To struggle or not struggle.. that is the question

Sometime ago, I had a friend (who is still a friend by the way) but with whom I felt we were on separate wavelengths.  Inhabiting different planets, so to speak.  Speaking in tongues, and not each other's.  You get the gist.

The friendship had been grounded many years ago in having these few base blocks in common; both single parents of a very small child, geographically suitable to befriend each other (read: lived 5 minutes distance to each other), both female, and of similar age, but she being the more senior by five years to myself.

I might add I did not friend easily in those days.  Sure I was willing, even desperately so - but my life was a daily struggle, and which I can now see rendered me unattractive in the friendship stakes.  But I could not see it then.  In fact, I did not see much, beyond what was right in front of me, and then spent my time working out how to control it, to bend it into the life I thought I wanted, needed, and damn it, deserved to have.  And this took up so much of my time, my thought processes and my energy, that I had little to offer anyone else in the way of real and intimate friendship.

So that friend and I - and full kudos to her for persevering with the friendship over so many years when I would have been quite happy to let it go, but couldn't really afford to either - would talk on a semi regular basis.  I rarely instigated the contact.  It would come from her, perhaps once a month, or even once every three months, like a bolt out of the blue.  No reason whatsoever, except (I felt) to engage in what was always, for me anyway, a long and mostly torturous conversation, myself revealing all the difficulties in my life, and then listening to her quite effectively stating to me it was all my fault for trying to control my life.  And, she added (infuriatingly to me) if I could just LET GO, things would sort themselves out, they way they were meant to.

I mean, what fricken planet was she on???

I had decided, during these painful conversations where I could feel every fiber of my being stiffen into rigid denial and of course a quiet seething rage of "you haven't a clue because you don't live my life" that she was some sort of crackpot, and one with even odder ideas than most crackpots, and that she must be doing this to (a) flaunt her superior existence, or (b) sell me something like a self help course perhaps, or (c) she had no friends, and therefore put up with my sometimes open hostility to her ideas in the name of having a friend.  Which would have made her a saint, I might add.

It turned out that none of these scenarios in fact was true.  She used to say she would just "feel" something, that she needed to call me, and she would always honor her cosmic buzzings and pick up the phone and try and call me.  I say try, because I rarely answered the first time; in fact I was a master of putting off those conversations that I knew at best would be long, onerous, and eventually make me feel exceedingly angry and "judged".  I also always was left feeling that she knew a secret to life that I didn't; a secret that made her life smooth and tranquil and sunny and rainbowy (well she did live in Qld while I was enjoying assorted Melbourne seasons at that time); and I could literally feel her smiling down the telephone, while my teeth were similarly engaged but in a sort of gritted don't-say-something-I'll-regret kind of suppressed fury.  Calls that made me feel weary, and thankful to put the phone down at the end of them.

You are probably wondering by now why I would even engage in these conversations at all.  But in my total resistance to her ideas, yet they were also quite fantastical - that apparently one could live without angst, without constant pain and suffering, without fearing life would spiral out of control at any minute if I didn't grab it in a death grip, wrestle it to the ground, beat the living crap out of it and then bend it into my own style of resistance, at least for a little while, while I drew breath and faced the next battle.  Which came as surely as night followed day.

Our friendship and contact waxed and waned over the years.  And then one day, I did a two day course that she was pushing at me, and it was simply out of desperation, to avoid the constant what I felt was haranguing, and also perhaps a nano-nth of me secretly hoped I could learn something useful.  I can see no other reason for parting with nearly 300 hundred bucks, so that must have been it.

I can't say that course changed my life, or my way of thinking and operating.  But what it did was open up my eyes, albeit briefly (48 hours worth!) to the possibility that there was a different way of being.  A different beat to march to.  I peered ever so fleetingly into a world of happy smiling people, listened bemusedly and unbelievingly as they espoused the joys of love for your fellow man and cosmic enlightenment, of collective consciousness and changing the world... great words!  And then I disbelievingly slammed the door firmly shut on it, almost as quickly as I left the course venue on the second afternoon and rode my motorbike home on a balmy summer evening in Melbourne.  It's safe to say everything I had gleaned had departed my brain by the time I pulled into my driveway, 45 minutes later.

The course was, I thought, a good buy.  A goodbye to my 300 hard earned.

I then entered a phase of life which I would now characterise as the Supreme Years of Struggle.  Yes, sounds fanciful, sort of illustrious, but in truth, I look back and I wonder I survived those years, that I didn't simply have a brain embolism or a good old fashioned heart attack, and step out of the world then and there, with stresses firmly intact and accounted for.  Because that phase lasted a good seven years or so.  It was a desperate struggle, and about almost everything.  I was working myself into the ground to continually "better" myself; I had three houses that I couldn't afford to keep unless I ran flat out on that treadmill.  And I juggled money around the way a skilled juggler would do, with machetes and fire balls, ie with meticulous precision and care.  All this being imperative of course to retain the facade of how successful I was at this business called life, and more importantly, how far ahead I was from everybody I knew.  I can't say it was to keep ahead of my friends, because really I didn't have any.  Those I did have, I tolerated, didn't really know, and absolutely didn't respect their differences.  I know I was alone, a lot.  I was a single parent, focused on being the best one ever, controlling every aspect of that child's life, to the point where she had the smoothest ride through childhood any fledgling could have - and which did her no favours as she became older and her life became more difficult.  Yet still I was then prepared to fight her battles, on top of my own burgeoning ones, to maintain that control.

And I was sad, and most of the time.  Other people had fun.  Other people went places, laughed a lot, always seemed to have friends they could call up and do things with.  Other people didn't sit home alone on a Saturday night because nobody had thought to see what they were up to, or cared, or if they did consider me, didn't think I was worth a phone call.  That was my life.  Motherhood and work, and sitting in my very salubrious waterfront house, all by myself.  Crying at night, after my daughter had gone to bed.  Wondering why, when I'd had such a moldy unfair childhood, that I was still yet miserable and lonely as an adult.  But knowing, damn it, that I was at least RIGHT, that there was no God, because if there was, why would he allow me to suffer through life in this way, when clearly I had done nothing wrong but work my guts out and try and be amazing in the only way I knew how.

But that sense of being right (as always) gave me no comfort.

I wanted to change my life, and yet I was terrified.  Most of us are.  Change is a fearsome beast, and generally only indulged in when there is no longer a choice.  I had reached that point.  As Red says in the Shawshank Redemption, a favourite movie of mine, "Get busy living - or get busy dying."  I was occupied with dying a lonely and unlived life, probably by myself, my body eaten by Alsatians long before they find me.  Okay, that's a bit over the top. But I also carried a lot of weight in those days too, because I was literally eating and drinking myself to death.  The Alsatians would have had an unmoving feast.

I had people who had over the years, suggested I could make whatever changes I wanted.. but I shot that idea down as impossible.  How could I, I argued stridently, listing all the reasons I couldn't alter my unsatisfying existence, and I clung to that righteousness like the martyr I undoubtedly was.  It was okay for everyone else to just have the right to be happy - but I was deadly serious in working hard at ensuring I'd never reach that state.  I was going to be the richest single parent in the graveyard, even if nobody came to my funeral. I'd show everyone.

Change simply occurred when my existence was no longer tolerable.  Thankfully I had finally reached that nadir, and had cried enough nights in my lonely lounge room in front of the heater, to realise that whatever I did, nothing was ever going to be as bad, going forward.

Under a lot of inner resistance and turmoil to the idea, my brain filled with "You can't do that!"  "You'll FAIL."  "You have too many responsibilities.  You can't just GO," etc etc etc - I plowed resolutely forward, terrified out of my wits, and made a plan on paper, and then followed it to the nth degree.  Because control freaks like I are also perfectionists; it's how we roll...

And I told nobody what I was plotting, and planning, partly because the devil on my shoulder was constantly whispering to me that I'd never do it, I was kidding myself, I'd tried before and failed, I'd be nailed back in my box again come January, you'll see..and then look like an idiot for even telling anyone my ludicrous (dream) of a different life.   But it was partly because I knew that other people's negativity on the subject (because as the all-knowing person I was, I just KNEW they would be negative) would derail my very frail attempts to bring about the change I needed.  So I told no one; and the first inkling most of them had about what I was doing was a going away party I threw, a week before my departure.  This party was, I might add, a half hearted attempt to prove to myself that nobody liked me, and nobody would come anyway, so I could leave, smug in the realisation that I had been right all along...

But of course, with Universal sense of humor, the party was a raging success, with so many people attending that it made me question what the hell I was doing in leaving.  If I had this many friends, where on earth were they during those long, long, lonely nights of misery I'd endured for so many years?  Perhaps, the Universe whispered in my ear, the party was one of the few positive events I had invited them to.  Perhaps the change was such a positive one, because it brought out the best in everybody around me, including myself.  Perhaps I was excited and positive about the change I was making, and those feelings are always infectious.  Think about that one, the Universe said smugly, as it unscrewed the cap off another Corona and inserted its wedge of lime in there.  And I did.  But nothing on earth was going to stop me achieving my "goal" of happiness, up there in the sun, in that house I'd paid off for years, my fingers bleeding on the keyboard late into the night to clock up enough words to pay for it all.  It was my right, my reward.

So, off I went, taking an enormous truckload of expensive furniture, an alcoholic on/off partner who had been part of my living hell for the previous four years, and my reluctant daughter, who despised said alcoholic on/off partner with every fiber of her being, but who wanted to be with her mum regardless.  And leaving behind a furious father of reluctant daughter, an amazing house I knew I would never have the likes of again (because I knew everything, I told you that earlier) and an assortment of friends I was now somewhat confused about, but ready to not dwell on, as now being firmly in my PAST.

Roll forward in time about a year...

... and the dream house I'd envisaged retiring into was gone, departed, fire-saled at a loss of almost a round $100k which I couldn't afford to lose apparently, in a sanity-saving desperate flight to escape the neighbours from hell who had infiltrated my world two weeks into the dream, a dream that had been non-stop rain and floods since I had arrived, by the way.  The partner had also vanished at around the same time; he too was sick of my struggles, as well as his own.  The daughter had now been in three different secondary schools, and was living her own tearful hell.  And I had attempted mightily to control the neighbour situation, the partner situation (including his drinking and womanising),  the daughter situation, the flood situation, and all without success.  Therefore it was pretty clear to me that NOTHING had changed; and this almighty move I had instigated, and at such financial cost, was change only of a geographical nature.  Noosa was meant to save my miserable arse - and that had failed too.  I was in control of nothing.  Life had gotten even worse, and I had believed that had been the only impossible outcome.  Yet here it was.   Jesus wept.

But a couple of things happened in those dying desperate days in that little house of hell.  One was the kindly common sense empathy of a local elderly real estate agent who was at the time trying (unsuccessfully of course) to sell the house on the other side of the neighbours-from-hell house.  At this time, every house in the immediate vicinity was for sale, including mine.   He was the only one who imparted the wisdom to me that it was okay to lose lots of money to save my life, and that I had to have faith it would turn around and come back to me at some point in the future.  This advice, given freely, and he not being my selling agent, and therefore an uninterested party, planted a seed.  And not long on the back of this, a lady walked into my garage with her small son, as I was having my garage sale on yet another rainy dark afternoon, as I was giving away gratis many of my worldly belongings I had bled to buy.  And before she took a single item or even looked at them, she gave me an enormous unsolicited hug, literally folding me into her softness and empathy.  I think I cried; I'm not sure.  I'm crying now a little, remembering that moment.  That hug was an embrace of goodness, of wonders to come, of letting go of the pain and allowing life to finally, finally FLOW.  Here I was, giving away for free all my expensive baggage, losing most of my money by selling my house - and now doing it willingly, even eagerly.  And now here comes an angel, sent from some (good) place, holding me on that darkest of days, clearly following her own cosmic direction - and all I could do was sink into her loving embrace, feel her energy, the positive vibrations emanating from her like a force field that I was now safely contained within - and then move on, finally, thankfully, to a new way of being...

I am not saying that these two events changed my whole way of being - that was, and always will be, a solid work in progress. But it was the first instance of letting go, surrendering, not resisting what is... because no matter how much I couldn't bear to entertain the idea of losing nearly $100,000 because of some feral neighbours behaviour which rendered my house unliveable, yet it was that first major shift in my own consciousness that allowed me to let it occur, and believing that whatever I was losing was not needed anyway, and if it was, well the same forces that were now taking away from me would maybe return it at some time unknown, if it was required.  And it was the same with all those things I gave away.  The angel lady said to me I was doing good, and it would return to me.  (Incidentally she took next to nothing from my garage that day, just one little ornament, and I think  her little boy picked up a small toy as well, bless his gorgeous sunny soul).

I have since of course, as people who know me, given away truckloads of belongings; I acquire them, often for free, and just as easily, they pass on to the next person who needs them in their own time.  Some have a big monetary value, and some do not.  Those values no longer matter, it's the joy in being able to enable the flow, and the happiness it brings to all, including myself.  My bank balance doesn't seem to change, but my good feelings go through the roof!  I know which I prefer...

So... to struggle or not to struggle - against what is, against life and what it throws at us all - against wishing and wanting things to be different, for people to be different, for them to treat us better, or how we perceive we ought be treated in a fair world .. I say this.  The very act of letting go of the outcome of pretty much anything and everything, to surrendering my will to what will be, has removed the struggle in its entirety!  Because I now have nothing to struggle against; it is that simple.  There is no resistance.  (Resistance is futile, the aliens said - guess what, they were right!)

If you allow life to flow out the way it will, there is never any struggle.  It does not mean that life will still not throw you lemons.  It does.  But you now recognise them as lemons, and choose not to invest any energy into trying to turn them into apples; you simply allow them to be lemons.  And if you enjoy the taste of lemon, you allow them into your life and savor them exactly as they are, and only for as long as you like that bittersweet taste. .. and if that tang is not to your fancy, you allow them to float downstream on the mighty river of life, and await with interest what is coming around the next bend.. because it could be strawberries (my favorite!)...

Last year, my friend (about whom this tale begun) and I had a big belly laugh together, the first of many.  Hers was about herself; and mine was about myself.  We roared with laughter about all the stuff we used to try and control - and how futile it had all been - and yet we laughed with tears pouring down our faces, because to us it was so hysterically funny.  And it could only now be so hilarious because we no longer cared about the outcome.   It wasn't a malicious laugh.  It was a grateful laughing session of how far we had come.  She of course had reached this understanding long before I had, and had tried to show me the way, over and over through the years - and I guess that's what you do, for people you love who are caught in that nightmare existence of struggle against self.  It can be frustrating, defeating... and in the end, all you can do is emphathise, and pray they will eventually find their way.  Because I did... and if I can, anybody can!

The fact that my pain train had finally pulled in and I had disembarked and swapped platforms to join the peace train was nothing sort of a miracle, so entrenched was I in my control at all costs mindset.  And given a childhood of such agonising powerlessness, it's not unfair to suggest my reasons for hanging onto control with a death grip as an adult were grounded in fear - but yet here I was, standing on the platform, watching that train chug away forever.  Because once you reach this understanding, that isn't a ride you will ever take again.  It's not to say your brain doesn't occasionally suggest you might want to reconsider - but that little voice in my head has no longer any voice in my consciousness these days, and it's just as it should be.  And my life has just surged ahead in leaps and bounds under this new joyous way of being, including the less I work and the more I give away, the more abundant my life seems to be, both financially and spiritually.  Go figure... but I don't even attempt to apply logic to anything like that; I stopped doing it around the time I waved that bastard train goodbye for good.

I cannot control, nor wish to, the number of amazing people that enter my life these days; and I do enjoy the many that choose to hang out with me, be it for a short time or forever.   I don't know how long that will be, and that's just as it is.  What I do know is I love my life, I love everyone in it, and I'm damn grateful to have reached into myself and pulled out what inherently was there all along, a free and gloriously smiling creature with the dancing soul of a child who thought she'd never have anything to smile about...

And to those who are still engaged in the struggle, take heart - where there's life, there's hope - and I'm praying for your peace train to come in soon.  I'll be waiting for you... Much love Xxxx

It's coming round again
Slowly creeping hand
Of time and its command
Soon enough it comes
And settles in its place
Its shadow in my face
Puts pressure in my day

This life well it's slipping right through my hands
These days turned out nothing like I had planned

It's coming round again
The slowly creeping hand
Of time and its command
It settles in its place
Its shadow in my face
Puts pressure in my day...

Soon enough it comes
Here it is again
Slowly creeping hand
Time and it's command
Soon enough it comes
Settles in its place
Its shadow in my face
Undignified and lame.....

This life well it's slipping right through my hands
These days turned out nothing like I had planned
Control well it's slipping right through my hands
These days turned out nothing like I had planned

Soon enough it comes
Soon enough it comes
To tie us down

It's coming round again
Slow, slowly creeping hand

This life well it's slipping right through my hand
These days turned out nothing like I had planned
Control well it's slipping right through my hand
These days turned out nothing like I had planned.... - Powderfinger "This Life"

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 © Carol Howden