i will learn this lesson one of these days, i swear.

i don’t know if you remember, but there was an essay that i got an extension on, that was due today. i left it, and left it, and had visitors, and worked, and relaxed, and walked the dog, and went to the gym, and left it. i started working on it a few days ago in earnest, and today i started writing it – and tonight, i stopped.

i could feel my brain turn to muck. all of these wonderful ideas that i’d been immersing myself in (all about how media shapes and is the medium of western culture) and the wonderful words i’d been reading just fled from my finger-tips. and i thought, once again, that i could force myself to do it. i could take a couple hours’ nap, get up, make some coffee, and finish it, as well as another paper, then crash and get up in time to both walk the dog and be ready for an 8 am job interview.
but that would mean burn-out for me, let’s be serious.

being easy on myself, being gentle with myself, is NOT EASY for me. i know, by not writing this paper, that nothing is essentially going to change for me. my g.p.a will not be affected, it’s just a matter of re-couping the lost credits. i am feeling stronger every day…but i want the strength to root deep within me, and burst up from the soil with a strong trunk and glossy leaves – and not be vulnerable to every little breeze or raindrop.
i’m feeling little trembles of guilt, and anger with myself. a while ago i mentioned that next semester would be my last, and i wonder if my constant self-sabotaging is so that i can stay where i’m comfortable, in my 10-year-long rut of being an undergraduate. i was just thinking today about how i will soon be moving into unknown territory – and i think i got subconsciously spooked.

i’m letting this go. i just felt my jaw tighten and my gut heave when i felt/wrote that.
i know that i am tough, and i believe in my ability to do things – i don’t think that this particular ‘struggle’ touches that, at all. i think, though, that the universe is gently telling me that while i recognize the lesson that needs to be learned, i am not prepared to learn it yet. i am almost there, but not quite.
how difficult that is for my ego to swallow!

i need to learn to truly REST, and not feel guilt, or the pressure to be ‘over and done with resting’. i need to learn how to be, and stay, organized. (my desk is currently covered with books, food wrappers, bowls, papers, cd covers, a bag of beef bones, a banana peel, pliers, a tarot card, a jar of honey and a salt lamp, justto give you an idea of my current disorganization.) i need, as i’ve been speaking about for a while, a healthful discipline.
i need to truly “clean up” before i can continue. otherwise i’m just going to keep running into the same wall.

the thought occurs to me that this space here has been mostly memes for a while, but i haven’t actually shown up.
i have been slowly catching up on my sleep. i walk my dog, and go to work on the weekends. i’ve been reading a lot of pema chodron, that sassy buddhist grandma i keep talking about.
currently, i’m reading start where you are. what gets me about her teaching is that it is challenging for me to deal with. SO MANY times i find myself nodding and laughing along with her insights, and then she’ll say something particularly tough for me and i have to sit with it. that’s kind of how i know i have to be reading this.
one of the concepts i had a hard time wrapping my mind around is the ‘no escape, no problem’ idea she talks about. the idea behind that, and much of her teaching, is that there is no ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ evaluations to events. if something uncomfortable happens, you’re supposed to stay with that discomfort – not try and pacify it, and not try and beat yourself up for having a “negative” response. you are just supposed to live with, and in, the energy of that emotion, without attaching a storyline to it.

YEEEAAAAARGH.

she also suggests that we get used to the idea that life and everything involved in life is always changing, always always, so stop expecting things to slow down, or get calm.

again, with the YEEEEEAAAAARGH.

it’s an interesting practice, though, truly. i haven’t had time to meditate in months (are you CRAZY?) so i tend to think deeply in transit – literally – and i’ve been getting myself accustomed to those ideas. having security in my life is a big thing for me, and to let go of it will be hard. is hard. for the past week, i have been a bit melancholy over the break-up, and thinking to myself that i wanted to ask him to go out with me again, except that i knew he would say no. and then i thought, (or, to be accurate, am in the process of thinking) about how different we are, and how we probably aren’t ‘right’ for each other, and how my wanting to be with him again is just because i am uncomfortable with being in this place.
this place being where i am still in love with someone who doesn’t love me in the same way back. he respects me, and loves me, and we are each other’s best friend, but for him, there is something missing. and that is not a judgment on ME (sometimes, i think it is) but it just…is.

so beyond buddhism and the ex-boy, there is strength. i have been feeling really stable lately. i have been drinking more water and cooking for myself, (a vast improvement)…and just taking it a day at a time.