A single Cheerio

Just one.... that's all it takes.  A single cheerio, staring back up from the floor.  Tempting you.  Taunting you.  Pushing you close to the edge of losing it.  Ruining a perfectly good afternoon, evening, moment.  Losing your cool.  Feeling that everything is just shit.  The house is out of control, there is nothing in the fridge for dinner and you're not sure what bills have been paid.  We're all on the verge of falling apart.  A cheerio.  And a floor that needs sweeping, mopping.  A room that needs organizing.  A tub that needs scrubbing.  The laundry that needs folding and putting away (but didn't I just do laundry?!).  It might as well be that my whole life is on the verge of a breakdown.  So why even bother picking up this one stupid fucking cheerio?  

And then, in a rare moment of grace- I breathe.  Pick up the cheerio.  Avert the crisis.  Refuse to ruin my (and my family's) evening.  Acknowledge that all of the other things will get done.  Or they won't.  The world is not falling apart.  My house is not falling apart. I am not falling apart.

I just returned from a visit with my grandfather.  An amazing man, a powerful influence in my life.  He has been caring for my grandmother for the better part of a decade.  She is losing a long struggle with Parkinson's disease.  Struggle might be an overstatement in some ways.  In my harsh assessment, she pretty much took the diagnosis and laid down with it.  Left my grandfather to do the heavy lifting, the researching, the pill-crushing, the meal-prepping, the care-giving, the diaper-changing, the mouth-wiping.  He is tired but he has not wavered in his love for her.  He looks at her with sincerity, calls her beautiful, kisses her good-morning and good-night, shows her family pictures, tells her stories, shares his pie.  He tells me with no bitterness or irony that she gave him three beautiful children and made him breakfast and dinner every day without complaining... that this is his turn.  He is certain that this is the path chosen for him, even though he can't always make sense of its meaning.  He does not curse the cheerio.  It is what it is.

And so I return again to the understanding that every adversity, no matter the size, is an incredible opportunity.  Our reaction is our truth. 

I think there is choice possible at every moment to us, as long as we live.

But there is no sacrifice.  There is a choice, and the rest falls away.

Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

~Muriel Rukeyser