I have been crazy as of late (like this is anything new), lit from the inside with attachment and fear, purely hanging on to not only what was but what has always been. This is who I am. This is my crazy, my neurosis, what makes me beautiful and compassionate. My desire for love and the like is what gives me the ability to love as I do, unconditionally and kindly, to love with a passion beyond measure. I’ve been told to change, to let go of who I am and move on to be someone I am not. I do not know how to do this. Even my desire to relive a time that no longer exists, how painful it is at times, helps me realize how amazing all experiences are. Even when I choose not to cast people out of my life that have hurt me or used me in some manor, it gives me the ability to forgive and not judge. My life is not my life, it is to be shared with all who wish to be a part of it, good, bad or indifferent.
I get so lost in the mindset that there is a good and a bad, when all there really is are experiences to be had. I get so down on myself for feeling the way I do instead of accepting it for what it is at that present moment in time. I forget that feelings change, by the day or week or hour and even minute by minute. My thoughts and feelings are not that of stagnant water but of a river, constantly moving, constantly changing shape. How I bend with the river is where my happiness lies, striving to be the reed and not the stick. I can be sad and despondent over life and still find the beauty in it, still find some gratitude in it if I choose to sit with the experiences, unattached and uncommitted to them. Look beyond I and see that there is more.
I get so entrenched in my life, thinking every moment is the last one I will ever have or be a part of. I fear pain like the plague yet seem to be in it quite often, more often than joy at times it seems. I’ve the memory of a goldfish and box my life in like the tank the fish lives in. The parameters I set for what is acceptable and not acceptable is quite comical. How come negative experiences are not acceptable and only positive ones are? Isn’t it in the avoidance of negative feelings that one seems to increase them by constantly running from them.
I’ve sat with a broken heart for 30+ days now, bewildered by it. How can something so passionate and phenomenal end so quickly and all of it swallowed up into nothingness. It’s like I want to know how, so when I have the opportunity again to fall in love, that I will know better what to do and how to stop it from ending. And in that alone I find falsities. Everything has a beginning and an end; I should not try and fool myself to this. We are all dying so get ok with death, that is the reality, we do not live forever. There is nothing I can do to stop life from happening, it will proceed as it should and I will either accept it or not, I will either live in equanimity or dukkha. I’ve accepted the heartbreak, I chose not to gravel or bargain, but I have sat with it, sat with the feelings. I sat in meditation with them, rode with them, painted with them, lived with them. Unavoiding them.
My desire is not to move on and forget it ever happened, to not feel the feelings and get into something different to avoid the thoughts. Acting as such will just attach me to the past and the feelings, it will give them the ability to haunt me if I do not sit with them, for as long as it takes. I’ve been called the fool over this, a simp, a sap, that I’m torturing my self to sit with it all and that is ok, maybe that’s true. Maybe sitting with them to get over them is not the purpose, maybe sitting with them is the way to build compassion for all that suffer in similar fashion. Maybe it’s to find forgiveness of my self for being so upset that I’ve been hurt so dearly, maybe it’s to have compassion for her, cuz I could hear in her voice, between the sobs, how hard it was too say goodbye, how painful it was for her.
And then a call came in yesterday around 2pm. I was standing in the driveway of a client’s house talking to my 2 employees. Neither one acknowledging the other cuz they have not grown enough in some areas to be tolerant and without ego. I was talking of next week’s work and how I will not be in town, I’ve some stuff to tend to in LA and I also really just want to get away some. My phone rang while I was in mid-sentence and it was my landlord/close friend. I looked to them and said, “It’s Jesse, he’s probly going to evict me”. I was joking and answered the phone.
“What’s up man, is it bad news? You need me to move out huh, your evicting me huh”
We both laughed.
I told him of the mutual clients house I was standing in front of.
I ask him again “What’s up, everything good”
He normally doesn’t call unless there is something important he needs to tell me.
He says, “Hey I need you to move out” and we both start cracking up, we joke all the time.
He says, “I’m serious though, we are selling our house and moving into the apartment”.
Now how crazy is that, I fuck’n called it. Like creepy right. He felt horrible asking me to leave and I had empathy for him, that’s a tough call to make to a close friend. I told him not to fret none, he owned the place and he had to take care of him and his family. We got off the phone and I looked to the guys and told them he asked me to move out. We all started laughing. I mean really it was crazy to call that one, but like when Tia broke it off with me, I knew it was coming. I could feel it. I think we can all feel stuff coming if we are in tune to the world around us, although this one with moving out, I’ve no idea how I called that.
So yeah, I’ve 40ish days to be out, luckily I’ve already downsized my material life and packed away most things in preparation for that trip that got postponed due to a pandemic/kidney stone/blown engine/business obligations and so on. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the last 7 months. Do you ever try and sit back and look at your life, get out of it emotionally and watch it, see it for what it is and where its going. The choices you are making and the way you are dealing with situations. Do you ever look at it from another person’s point of view and try to really see it. I am sitting back and looking at mine right now, trying not make a decision and just sit and watch. Trying to wrap my head around 2020, this last 7 months, this last few years, wondering if it’s all accumulating into one point, a destiny of sorts.
Some say we continue to relearn lesions when we don't learn them the first, second, third or tenth time through. Some say that our lives are written in the stars, on a path that has meaning and purpose and there is no coincidence. What if it was all true, what if the heartbreak was teaching me something, what if the removal of my security is giving me something. What if this anxiety that has been throttling me is pushing me and what if my daughter moving to LA next month and being my last commitment to SLO has corresponded with everything else that is happening in my life right now. What if I just stopped and watched my life for a little bit, without fear, without attachment, would I gain clarity over everything that has transpired? Our perception is either faith based or fear based and both have validity in our lives.
I could take the trip now, all the kinks worked out in my life. Questions answered, obligations fulfilled, engines replaced, 30 day kidney stone passed. I could sell the van and go buy a house, never to be asked to move again. I could keep standing in this spot waiting to see if a love comes to find me. At 46 all this seems so scary; I feel so old to be here. This is where young people find themselves. At 46 I should be well established and secure and in a relationship, growing older and getting ready for AARP discounts. Playing fetch with the dog on the grass I just mowed waiting for my wife to get ready so we can hit Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond. But that is not where I am at nor where I am supposed to be, being that I am here, like a sheet on a clothesline blowing in the wind.
So there it is. Last month I caught a heart break, this month I’m asked to move out and next month Delaiah is moving to LA. As much upheaval is abound, I am truly grateful for all the experiences. For the time I’ve been given to live here, for the way she kissed me, for being able to watch my daughter follow her dreams, for the feelings – for all the feelings. I can’t say there isn’t one experience in my life that I cannot find a reason to be grateful for. I would like to say I don’t know what to do from here, but I know what to do, I’ve always intuitively known what to do.
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