Getting It Right

     For a lifetime, balance has been an issue for me.  I am not so different from everyone else.  Each of us struggles with finding balance.  Be it work, money, chemicals, emotions--whatever it may be, each of us has struggles with balance.  For me, physical imbalance is my struggle--what I strive to surmount.
    I am drawn to the picture of me in 1966 dressed as a ballerina.  The little girl dressed in a pink tutu and tights, and carrying a pink, purple, and fuschia parasol is concentrating to keep her balance.  Although the beam is unusually wide, she is maintaining her balance.  A proud grandmother looking on probably didn't hurt.  That little girl wanted to be--believed that she could be--a ballerina.
     At some point in the last ten years, I had to have her in front of me at work each day to remind me that balance was possible.  Work seemed hopelessly out of balance with no hope of reconciling the imbalance.  The ballerina tiptoed past my forlorn eyes to remind me that if I concentrated, and stayed on course, I would find my way to balance.
    Much has changed since 1966.  Much has changed since she sat on my desk as a sign of hope.  Not that her meaning to me has changed.  It has grown.  She twirls in front of my imagination, to remind me how far I have come.
    Today, my struggles regarding balance are quite different.  More basic than in much of my adult life.  Physical balance.  Two years ago, chemical imbalances co-opted with emotional balances to leave me physically unbalanced.  I doubted whether I would regain any of the strength, and balance I had had previously.
     Fast forward two years.  I knew what needed to be done to work back to physical balance, if it was meant for me to have in my life.  Four mornings a week, I return to an activity I did once a week, as a child.  As many went to church on Sunday morning, I went swimming.
    This morning, something very special happened.  To the casual observer, the woman with short, brown hair, who was wearing the blue striped swimsuit, turned to her right side from her left side while doing the side stroke.  BUT....far more happened in that moment.  For the first time in her life, the woman had the strength in her right arm and leg to propel her forward.  Never before had she been able to turn to her right side.  There was not enough physical strength present--not enough confidence in any physical strength present in her right arm and leg to try to turn to her right side.
     My turn to the right side was not turned on as a light switch.  Weeks of concentration....focusing on the strengthening my right arm, and leg.....These preceded this morning's special moment.  Yet, as faith-filled, and hope-filled as I am, I did not know whether I would be able to strengthen my arm and leg by sheer exercise, and persistence.
     I do not know what is next.  Only my body...and my hairdresser....know for sure.
     I do know that this morning, I was getting it right.