Close My Eyes and Leap

Mara here. 

The title of this piece comes from the song "Defying Gravity" that the character Elphaba sings in the musical Wicked: "It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap!"

And although there's no parallel between my life and Elphaba's fictional one in Wicked, right now I feel as if things are out of control.

Not crazy out of control. Just a little out of control. These past couple of weeks have felt very unpredictable. If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you'll know I'm not a fan of the unpredictable. I like my schedules and my routines. 
But I feel as if every day recently has brought something unexpected.

Each day, plans are getting shuffled around because something happened. The street in front of our house is getting repaved, so we can't park because it's blocked off. And, randomly, plans that were settled have had to be cancelled. In addition, things have broken. They've been fixed, but for more money than expected. Things have been lost. There have been disappointments and unusual conflicts.

Nothing catastrophic, but just annoying. Just inconvenient enough to throw me off.

And I know that's how life is. Life is unexpected.

Maybe it's not that things are actually more out of control than usual, but for whatever reason, I am feeling like it's harder for me to cope right now. 

I realized this morning that I had to let go of the stress that was being caused by my fear of something unexpected happening. I was trying at night to sleep while still in the grips of frustration from the previous day, and I was waking up already worried something unexpected was going to happen in the day ahead of me.

This, my friends, is a losing strategy. I think we all know that. But it had been building up slowly and I found myself in the middle of it before I even realized what was happening.

And then I heard the lyric from the Wicked song in my head. And I actually physically closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and saw myself taking a step forward in my mind into darkness—into the unknown. It wasn't even something I realized I was doing.

But I was letting go.

No matter how hard I try, I can't control how the day is going to unfold. And waking up in a panic each morning, worried that things will not go the way I want them to isn't helping me.

So I have decided to just close my eyes and leap into each day. I am going to just let things happen and I am going to try and not tell myself things shouldn't be happening that way. And when feelings of stress well up inside me, I am going to try and remember that I decided to let go of those feelings. Those feelings don't belong to me anymore.

Because the reality is that so far nothing has happened that I, or we as a family, haven't been able to deal with. In fact, we've proven ourselves to be pretty resilient so far.

So I'm letting go. I'm going to close my eyes and leap forward—trusting my instincts and assuming things will work out.

And if they don't, well, I guess I'll have to find a different song to hear inside my head.

(PS: Last night after I'd written this, my husband came home after a long and stressful day of work and asked if I knew that the water was on in the front yard. It turned out that the water valve to our hose in the front yard was broken, so there was water running and we couldn't turn it off. And so, my husband, good guy that he is, ran over to home depot at 9 p.m. to get a new valve which he fortunately knew how to install. See? Just weird unexpected things. So I'm closing my eyes. I'm breathing. Tomorrow will be another day.)

I know everyone goes through periods where they feel more unsettled than others. I asked my mom what the Buddhist lesson is that tries to help people feel more calm and steady.

Toni here. I feel like writing a letter to my daughter, so here goes.

Dear Mara,

As you know, I usually loved being asked about Buddhism. The Buddha's teachings have been incredibly helpful to me for over 25 years now. Were I to answer your question, I'd launch into an explanation of his teachings on the inevitability of uncertainty and unpredictability, and how our desire to control what happens in our lives adds to our stress levels and keeps us from feeling calm and steady.

But I'm not going to launch into that that because your piece is so poignant and full of wisdom that all I'm going to do is close my eyes and leap with you. 

I love you very much,
Your mom