Sometimes you just need a little perspective...

Cliche as that is.

It's been another one of those days weeks months.  The ones where most nights the only way to stop your panic attack is to force yourself to fall asleep.  Where you have a constant headache because all your anxiety manifests itself in relentless tension in your shoulders and neck.

Where the careful balance of your life, perpetually held on the edge of the abyss, finally seems to be tipping past the event horizon of your control into full chaos.

When I first started dancing I remember a conversation I had with Chelsea.  I told her that sometimes when I'm dancing it's like my body gets over excited and rejects my supervision.  My spins start going crazy, my feet start flying all over the place, and I simply cannot keep my balance.  It's like I'm trying to go everywhere at once, and so, of course, I maladroitly go nowhere at all.  Chelsea advised me that the next time I noticed this happening I should stop dancing for just a moment and recenter myself.  Pull myself inward, either mentally or literally, and focus on my core.  Be still a moment.  Off the top of my head, I would be willing to claim that as the most helpful advice I ever received about dancing.  It certainly has stuck with me and proved its usefulness and truth repeatedly.

But tonight I realized that it is not just good dancing advice.

Today, even if just for this evening, I was able apply Chelsea's dancing advice to my life.  I was able to stop for a moment and recenter myself.  I was able to pull myself in and focus on my core.  I was able to be still.  It began with one of the most considerate and generous things anyone has ever done for me (the beauty of perspective is how something can be just a simple "nice thing" to one person, and yet mean the whole world to another).  I think one of the greatest things you can ever do for someone is find a way to make them feel sincerely and deeply cared about; that is what was done for me.  Then I came home, still thinking about this experience, hoping to have some time to myself to mull it over.  However, a friend needed to talk.  I am ashamed to admit that my first reaction was annoyance at the theft of my time.  But the annoyance faded as I listened to my friend tell me about some of the private trials she is struggling through.  We discussed the way people will sometimes, intentionally or otherwise, deny you the right to suffer--that is to say, they claim that your problems are not important enough to cause you real pain.  Certainly, I can look at my friend's life and be grateful that I did not have to live it.  And knowing that I would not trade my problems for hers helps me to feel better about mine.  But it doesn't mean that my problems are easy; it just means that they're mine.

So tonight I will go to bed centered.  The problems aren't gone and I'm still not sure that everything won't tip over the edge some time, but it won't be tonight.  I have pulled myself back into my core--I know that people care about me and I know that I am dealing with my own personal issues that fit me.  Tonight that seems to be significant.