Equanimity

It's a condition I have wished for as long as I can remember, deeply envying those cooly gracious folk with hearts tucked safely inside an impeccable, impenetrable exterior. To be able to work daily in a sea of urgent, clutching human need and suffering and emerge serenely whole at the end of the day, flicking the last clinging droplets of pain from my flawless psyche as I drove home - I never did manage it. And truthfully, though I knew every day that it was a flaw and a weakness, I did not try as hard as I might have to overcome the lack, because I feared a loss of acuity - I couldn't bear the thought that I might miss something, trample it by mistake.

As it turned out, force of will and endurance alone cannot create a sustainable kind of living, and as I have been gifted with a child driven to make war with every routine and boundary, I am clearly not off the hook for this lesson.

I know there are ways and systems I ought to resume: meditating and reframing and cognitive restructuring and "not letting", but right now I have this urge to just write the word over and over, push it into metal, say it out loud - perhaps if I keep the idea imminent long enough, I will find my own path to make it real.