The River and the Damn

One of the challenges I've faced over the past year or so has been an undiagnosed intestinal disorder with some rather distressing, embarrassing and scary symptoms. Part of my treatment plan involves the donated services of a family friend, Ronni, who is a professional massage therapist.

These massages, for me at least, are not just relaxing rubdowns, its a time when I let my mind do some directed-wandering, and it usually leads to some insightful thoughts, even some revelations. Plus it has had a very positive effect on my health.

During one of these sessions I was inspired by a mental image that made a great metaphor for my life at various times, particularly now, and its one I think a lot of people can relate to, even benefit from understanding, so I'm going to share it.

A person's life can be compared to a water. Like a river, it follows the path of least resistance, but as it does it also effects the ground where it flows, eroding away the soil and creating a deeper path for itself. Also, like a river, it can be diverted through conscious actions or accidents and uncontrollable events.

Growing up I usually just followed the path of least resistance (my parents would disagree, I'm sure!), few of my choices seemed consequential. Then my girlfriend got pregnant, a couple years later I got custody of my son. At that moment I made a decision to make him the central factor in my life, the prime consideration around which all decisions were made.

This was the equivalent to building a dam in the river of my life. I spent time and energy erecting a wall, which controlled the flow of the river, creating a relatively calm lake. This is not a bad or good thing, it just was. Years pasted and the calm lake that became my life grew wider and deeper, but it did not go anywhere, the dam prevented that.

Then a series of events, including a turn in the economy, the loss of a long term relationship and the approach of my son's high school graduation all happened close together. The first two events were the equivalent of nature and other lives damaging the dam I had built. The third factor informed my decision about whether or not to repair the damn. I chose not to.

The results were inevitable. Like water flowing through a crack in a real dam, the water that was my life poured through these new cracks in my damn. Slowly at first, but more quickly as the effects of erosion expanded the cracks into a holes.

The calm lake behind the damn began to drain, the trickling stream on the other side began to rising and expand and the dam grew weaker. One day the constant erosion of the dam lead to a huge chunk falling loose. This chunk took the form of my house being foreclosed on. Again I had to decide, I could not ignore the hole in the dam.

Should I now work hard to repair it? Allow it to erode away at its own pace? Or should I help in the dismantling? On the one side of the dam was the calm, familiar, stable life I had know for so long, on the other side was a growing river leading off into the unknown (but which was already developing an attraction of its own for me.) This was a turning point for me. I choose to let the dam come down.

When a dam breaks from erosion it is a process of increasing chaos. The cracks expanded, the flow of water grew from a trickle to a violent torrent, rushing through and tearing chunks of the damn away to be washed down the river and swallowed up. My life became equally chaotic, unstable, exciting and scary, all at once.

Eventually, enough the dam was mostly gone and the flow of water, while still increasing, began to smooth out on the surface while still eroding the dam beneath the surface.The period of noise and chaos had passed. The lake was all but drained and only remnants of the dam remained. Now my life was on a new path, flowing into the unknown.

I know the river can be dammed again, if I choose, to form a lake or diverted to follow a different path. It may be damned or diverted by events I cannot control. But the old lake is nearly gone, and in time will be only a memory, time having erased all the evidence of its existence.

River or lake, it does not matter, life goes one. The point is that life just flows. We can flow with it or direct it, or do some of each. Transitions will usually be chaotic and lasting changes, like a dam, takes effort to create and constant maintenance.

I built my dam by choosing to be a parent, I choose to stay in one place like a lake, letting my life become broad and deep behind the damn. Now I choose the opposite, to let my life flow forward into the unknown. Narrower, but faster and with constantly changing scenery. One is no better than the other, just different, and both were my choice.