This month of June in our house is a breath-holding time, suspended in waiting.
At the end of May, we attended our younger son’s graduation from college. He followed us home in his car, ready and eager to go on with his life. Over the next three weeks, he arranged interviews by phone and Skype and in person, and this past Monday, landed a great job in his field, in the city he loves. The search for a place to live takes up most of his time now, and it’s all going on in silence, online, which only adds to the hushed sense of waiting around here.
Meanwhile, it’s summer. We want to take trips. I want to finish revising my novel. He’s not happy because he doesn’t have his own place yet, and we’re not happy because he’s not happy. The tension hangs over everyone but the cat. Oblivious, she continues sleeping at our feet or running up and down the stairs alongside us, meowing at her dish morning and evening.
All my mindful self-help Buddhist knowledge, what there is of it, is called into play. This month will never come again. I tell myself in my journal and in my head on my daily walk: Focus on the beauty of the day lilies and hydrangeas. Breathe in the fragrant candle. Feel the tendons stretch in your hand therapy exercises.
Peace does not come easily. Unless: I accept the tension, the anxiety, the waiting. Let it come. Do not fight against it nor fall into a hole of depression over it.
This June offers me another chapter in my imperfect life. Another challenge to not be challenged by it. Just be in it. So hard to do, letting go of worry. We want to control the outcome, and so we pray hard for the future and visualize success, because the alternative – utter helplessness over events and people – is so frightening we think we cannot bear it. But maybe we can. Maybe I can.
The advice and suggestions and support and hugs have all been given. And just like I walk through the rain, I walk through this time of breath-holding before the next phase. And the next.
