Balance, Balance, Balance!

Ten in my published works plus seventeen in my next three manuscripts combined plus two in recent writings: That's the number of times that "balance" (or some form of the word) has been used in my poetry to date. So why is that such a common point in my writing? Because it's a super prominent theme in my life.

You know what my first real sport was growing up? Figure skating. Figure skating is intensely concentrated around body awareness, grace, and balance, balance, balance. And while we already know that sports are incredible influences and impact a child's development, I think there's a lot of my personality and values that have been shaped by ice skating and the exacting focus on balance. Actually, upon further reflection, the importance of balance was only further reinforced by my other recreational pursuits. Rowing, ice hockey, martial arts, rock climbing, mountain biking . . . All of these are heavily reliant on and continuously prioritize balance.

Getting sick of that word yet? Just wait, there's more.

The emphasis wasn't only on physical balance in all of my time in sports. The mental game was something we also trained for extensively. Though I heard all kinds of single-minded, unbalanced approaches to training and improvement and lifestyles, I was blessed to have parents who tended toward a more whollistic view of recreational activities. That was a big deal and a real struggle for someone who was naturally inclined to obsession and hyper-focus and all those buzzwords for an unhealthy level of concentration. And I ended up learning that lesson the hard way.

When I was weeks away from my eighteenth birthday, I was sparring at my Thursday martial arts class. It took a while for me to like sparring, but it eventually became one of the highlights of my week. That particular Thursday, I was paired with an older guy who was ex-SWAT. He was someone I liked sparring with because he never got upset with my . . . forcefulness. However, that specific night, I took a right hook to my face that jolted all ninety-seven pounds of me. It took us a few days to confirm that I had a hairline fracture on my jaw and a perforated eardrum. Then I sang at a wedding the next weekend. It was a crazy time, but I bring this up because some things changed for me after that match.

For starters, my jaw still doesn't close quite right if I've opened it past a certain point. And it actually still causes pain and sporadic swelling to my face that has interesting repercussions for my hearing. Perhaps most importantly, however, is the fact that my sense of balance has never been the same. I went from freakishly developed balance and never knowing what motion sickness felt like to having to retrain my balance and getting nauseous at all kinds of new and inconvenient times. It was a literally and figuratively unsteady time in my life.

And, for someone who had always taken balance for granted, my new reality was reshaping whole sections of my life and even my identity.

I went from adventure-seeking and feeling very confident in my abilities to playing things a bit more safe to guard against feeling sick or embarassing myself. I went from somebody who was usually down for a challenge to someone who would rather spectate, just in case. And it wasn't a sudden shift. It was a slow, learned thing as the smallest instances suddenly became nausea-inducing, as things I could do easily before suddenly had a higher percentage of failures on my part. I definitely became less physically active and less willing to try new things or even pick up old enjoyments. I went from someone athletic to someone who said things like: "I'd rather just sit here, thanks!"

Recently, despite the fact that all of the above is still true, I've started trying to go back to things I used to love, which includes a lot of active pursuits. I've been paddleboarding, bike riding, and walking. I've gotten back into photography and other things that were my early introductions to creativity. I've allowed myself to be bad at things that I used to compete in, and I've reminded myself that learning, even relearning, is messy. While my life had gotten more imbalanced than I'd even realized in the last year or two, I'm finally starting to sense some equilibrium returning.

As I learned in figure skating and as was reinforced throughout my growing up years, balance is life-saving.

And I'm not talking the literal on-the-edge-of-the-cliff type of life-saving, but the "everything in moderation" that keeps you grounded kind. I've personally found that balance is about delicacy. It's a process of awareness, adjustments, strength, and focus. It's more than simply walking the middle of the road and more than erring on the side of caution. To achieve and maintain balance takes intention and split-second decision-making. Balance is not gained passively, but through training and, sometimes, even planning. What many people take for granted is a highly developed skill for others.

Balance is a huge part of my worldview, but, even so, I wasn't the most aware of things shifting so far out of place. I think in the physical world, it can be easy to spot when something falls over or breaks, but the imbalnces within are much harder to notice, to correct. I'm learning to be graceful, despite the lack of balance, and I'm working to train and extend that awareness to all corners of my life.