drowsy tedious introspecting

It’s after 2AM and I’m sitting with bad posture and a pained back in front of the computer, staring at empty space, while the Sophie knocks things off the dining room table one by one.  After lying in bed, awake, listening to the Wombat breathe sleepfully, unable to let go of my frustrations or calm the words and images and memories and fears in my head, I quietly retreated from failed attempts at slumber to stare at a blue screen in the dark.

Lying there, it occurred to me how much has changed, for better and worse, over the past few years. Three years ago, I was, for all intents and purposes, completely on my own, kicked out of my home for more than 2 years of my life by someone I had considered a friend for several years, due to legal problems on her part, working an internship that was ending, taking a bar exam I hadn’t had time to study properly for, with only enough money left to pay the first month’s rent of a new place and nominal moving costs. I had no loving, supportive significant other to help me through the trying times, and my family simply said: you’re smart; you’ll figure it out. Directly after moving, my grandfather, whom I barely knew, died, and I had to fly home for a week for funeral things. And yet: I was meditating regularly, going to meditation classes, and had several strong, supportive friendships to see me through everything. I didn’t get sick; I didn’t get hurt, and I always managed to find enough work to get by.

Now, I have a place to live, I have a job, although, still not an appropriate job for someone with my skill set, I have a loving, supportive, if sometimes impatient and cranky, boyfriend, and my family is close by, but I have no strong, supportive friendships, nor do I have a nearby dharma center filled with good-hearted, like-minded people, breathing an air of joyful safety and protection. I’ve gotten migraines with greater frequency, and have gotten terrible, lingering colds twice in the past 6 months, and my body aches more than I ever remember before, getting by on the work I have now is somehow even more challenging.  Granted, many things besides the lack of a sound meditation practice and local sangha have changed, including geography and age and job type, but can’t help but think that the lack of a solid dharma practice is playing a large part in these current ills.

I want to jumpstart the practice, and meant to, but I always let something get in the way. Most recently, it was the boyfriend’s lay-off at the beginning of the year. Then, the air in the house was thick with tension and anxiety, and alone time vanished. Finally he got a job, sort of, and I immediately got a terrible cold, that is only finally now just about gone, and I am no longer an embarrassing mouth-breather. Now, there is a 2 week break between phase 1 of the boyfriend’s new job and phase 2. Alone time has again gone puff. And now loving and supportive but judgmental boyfriend is here blogging away the day, passively resenting me for my poor housekeeping skills and lack of a remotely appropriate job in pay and skill. That I send several applications out a week to no avail in this flailing ailing economy makes no difference to employers or to him, it seems. I have no retreat, or release, or venting space, save for the crazy jumbled mess in my head. My longer-term friends feel abysmally far away, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and physically. That false feeling of separateness is oh so strong.

A few days ago, the wombat out of frustration decided to lecture me on the state of my lack of happiness and motivation in his eyes, as well as my failure to clean while sick and working while he was out of town working his little butt off every day and going out every night. My jerk response vacillated between tearful indignation and quiet anger. Patience at no time kicked in, a painfully glaring indicator of my lack of practice. He wants me to happy, yes, while keeping the house clean and convincing someone to hire me, and casting spells on people here to be my close friends and confidants, and also finding a hobby or activity for me and just me. (That’s admittedly unfairly worded; he does care about me and wants me to have a nice life here and with him. And clearly, I’m having trouble being the first of us to just let it go… every passive-aggressive comment brings the repressed, exasperated anger roaring back to the surface.) I can’t tell him that none of those things will do a damned thing about whether or not I’m happy; they’ll simply make things more comfortable for living a modern American life. Not that that’s a bad or undesirable thing. But on this topic, we don’t quite speak the same language.

The funny thing is, I’m not miserable. I’m frustrated with my lack of a meditation practice, and with certain missing elements in my life, and the former must certainly change immediately, but I can’t help but feel that his accusation of a lack of happiness and motivation on my part is more a reflection of his own lack of happiness and motivation. I’ve tried to talk to him about dharma and have given him books to read, but he’s just not interested, and I know better than to force it. It would certainly be nice if he were at least interested in talking about it, but in a year and a half he’s shown about as much inclination to read about or discuss Buddhism as my cat. (I wish at least someone else in this worn out, run down city wanted to read about it or talk about it though.) It really makes it hard to talk about how to be happy when our beliefs about where to find happiness don’t entirely overlap. Hopefully they will overlap more as time goes on, but I can’t change his mind, only mine. And that’s, of course, a multi-multi-multi-life-long process. It’d be nice to make some gargantuan strides in this particular life, since I’m one of the most fortunate beings in this currently perceived world, even if I don’t often enough remember it.

Well, this self-reflective/self-absorbed trip is now over, with no definite solutions, other than meditating regularly again.

~ by bluedakini on 25 February 2009.