My Self as Counterbalance

"Balast" is, to me, one of the most beautiful words in the Romanian language. It doesn't mean much. It means pebble, but only sometimes pebble. It's this tiny, insignificant thing. Or is it?

Other times, "balast" means the weight of water (or sand) used to provide ships with stability. More often in fact than pebble-talk, so I don't know why I did not lead with that. It means counterbalance. It means the essence of this post. We tend to think of ourselves as Number One. In this modern time, in particular. It's the Me Decade, as Tom Wolfe once put it. It has been the Me Decade for several decades now, since Tom Wolfe has long been dead, after all. And for the most part, there has been some good. This isn't to decry or deride selfishness, merely to relieve it.

It gets hella tiring thinking about yourself all the time, doesn't it?

But what if you thought of yourself in relation to someone else? Not as a me-centric obkect in space, but merely as a counter-point to someone or something else already existent in your universe? What if, in taking steps through the world, you stopped thinking in terms of how will this impact me and resonate in my tiny, square-space existence, and instead asked how it will reverberate for somebody else?

You could not exist without other people, at all.

No, scratch that. I realize this would be much better in self-centric phrases, so let's try again, shall we?

I could not exist without other people, at all.

Yet I don't often think about them. I'm too scared they'll overshadow me, that they'll steal my thunder, that I'll become that little ignored kid on the playground again. Or rebecome her. Worse, sometimes I don't think very much about people because I don't want to know how my actions have been shameful.

Yet we live, you and I, in this constant precarious equilibrium. I am able to stand only because you're standing some way away to act as balast. My balance could not exist without you there to counterbalance it. And still, I'm afraid to be grateful to you. I don't want to seem pathetic, and a lot of me worries you'll change your mind.

That you'll step off abruptly, causing me to ricochet into the hardwood floor. My back hurts already, in anticipation. So what do I do? Pretend you're not there. That I don't need you, so you don't know how much I need you.

Another reason why I'm reluctant to acknowledge you is that once I do, there's no going back. You can't begin learning the steps only to unlearn them. I can not acknowledge the value of you in my life, the way in which you balance me, without also embracing my responsibilities to you.

To say 'thank you' for giving me stability implies that I'll do the same for you. And am I frightened to do so? And am I old enough to feel such tremendous freedom? In a world where I acknowledge you, my partner, my mirror, I am free to be myself but also freed of my self's weight.

What joy, to be able to move in this world (if even for a little while) not as my own heavy, cumbersome self, but as your counterbalance. An apparatus whose sole intention is to provide your life, your dance with stability.

I realize that sometimes, my purpose is not to pirouette, but to scoot my weight a little more to the right, so that you can pirouette on the left. As paid performer, I learn to be beautiful, sensual, bolt-upright then curve my spine to others' will. It has its own charm, its own power untold. But as part of a performance, I am no longer beautiful. Not just beautiful.

But needed.

I am a stepping stone for others' balance. I am a counterweight to my partner's grace. I am, in your shadow, balast.

That dancing up there is still me, just with Canva to make me interesting.