Up in the Air

My fingernails are almost grown out. Only about 2 millimeters or so remain before the deep ridges disappear from the nails of my left hand. I don't know the cause for sure, but every time I've had them there has been a preceding period of intense stress or grief in my life. This time they were the result (I think) of the tough time I had in February-March of this year. After February I found myself dropping things I didn't have the energy for. I eased out of situations in which I felt uncomfortable, and focused mostly on work and my son's upcoming 6th grade finals. I debated whether I should even plant a garden this spring. I almost didn't. 

In the movie "Up in the air", George Clooney's character Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert, a traveling executioner. In his spare time, he gives seminars on the merits of downsizing one's life. He encourages people to examine the contents of their life's 'backpacks', to unpack them and repack only what is really essential. That's a compelling notion, except that some things are not quite so black and white.

What about those things that bring you enough of both pain and happiness to keep you weighing them in the balance forever? 

"How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff.Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sister, your children your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other, to live symbiotically over a lifetime: star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks." 


- Ryan Bingham