Today I made friends with a travelling can…

I’m a sucker for a metaphor…

Tonight whilst I was walking home down an unpopulated street, I came across an empty drinks can being blown by the wind to some unknown location. I felt that can. I felt the helplessness and anxiety it felt. Its so scary being thrown by an unknown force to an unknown place and you have no control over it.
For a short while, the wind blew that can in parallel with me and we walked a few hundred yards down the road together. I felt its anxiety decrease, knowing that it had finally found someone to travel with. Maybe it was optimistic that my destination would be where it would end up. Friends by circumstance. Meeting through a strange force. Then the wind changed and took the can away from me. I heard it saying ‘no, don’t leave me’, ‘im scared’. I had a destination to get to, I was walking purposefully towards the bus station to get home. I was in control of my immediate goal. The can was not.

Where am I going with this you might ask… Have I finally lost my mind?

Well sometimes in life, more often than I would like, I feel as helpless as that can. I feel pushed in directions I wouldn’t have chosen or catapulted into the unknown by an unimaginable force. Be it fate or God or a series of unfortunate events, I’m going somewhere I don’t want to or I’m being taken away from my objectives. There is a helplessness in that. For most of my life I have felt like I had absolutely no control over my life. I was on a rollercoaster with the track and path only known to the designer. I was blindsided by unexpected turns and fearful lows. Over the past year I have slowly started to remove toxic, controling people from my life. It has led me to feel more in control of my future.  Life is full of highs and lows and uncertainties. When you have lived for 30 years feeling controlled by every relationship and friendship you have ever had, there is a massive anxiety that weighs down upon you when you are finally given control. You don’t know what to do, how to make decisions. You can’t trust yourself to make the right call because you have always done what others have told you to do, or what you knew they would want you to.
Even though I’ve distanced myself from the majority of those controlling people, I still have daily struggles. Life isn’t written in stone. Sometimes you can be heading in your own direction and something comes and changes that. I need to build resilience to these changes.

Some days I am that can, being tossed into the unknown, filled with fear and anxiety. Others I am the tree that people hid, a large oak covered in hundreds of chains, stuck unable to progress or be changed. I’m trying to be a mix of the two. A walking tree if you will, solid and confident, but able to gain some momentum, affecting people as I pass and leaving my mark on the earth.

How do I do this? Each day is a new opportunity to try. Writing this blog has certainly helped me to create a safe space to reflect on my thoughts and feelings. I’ve thrown myself into education with the hopes that it will boost my confidence. I’m trying to take more control of my future, while learning to cope with the inherent lack of control that humans have over our lives.

The serenity prayer featured fairly heavily in the last year and can be helpful to reflect upon when struggling with the unknown:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Some days I long to be that can, no decisions to make, spontaneous and adaptable. Others I want to be immovable, dead even, just so that nothing else changes.

This year, I hope to become that walking tree. Wandering at first and then walking with purpose. The first thing I need to do is drop the chains, both the ones I’m holding and the ones others have bound me with.

Wish me luck – Violet x