Pivoting...

With death comes confusion and clarity...and it forces you to pivot into things you might rather want to avoid...

Life changes on a dime and now you are moved forward in directions you might not otherwise choose, select or even fathom.  Death can bring out the best in people and the worst.  Some people are lovingly kind, supportive and present. Others use your time of loss as an opportunistic venue for capitalizing for their own benefit...

We don’t get to decide how others behave...only our own behavior is within our purview.  For others’ conduct, we just have to suffer through, or, pivot.

Sometimes pivoting is self directed.  Sometimes it is forced upon you.  Sometimes it feels easy and right and self curated.  Other times you feel like you are being turned by some universal force that does not feel good or easy.  For this later category, I picture the Friends episode where Ross is trying to get a new couch up the stairs to his apartment in Manhattan.  He is screaming “PIVOT!”  But no matter what they do, the couch remains lodged upon the stairwell and no amount of pivoting will get that fucking couch up those stairs.

This is what I feel like right now.  I am being pivoted, not completely by my own power, but other forces are acting upon me and have moved me into this situation where I find myself on the metaphorical stairs and I am the couch, and some Ross like character keeps yelling “PIVOT!!!” at the top of his lungs, but I remain firmly fixed in place...for now.

I know the change is coming where I will be dislodged from the metaphorical steps of life and freed from my current untenability.  I will be moved forward and through grief and loss.  I will be given new opportunities and a very large heaping of grace under fire.  How do I know this?  Because this has been my experience for my entire sobriety.  

When big changes happen in your life, it feels as though we are stepping off the Grand Canyon and either the hand of God will catch us or we shall fall to our unfortunate death...but most change, only looks like the Grand Canyon leap, instead being much more like stepping off a curb...the change feels catastrophic, but in reality, you are just being led to what awaits you next, some of which you will like, some of which you will not...

Regardless, you will pivot and be pivoted.  And for me, right now, I feel like I just need to remain in place, doing my best to level myself out and remain as flexible as possible.  Not locking into positions, postures and ideas.  Allowing anything at all to land, give it consideration but make no decisions regarding pretty much anything right now.  The time will come that the pivot will happen and I will become dislodged...but, there is a great deal of torque happening long before the actual movement is observable and real.

So today, I will do the things in front of me, trusting the pivoting is underway and I will be ok, no matter where I end up.  I am grateful for the peace within the current grief storm.  I am grateful for perspective and supportive and loving friends who are not intent of stabbing me in the back...so unfortunate that long term friendship guarantees nothing, at least with some people.  I guess I am to learn one more time when someone shows you who you are believe them the first time they show you..  Lest, you get an ill timed second lesson that knocks your feet out from beneath you...

Trust the pivot...it is for your higher good, it just isn’t always going to feel like it as it is underway...

Again, still...