Drier-Cycle.

There are times when everything seems to go wrong at once. When stresses approach a breaking point, when the crack of that breach seems to reverberate all through a mind. It is a point everyone reaches in life. We all handle it differently, as well. Some people cry. They stay home, buried under sheets and blankets and comforters and pillows and cry until life does not make sense. They continue to cry. It is a cycle. A spinning drier drum of despair. Eventually, the depression is only about being depressed and unable to pop the balloon of hopelessness. Some people eat. They eat because it is comforting, allowable. At least I’m not consuming alcohol at this rate. Some people do turn to alcohol. They nurse it, drink it, gobble it, savor and guzzle and shoot and sip and swallow it. They lust, crave, want, need, desire, and yearn for the nectar’s sweet escapism. This too is a cycle.
These cycles (there are many more) consume us in guilt. They cover us with the comforter of avoidance, and we are becoming more than adapt at slipping so easily beneath them, that like a comfortable friend whom we do not realize is essential until she is gone somewhere on vacation. It is not necessary to avoid problems. I think counselors and shrinks generally tell people to confront problems. But it is so easy to lay down. It is easy to not think about the problem. With avoidance, one can say, “I don’t understand,” “I don’t get it,” or any such variation of the same thing. In confrontation, one must be able to say, “Ah, I see where this is my fault.”
I personally do not like being at fault. But I often am. I find myself wondering about the whys and hows and often come to looking in a mirror. Not that I am to blame for someone dying, or someone quitting, or someone having a chemical imbalance, or someone not having a timeline for the project, or for conflicting schedules. I know I am not. But I can talk to someone more before they die. I could encourage better training at a job. I can offer suggestions for next year’s project. I could urge a visit to the doctor. I could offer a better schedule. I’m flexible. I don’t really think that is a problem though.
In a skidding car you turn into the skid to retake control. One must trust physics to accomplish what must be done. Number the mounting problems. Understand them. Begin with small, easy tasks and address them. Redress them. Take them to task for attempting to bring you down to the bottom, for offering the sweet avoidance in return for… What? In return for not sending them out of your head. But taken care of, they magically disappear, like the genie into his oil lamp when that last third wish has been uttered. Ah, magic.
I love magic. It makes me smile like a child. It makes me laugh, because everyone knows that the magician is also a comedian. Like God, sometimes.