Chasing Your Tail

 

There have been moments, days and weeks in my life where it felt I was doing the same thing over and over again.

 

In fact, it may have looked like I was chasing my tail and not getting much done.

 Chasing your tail may look similar.

 

Some of the events looked like going to therapy three times a week. 

Up and down the mountain to get to one, two, three and then four doctors each month.

 

The same people saw me and one more person every week to pick up medicine at the pharmacy so that we were each known by our first names. 

 

Can you say that our lives were predictable and bound by the ways of our world?  

 

Yes, and we loved it! 

 

Did it begin this way? 

 

It did and yet not in this way. 

Chasing your tail may have looked this way instead.

Chasing your tail may have looked this way instead. 

 

Gathering toys from the front room to the kids’ room – twelve times a day, every day, all day long. 

 

Changing clothes after playing in the dirt, water and play dough every day with a grin. 

 

Chasing your tail to get from one event to the next and then making at least one grilled cheese sandwich before the sun goes down. 

 

Perhaps your day is starting to come before your eyes, and it is nothing like what I have in place here. 

 

What is in your vision? 

 

Do you have something you have done every day for so long that you may feel like you are not getting anywhere fast. 

 

Are there times where it is purely exhausting to do the same thing over and over again while feeling like the same outcome is leading you to the same place. 

 

If yes, then let me share what I found a few years ago. 

My tail was always one step ahead.

This realization came after years, decades of watching that my tail was always one step ahead. 

 

One day I paused to watch what I was going through again and again. 

 

Only to realize that the small things I did every day were so very important. 

 

That one other person with on me our daily and weekly to-dos was our son. 

He and I went to the places, and he was the one people knew first and always. 

 

It turned out that chasing your tail was not at all like it appeared in our world.

I was chasing my tail, he was creating relationships.

I realized that as I was chasing my tail, he was creating relationships and finding a way to learn how to let others know what he needed in many ways other than speaking. 

 

Dallin became a pro while never needing to chase one little or big thing. 

He continued to do things longer than others said he could and was always like the bee. 

He became the one who learned how to bounce from the appointments, pharmacies and doctors.

 

Let me tell you what else happened as the same things happened over and over again. 

 

We learned who was where and when they would be there. 

 

Traveling to the same places began to be a way where he could learn language and who he could chat with each time.

 

Using many ways for Dallin to communicate as he chose how to let others know how to help him, 

laugh with him, 

dance with him and 

talk about what he’d like to say next!

right along his side. 

 

There were times when he could do this with a glance from across the room.

Can you do this? 

 

Remember what it was like when you stepped aside from the constant noise of chasing your tail and looked into the eyes of who heard you. 

 

All without saying one word with your mouth. 

 

It is worth it when it happens every time for all of us. 

 

The same was true for Dallin and it did happen for him so many times in multiple ways.

 

When I think about chasing my tail now, I continue to know that those were the days that I loved.

 

Even as I did not know if I was coming or going at times. 

 

That was the good life and I now search for moments to feel that again. 

 

Are there times when you are chasing your tail? 

May you pause and be in the moment before you now, my friends.