“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

There is a thin line between having it all and losing it all.  And it is on that line I balance, and I think we all might balance. We, as mothers, as women, as humans, all teeter between an ecstatic celebration of what we have – a job we are proud of, some people who love us, a home we make – and the impending terror of the possible – a sick parent, or child, or us, a money catastrophe, a splintering friendship, relationship, marriage. The thin line is where life is, and we grab it with our toes, begging them to brace us.

We live in a constant, furious quest to be in balance. We go to yoga, drink eight glasses of water a day, balance our checkbooks, breathe deeply, sleep as much as our busy days will allow. But no matter how much we try, we will never be entirely balanced, and we walk on a tightrope through our every day.

My tightrope has been a little higher than most. It has had more slack. I have lived a life of deep sways and I have learned to live a life of uncertainty: a life struggling to remain in remission.

And while it has been challenging to get up every day not knowing what the future holds, it has also given me a sense of perspective that I otherwise wouldn’t have. I see the underside of things, I celebrate the moment. On this Mothers Day I thank my children, because they are the tiny souls I protect from the wavy truth of the unknown, and love from a place of humbling certainty.

image courtesy of Gigi Yogini