The Cliff Edge
As a child, I used to think there was a 'right' and 'wrong' answer to every question, that adults know what they are doing, and that love is always enough. These things are nice concepts, and entirely untrue.
Sometimes love is not enough.
It's not enough to help someone you love see how wonderful they are, or to fix their problems, or to stop them from hurting.
But sometimes love is all that matters.
It is enough to keep you going when everything else falls apart, it is enough to make unbearable pain bearable, it is enough to love and be loved. That is the epitome of life.
This Easter, I spent time around children for the first time since 2019, and we watched one of my family's favourite childhood films: 'Kiki's Delivery Service'.
Kiki is a young, entrepreneurial witch who starts her own delivery business. This is a sweet coming of age film, but it's also so much more than that. Something Kiki says really struck me about the world we inhabit these days:
Flying used to be fun until I started doing it for a living.
Monetising our love, passion, and joy by making these things our job is dangerous. We start spending our time using our skills to serve other people, and we so often forget to find inspiration for ourselves! A candle can only provide light for as long as you keep topping up the wax... Doing what you love is not selfish, because you can't light the way for other people if you are burnt out.
Lessons I learnt from these wonderful kids?
Laugh too loud and smile too wide! When did we become so self conscious?
There is never any shame in asking questions!
Scream when something hurts, your pain should not be silenced...
Injustice is relative.
Don't be scared of the cliff edge, be aware of it.
So what is this cliff edge? For the kids, it is literal, doing cartwheels despite the cliff edge in the garden, because they're not scared of it. For you it might be burn out: the cliff edge is a metaphor for the limit of how much you can cope with.
For me it is perpetual cycle of chronic pain: that good days are so often spent in fear of the bad.
The danger of the cliff edge is less important than the belief you won't fall because you are aware it is there. If you didn't have that faith, you would stop living, coping, and, most importantly of course, doing cartwheels. But sometimes, you will fall. Burn out will creep up on you, a flare up will come, or you'll end up flat on your butt doing a cartwheel. All I can tell you is that the crash is temporary, and I promise you'll be back soon. And you know what? The view from the cliff is worth it.
