When Life’s Getting You Down, Don’t Fall Out Of Your Chair

Life around here is never boring, that’s for sure.

When you’re riding through the storm in the night, and everything around you seems overwhelming… well, just take a piece of advice from Good Ol’ Ira.

Don’t let your chair fall backwards and slam you into a chest freezer.

I was sitting here in my seat, which is a nice, comfy, super-way-more-expensive-than-I-ever-should-have-paid one. I’ve had it for a few years now, and it’s always served me well.

My thoughts were drifting as I listened to the always wonderful Enigma. Ironically enough, it was their song Gravity of Love which kept my ears occupied in that moment.

Fond memories of the first time I heard the song passed through the movie screen of my brain and I was — dare I even say it? — feeling a little nostalgic.

Fate decided to play a little game with me.

The desk I use is a big antique, made from teak, of all things. It’s enormous, and bringing it in to the room to begin with, cost me a few days off of my back and set my tailbone screaming.

I was bopping my head, just enjoying the sounds, when the chair began to slip somehow.

Was it me? Did I move wrong or something? No. I hadn’t shifted my body at all.

I didn’t see a random squirrel laughing its way through the window, either, so it couldn’t be that.

The cats would have woken for that kind of event, anyhow.

No, there was no rhyme to it. It was, as far as I could tell, the universe’s way of giving me the middle finger for the day with a big ol’ “Hell with ya, dude.”

My body crashed backward, my hand reaching for the desk as a way to try to catch myself. I had a second or so to realize holding on the desk would be a very… bad… idea.

The ancient writing desk is on pads to make it sit higher so my legs can fit under it properly. If I kept hold of it, that thing was going to come down on my legs, too.

Yeah. Just what I would need to top off this particular donut of joy.

Backward I went, until the back of my head met the chest freezer sitting behind me. My headphones, once blaring out the siren song of Enigma, were strewn across the room, and pain shot through my body.

I slowly picked myself back up again. My fingers ached like crazy from gripping the wood so hard and scraping across like the grittiest sandpaper. My head, thankfully, was undamaged.

I can only chalk that up to the fact my formative years were spent in a house with cement floors and I crashed on it many times from my crib.

Whoa, wait. That might explain a few things about my life.

What’s the lesson here, bunny?

When things like this happen, I like to try to find a reason or a lesson. I know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but there are, I think, things we can learn from every experience.

I was in my own world, slipping into a head-space I probably shouldn’t have. When you have bipolar, PTSD, anxiety issues, and ADHD all piled on top of each other, it’s really easy to go to places in your mind you don’t really belong.

Traipsing down memory lane isn’t all tulips and unicorns, you know.

While I love the music of Enigma, I also would listen to it over and over again during periods of my life I now know were hell.

Maybe the universe really was trying to tell me something. Perhaps, in its weird little way, it forced me to stop listening to it, because I’d be in a worse place in my head later.

If nothing else, it’s probably telling me I need a new chair.

Life around here is never really boring. At least there’s that.

Thank you for being you.

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Thank you from the depths of my soul for being here. Keep striving to “be the best you that you can be” at this moment.