My middlemost runs up to me holding a blue ball of stringy plastic. It looks more like a skein of yarn than a slinky at this point. “Mom, can you untangle this for me,” he says with complete confidence in my ability to do such a thing.

I look at it. I wonder. I roll my eyes. I say, “sure I’ll take a look at it later and see what I can do.” I put it to the side for a minute.

My middlemost is not gifted with patience. He picks the jumble off the glass topped sofa table and hands it to me more determined. “Mommy, untangle this!” he demands.

I somewhat reluctantly take it. I think to myself this is gonna take forever and I mumble “this is why we need to be careful.” I begin to untangle. As I am finding ends and loops inside loops, I begin to think of how I felt like this slinky a year ago. Tangly and messy. A bundle of why is it even worth it? And then I thought about where I am now. Not so tangled, not feeling so worthless.

Restarting your life after loss can be a bit like the endeavor to untangle this slinky. Its so twisted and woven in and out of itself. It doesn’t look much like a slinky anymore. It doesn’t look much like the life you had, the life you had planned. Its a mess. We get all twisted up inside we don’t recognize ourselves. We want to find that nice peace where all the layers of life, school, work, chores, activities, emotions, settle nicely on top of each other. Where we flex and flow over the ridges. Sometimes we get stuck, but with a little forward motion we can roll on. When we are tangled mess, there isn’t much flow. Any change in the routine is jarring and difficult. Each new challenge can seem like a twenty step flight of stairs we are asking a slinky to climb up. When life is good, its all downhill. Its hard not to want someone to just throw the waded up mess we have become to the top or bottom of a flight of stairs. Just get it over with, the challenges, the mountains, the change, But there we will sit, on the other side of a rift…a tangled mess still. We have to spend a little time untangling the messy stuff in our hearts, in our minds, in our rooms, in our lives.

The untangling doesn’t quite get us back to the original form, but close. There are few bent sections, and gaps in the layers. And it sometimes takes turning the entire slinky inside out to get there.

I sat untangling my middlemost’s slinky. I had moments where I was so frustrated, I thought this can’t be done. And why does it need to be done. Its a cheap dollar store slinky. Is it worth the effort? For what? For me to hand it over to him and have him run off and tangle it all up again in no time?

That may be what I am really afraid of…someone or something taking this untangled life and tangling it all up again.

So, again, I ask is it worth it?

The first step is always deciding its worth it. Worth it to untangle your bits and pieces. Worth it to see a tiny sliver of light in the crack of the door to the future. Worth it to remember your life was once as you planned and yet there were still days some of the slinky got caught up on itself. The lists of “what its worth.” Start there.

In this case its worth it because this slinky is here, I don’t have to go buy a new one. And my middlemost really wants to have it right…so he can tangle it up again. I know that my life will get tangled again as I take risks and search for what we are all searching for. But tangled means living. It means highs and lows. Success and failure. Excitement and disappointment. Without these things is life worth it?  I don’t think so.  And frankly life is going to get messy no matter how hard you try to keep it all neat and tidy.

After a diligent effort and some very thorough consideration of which loop to pull on next, I have succeeded in untangling the slinky. For the time being. My middlemost is at school so for a minute I can just sit and look at the product of my suffering. I am proud of getting it to this place. Just like I am proud of untangling the mess in me this last year. And sometimes its nice to just sit and be layered somewhat normally again. I’ll never be quite the way I was and I will get tangled from time to time. But one thing I have learned, I can untangle the messes. One loop at time. Not all in one day, and sometimes not all on my own. But eventually – with patience, support, faith, and determination – I can.

I thought I would include some visual aides.  Notice how it goes from a mess, to untangled and back to…..a mess.  Haha!  Parenting is hard work. 🙂



Before

After

After

20 Minutes After 🙂