My life has a habit of getting completely disrupted. I have all different kinds of disruptions that I tend to get myself into. Like the time I hosted a family of five with 3 dogs, 3 kids and 3 maids for 3 months, or the time I had my four younger siblings move in with us for a few years, or this time, when my sister and her husband and newborn stayed with us for two months while they looked for a new place after moving back from NYC. Now that my house is back to "museum clean", quiet, tranquil and boring I am feeling lost, empty and completely void of any meaning. So now I feel frozen, (not the movie -- ENOUGH w that damn movie) sad, stuck, paralyzed you know, spiraling in frozen fractals all around -- (damn that movie again, can't get it outta my head for two lousy seconds.)
It's funny, because when your life gets interrupted, while I adore the high of change, I can't help realize that I have created this bad habit of getting addicted to that hamster in the cage insanity line -- out of comfort. You know, where you do the same thing over and over, and eventually you do it again, cause you're sure to do it better and more right next time even though it is exactly the same task without a hint of newness -- you swear this time your life won't derail, or get interrupted by welcoming a disruption and you'll keep the same routine, you'll continue on your path that you had before even if you're interrupted a little bit? K its only me? Fine. I admit it, I am enslaved to my hamster cage addiction of disruption.
Here's the thing, I really love hosting incredible friends and family in my home. I grew up with seven kids in my house, I love the noise, the crazy unpredictability it brings, the big dinners, the tears, the laughter, the joy reverberating in the house, but I also see that in my life, I tend to navigate towards unhealthy imbalance. I tend to veer towards this chaos, because to me chaos is comfortable. Oh MY G-d. I just admitted that out loud. That happened. I said I like chaos. I also hate it at the same time -- no I hate myself for liking it at the same time. Therapists, please call me.
This past Passover, I was feeling really interrupted, more than usual. Rather than look at how good I am at procrastinating my projects, I just felt annoyed that G-d decided to disrupt me with this whole holiday thing. This time I didn't have myself to blame for creating interruptions in my life, I got to blame G-d. And I did it VERY well. Then I started thinking who else he has managed to interrupt. There's one of my dear friends who was just diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Her life has been hugely interrupted, OH MY WORD, breast cancer is G-d's big fat interruption. I'm liking this blame game. See, I can go all day at blaming G-d for his interruption wars. And I do that very well. LIKE I'm NIKE PRO at it. It is so much easier than blaming myself for allowing interruptions to become my procrastination tool. What about those 300 Nigerian girls who got kidnapped- isn't that a big fat G-d interruption? What the hell was He thinking there??
Don't get me started on the Malaysian interruption.
Why is it that I'm okay if I interrupt my own life. Heck, I usually welcome it, even if in the end it is not the best idea for me. But for some reason, I don't have any tolerance for God's interruptions? Sometimes I would rather be the interrupter than wait for G-d to do it, since I've had a history of Him doing it at epic proportions. Might as well beat Him to the punch, ya know. But all this blaming has me wondering if maybe I'm completely blinding myself to the real lesson of the gifts disruption brings.
There are a few things I have learned about what happens when life gets interrupted. Interruption has forced me to navigate towards my values. It has forced me to become choosy about what I want to spend time on versus what I have to spend time on. It has also given me pause to look at my routine and reevaluate it based on the new one that has now become my disrupted one because I have to redesign my life based on my new reality. And suddenly my new reality brings new perspective. And when things go back to the way they were -- the "normal" state, my life is always renewed and refreshed and reevaluated very differently. I usually end up learning a thing or two about myself because of those disruptions, whether I want to or not.
Obviously I can't continue to blame G-d for using my destiny to interrupt my life, nor can I punish myself when my own life gets disrupted by hosting friends or family I love having over. Rather, I can find a way to embrace those changing moments and maybe spend more time nesting in a healthy boring, "museum clean", quiet, tranquil home when it is quiet and pondering the lessons I have been fortunate to receive once those interruptions have left. (no this is not an invitation for anyone reading this to move in. There's a reason I don't have a blinking red sign outside that says "Come in we'll leave the light on for ya.").
Maybe I'm not as frozen as I think I am. Maybe I'm just tempering myself for new waters -- unchartered waters. Today there is no five-month-old baby cooing in the background, no bottles piled up on the counter, no baby blankets taking space up on the floor. Its quiet around here. Life is back to "normal." Or is it?
Chava's latest music video, "Trust," can be viewed here.