The Rise and Fall

Occasionally a metaphor will pop into my head and hang on until I write about it. Today I woke up thinking about “the rise and fall”. It’s not new, in fact, it is a widely used metaphor, but it stuck with me and all the possible meanings have been floating around in my head, so clearly they need to come out.

A while back a friend sent me this quote, “Greif is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” – Vicki Harrison. As the day has progressed, the metaphor and the quote have merged in my mind. Life itself is a series of waves and the rise of those waves is inevitable, as is the fall of those waves. Like the quote, sometimes the waves are big, sometimes they are small, and sometimes they are small, yet still seem overwhelming.

As I was doing dishes this morning, I saw my neighbor loading her two little ones into the car for preschool, and it reminded me of those toddler days when just getting out the door was a chore. For instance, one day Emma decided she didn’t want to wear pants. She was jumping up and down, pulling at the legs of her pants and screaming they are touching me. I had no idea how to convince her that it was normal for pants to touch. At the time, it seemed overwhelming and I really needed an instruction manual on how to properly handle a three-year-old meltdown over pants. It was one of those should I laugh or cry moments that we now we joke about.

It is unfortunate that there is no instruction manual on how to manage the rise and fall of life’s waves. I will say the most important thing I have learned is it’s how we react to what is happening that really matters. Pants can be hard but is it really a tsunami or just a ripple on the surface. Keeping perspective on what is truly important helps to clearly manage the rise and fall of life’s waves.

And there it is, my metaphor meaning for the day. Hopefully, if anything you enjoyed the story about Emma and the pants incident.