Balance

I just (finally), finished reading the book Eat, Pray, Love. I know, I know, I'm probably the only American adult over 21 who hasn't read it already. When it came out I had just given birth to Theo, so suffice it to say I was a bit too preoccupied to read. I guess the fact that I just got around to reading it and Theo turned 20 months old this past Friday, gives you some indication of just how preoccupied I've been, lol.

What tends to happen with me and books usually causes a delay in reading them anyway. That is to say, what happens is that I usually find a book, (whether through hearing about it or browsing through online or brick-and-mortar bookstores), I buy it, and then it usually sits on my bookshelf, sometimes for years. I'm not kidding - I bought Eat, Pray, Love in 2007! I truly feel though, that there is a part of my consciousness that recognizes that I will benefit in whatever way from reading a particular book and then buys it, and somehow I always start reading that book precisely most when I need to. Like Eat, Pray, Love for example. I'm sure that the millions of people who read it all got different things from it, but I would hazard a guess in that everyone got one message from it -- the importance of balance. This lesson, I'm afraid, is one that seems to still be an ongoing one for me - and it is a lesson that I am in the midst of trying to fully learn.

I love too hard. In pretty much all of my relationships. Because of this, I tend to give too much of myself to my son and not enough to myself. I justify this well though -- I am a single mother, and he is still very, very young. A baby still, really. And because of this, he needs his Mama, and I need to focus on him and his needs. I am okay with this -- for now. Much sooner than I even know, that dynamic will change and I will have to start focusing on what I need.

I eat too hard. By that I mean I looooooooove to eat -- mostly things that are on the South Beach Diet's "never ever eat" list. And mostly in huge, NFL sized portions. When I decide that I must change my eating habits to get healthy and lose weight however, I go all the way over to almost asceticism -- depriving myself of almost everything I love to eat most, and there really needs to be balance in that.

I think too hard. I think that it is very important to be a thinker, an analyzer, and a self-processor, but as discussed in my previous post, I suppose even that can go too far. I've been told that I "think too much" pretty much all of my life. I used to think that was a laughably stupid thing to say - how can anyone ever think too much? Now, I get it. You'd think after 7 and a half years of being a practicing Buddhist I would be able to cultivate a calm mind and get past mere thinking into inner knowing. Sooo not there yet.

I feel as if I'm on the precipice of big things in my life. Maybe never bigger than being a mother, but close. I feel as if the changes to come will temper me, in both firey and gentle ways, into becoming the me I was always meant to be. I am not growing away from my past self, I am growing fully into my future self. For that knowledge, I am grateful. And for the balance in my life that growth is sure to bring, I am also grateful.

Now, I am off to have a non-fat yogurt with organic blueberries for breakfast. But for lunch, I think I'm gonna get a pizza with extra cheese!