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Man On A Wire

I was reminded this week how much of life is a balancing act — a metaphorical rope that varies in width depending on circumstances sometimes outside of your control. When things are running at an optimum pace, the rope is wide … sometimes you can do (try and do) cartwheels on the rope. And other times, the rope is very narrow and you may even fall down a few times until things balance out once again.

So much of my life is built on this metaphor, some aspects by choice and others not. Having four children under the age of 10, that narrows the rope; having a job that is more flexible than most, that widens the rope. A constant balance.

I’m reminded of this when our normal schedule is altered, even the slightest bit. Moving along like a flatline on an EKG machine until a single heartbeat creates that unexpected spike. Bad example — my life isn’t as plain as a flatline, probably more like someone who has arrhythmia.

I truly enjoy writing this column and wish I had a wide enough rope to write on a weekly — even daily basis — but it’s not possible. Even now as I’m writing my rope is narrowing. Slicing time out right now to write will affect everything I do at the office from here on out for the rest of the week. We’re down a man, you see, so there’s no room to deviate from the schedule.

Can’t get behind, the rope will narrow … glance at my bank account and see how many days are left until payday — there better be a safety net down there.

I wear living paycheck to paycheck like a badge of honor. A humbling, just-bearly middle-class designation I like to think most people find themselves stuck. For the most part, this aspect of life narrows the rope on a constant basis. Spikes including car repairs, water bills and the-like. There are times finances can widen the rope; our upcoming tax return comes to mind as a welcome sight.

We found ourselves tip-toeing the rope around the idea of buying a new (used) vehicle after our beloved Prizm finally kicked the can just before Christmas. You may remember the column I wrote about trying to repair it on my own. That was simply a Band-Aid for something that had problems I simply couldn’t fix. Despite the financial burden, we simply need two vehicles for logistical purposes. To widen the rope? Well, cellphone plan was a little fat so we trimmed as far back as they allow; cut back on what was already a barebones Tim Hortons spending budget; and cancelled our satellite subscription early, eating the $140 early termination fee (sadly this pays for itself in two months). There, the rope is back to normal. A balancing act.

This can be put a lot of ways, I suppose. People balance money; they balance their schedules; they balance time between work and play, family time or social time. There are choices to be made along life’s rope that will affect how easy your balancing act will be. I think we’d all like to be able to walk unabated along life’s tightrope without any fear of falling. Maybe it would be boring and lead to depression, maybe we’d be happy and live longer — who knows. Sometimes we just have to allow the rope to narrow so that we can do something we enjoy — in this case — write.

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