When Everything Breaks and You Don’t

Everything is after my wallet lately. We have home projects coming out of our ears. We had to cut down a massive dead tree. Truly a monster. It carried a ferocious price tag too. My computer is dying. My even older laptop—that I use on the road—is no longer updatable. This makes some of the programs I regularly use glitchy or not work. Even Microsoft Word—the program I’m writing this on—informed me that the version I paid for is no longer valid and I am being forced to buy their modern Office 365 suite. Everything is dragging, lagging, and costing me money. So it goes. That’s just life in the digital age.

I’ve become tethered to so many programs, clouds, and devices, and when it rains it floods. I know they say not to use clichés in writing, but who are they anyway? My brain is mush. I’m stressed to the max and somehow equally at peace. It’s a weird place to be. There you are, dissonance; I’ve missed you. I am somehow finding a way to take this rapid-fire of life being life in stride. I don’t care. I’m not as apathetic as I am expectant. Life does what life does and I’m learning the rhythms.

I think the way I’m framing these circumstances in my mind is to say “It is what it is.” Life goes on. It always does. If it didn’t, well, then would any of this stuff matter anyway? So, I’ve adopted a mentality that says why stress what is inevitable? That doesn’t mean I’m not burnt slap out. I’m not saying I’m not feeling wrung out. I’m not going to lie—I’ve been cycling between panic and manic a lot lately, but it doesn’t mean I have to live there.

Remembering to breathe is likely the dumbest advice I can offer. It’s something we all do naturally. If you’re like me, anxiety happens naturally too. Breathe. Focus on the little things—like baby toads in the backyard or cardinals at the feeders. Don’t stress over the pinwheel spinning on the computer screen, indicating your ailing computer is struggling to survive. Think of the kindness and encouragement you receive from friends. Don’t worry about the climbing home equity line of credit bill for all these planned and unplanned projects. The bills always get paid. Somehow. They always have. Hustling is in your DNA.

This feels like one part lamenting the world crashing around me and one part a pep talk that you might relate to. What can I say? I already told you my brain was Jell-O. Despite everything, I’m happy. I’m hopeful. I’m optimistic. After this summer of incurring a mountain of necessary debt, I can sit on my new back deck without worrying about falling through it. I can look out on my yard devoid of water flow issues. I can even dry my clothes with the newest in pet hair technology. What a time to be alive. Perhaps I’ll buy a new computer and finish editing a documentary or two currently in limbo land. I’ll probably just slap a Band-Aid on this one and pray for the best. It’s hard to say. All I know is that I’m starting to feel like my old self again. Whatever that means. I like the guy I see in the mirror despite the lightness of my billfold.

I want to take this last paragraph and thank my weekly readers. You know who you are. On weeks when the world feels like it’s falling all around me, you lift my spirits. Your comments, likes, shares, direct messages, etc. all mean the world. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You keep me going. My computer, on the other hand… she’s struggling to keep up. That’s trouble for another day.

_____________________________

Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker currently living in Bethania, North Carolina with his wife Jess and their house full of animals. He split his time growing up between chasing wildlife and screaming on stages in hardcore bands you’ve never heard of. He has been published by Dead Reckoning Collective, The Havok Journal, Reptiles Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, and many others. He filmed and directed a documentary called “Hammer Down” about his 2005 deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in with Alpha Battery 5-113^th of the NC Army National Guard. You can find his books, collected works, and social media accounts at www.stanlakecreates.com

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.