Still Flying

This week boasted its fair share of good cheer, good food and good company — but it was another tough one, nevertheless, and it’s left me in tatters.  Remember the American flags that were raised after 9/11, then disrespectfully left hanging until their colors faded, their edges frayed, and time and weather wore them thin?  That’s me… only I’m flying over a combat zone.  I’ve got flak and shrapnel to contend with.  I’m shredded.  I’m burnt.  The winter wind’s ripping through holes in my heart, my confidence and my self-esteem.

If all that sounds like a complaint about hard times, it’s not.  Nobody’s got it easy these days.  Global economic crises don’t slip by anybody’s radar.  Neither do climate changes or war.  The general planetary circumstances are surely giving even the more enlightened among us cause to frown and reflect, whether or not they’re beyond worrying about petty problems and personal circumstances.

If  I’m still weeping and wailing, ranting, fuming and caviling about domestic policies and international affairs, fact is, I’m not fretting about the world the way I did even a month ago.  For the nonce, and till I’ve concrete reasons to alter my optimistic attitude, I’ve jumped on the Hope Bandwagon.  I’m on board with the “historic moment” scenario.  I think Pluto’s transit of Capricorn over the next 19 years means the regeneration and transformation of existing forms of government — a new world order, as it were.  True, Plutonian change does tend to manifest in an utter-destruction, complete-devastation kind of way.  I welcome it, nonetheless. 

I’m not feeling ragged and because the world’s going to hell in a hand-basket, I’m saying.  And while I am the sort who allows petty worries and personal circumstances to absorb an ego-centrically large part of my attention, it’s not the relative difficulty or ease of my circumstances I blame for my fried state of mind.  For emotionally intense, not-terribly evolved souls like me, tough goes with the territory.

But after 55 years of it, you’d think I’d have developed some techniques for handling it.  You’d think I’d notice when there were too many balls being thrown at me, and just flat refuse to juggle them all.  But, no.  I grope for the incoming orbs, pick up my tempo, and end up dropping the lot of them.  You’d think I’d have alarm bells hard-wired by now, to warn me when my circuits are getting overloaded.  But, no.  All I hear are shrieking loud cries of “Emergency!” from everyone around me, until anything anyone says sound like, “Emergency!” and the echoes keep me sleepless at night.  You’d think I’d recognize the symptoms by now, that the pattern would be familiar enough that I’d know when to stop trusting my instincts.  But, no.  I don’t stop responding in kind to the intensity around me until my perceptions are shot, my sense of proportion is gone.  I keep rushing in rashly, recklessly and, in the end, inappropriately to douse the flames, not realizing I’ve lost the ability to tell a real fire from an imaginary one.

It’s been a week like that.  But after 55 years of it, I have learned one thing.  I’ve learned to cop to it.  I don’t explain why, I don’t ask that others own up to their role in the fiasco, I don’t expect anyone to see my side of it.  I say I’m sorry.  I say it well.  I mean what I say.

I’ve got dear friends and loved ones scrabbling around on the battlefield right now, trying to get their bearings, crawl to safety, find what they need to survive.  Look up.  Take heart.  Tattered and torn, I’m still flying.