Reaching up and falling down

Every day, I ride a unicycle on a wooden board.  That wooden board is balancing on a ball.  That ball is balancing on a bigger ball, and that one balancing on one even bigger.  I am destined to fail, but I am trying so hard to keep it all upright, because the moment it all comes crashing down, I know somebody will end up crying.

Today, I fell.

Sure, I felt the wobble, I knew I had to shift my weight, but I tried to ignore it.

While I balanced on the 32 balls it takes to feed, clothe, diaper, clean up after, discipline, teach and monotonously entertain a toddler, I had rolled right past the big kid, not even able to see him from the height I was at.

But it was alright.  I knew he was down there, and I knew he was okay.  After all, he’s so big and independent now; he could pretty much take care of himself.   And he certainly didn’t need to play with his Mommy anymore.  He had moved on to more high-tech toys long ago.   And of course, there was Daddy, whom he seemed to prefer anyway.

So, I went on, adding another ball and another, until I was so high in the air trying to maintain it all, that I could no longer see the bottom.

But today, the big kid and I collided and the bottom rushed up to meet me at panicking speed.

I could see the tears, hear his words, but flailed helplessly, unable to say anything profound enough to help us emerge from the pile of balls we were now buried under.

For that tower I’d been balancing on so tediously may be in ruins, but the remnants of it were still there, keeping me fighting to find a way out of the rubble.   It was all there - the full time care of the second child, from time-consuming infant to the energetic toddler she’d become, the marriage imperfections, the year of battling Cancer that I could never get back, the mountain of debt, the uncertainty for the future, and every little worry and setback in between.

All of it, each distraction, each new responsibility, each trial had become one more thing to balance.  I climbed higher and higher, trying to get above it all, not realizing that the whole time, he was still reaching up.

So, today I found myself in that rubble, very much aware that even though all the problems were still there, I couldn’t balance them all, and now here they were, not only weighing down on me, but on my big kid as well.    I remembered, in an instant, how much I loved him, and knew I had to reach out, find his hand, and help him stand on solid ground again.

It took some time, but eventually, he was able to see through the clearing I’d made.   And as I moved that last piece of fallen debris, I began to see more clearly too.   For in that instant, with his forgiving arms wrapped around me, I realized that sometimes, falling is good.