BALANCE

I just wrote a freakishly long post about my search for balance. After reading and rereading it, I decided, nope, I was not about to publish that one.  I can't have the wrong eyes reading what they should not read and then holding me accountable for it.

This being the case, I still want to write about balance.  It seems like this is our constant struggle.  I either feel under challenged or over challenged.  I think back to this past winter.  I don't know how many times I talked to Clayton about me needing a purpose.  Now, I look back thinking, what would I give to have that simplicity back.

We always talk about balance in such a literal way, like it is always this teeter-totter type scale in our lives.

Which it is.  But it isn't at all.

To me, it is more like a spider web.
[Don't let this post fool you into thinking I have any sympathy for spiders or their beautiful webs...]

There is always a starting point in a spider web.  You can easily look at a web and see where it began.  Just like this, I feel like there are things that make me me and center me in my life.  Those are the things I hold closest.  It would be terribly difficult to strip me of these things: my love for family, my unique personality, and my desire to improve and be better.

But then just like a spider web, there are other parts to me.  I have hobbies, responsibilities, and interests.  I go on weaving my web outward, wanting to experience all life has to offer.

The difficult part comes when some flying baseball, broken branch, or other weighty object comes soaring innocently into the delicate spider web.  All the effort of weaving such a magnificent web is lost, because there is too much weight in one area.

"Hello work -- sure, you can have all of my attention! Tear right on through. Just let me know when you're done."

Imagine the little spider giving up after his first or her second web is destroyed.  Doing so would be disastrous.  So the little spider has to start again.  It will always start from the beginning.  What matters most.  Clarity.  Me.  Family.  Faith.  Purpose.  Life.

weave, weave, weave...

And again, I'll build something glorious.  For a short moment in time, I will be able to look around and see it all working together so nicely -- wrapped up and with a bow on top. But life is always changing.  Father in Heaven did not send us here to sit on our perfect webs.

But it's no problem because we are good at weaving and reweaving.

weave, weave, weave...

Hopefully someday, I will learn how to weave with some stronger material, but until then, I will just begin again, over and over trying to find and maintain some balance. 

Where I am finding balance:
I am done with my race recovery and am back to running. The weather has changed here.  It is much cooler, and it couldn't have come at a better time.  More about running later!