go. 

I'm trying to lean in to God, to invite and welcome His spirit to move into the deepest parts of the way I have gotten used to doing life.  I'm trying to break old habits and solidify some new ones.  I'm figuring out what it means and looks like to know myself more fully and to love and care for the good and not-so-good parts of the imperfect woman that I was created to be.  Mostly, it seems, I'm spending a lot of my energy working out what it looks like to soften my grip on my own life and to let it rest in the palm of God's hand.  My ability to just be, faithfully, patiently, is changing as I get older and am tempted to cling to the things I can control and run scared from the things I'm afraid I can't. 

Independence is sometimes just plain lonely when you are in your mid-twenties, but sometimes it's exciting, energizing, thrilling even.  It's a process to be celebrated, for sure, this business of growing up.  There are so many moments that are so full of joy, full of healing, full of good lessons, good food and good friends - just plain full.  They strike a balance with those other, harder things.   So much of the lessons to be learned are the good kind of hard; like budgeting, humility, forgiveness, discernment, open communication, broken hearts, and accepting the fact that I am not always right. 

So I'm working on striking a balance right now.  A balance between allowing myself to be caught up in some of this stuff even when it gets hard because I know that it is good, and letting go of some of the things that are weighing me down and getting in the way of my ability to just be.  It's tough, and I'm a worrier and an analyzer and, as Emily points out, a verbal processor.  But I think I'm getting closer in my effort to strike a balance, even if it feels scary.  Here's to hoping that I can find the patience, the endurance, the courage and the humility to continue asking and being asked the hard questions; and the willingness and diligence to commit the things weighing heavily on my heart and mind to the God who already knows about them and is working them all out in His perfect timing.