I know that I said that I thought this blog had run its course and that my last post was likely the end of it.  I still kind of think that (except for the last post part).  But things aren’t going very well, and I really need someone to talk to.  I figure the abyss is better than no one, and the abyss is here so…

I went to see a counselor yesterday.  Everything fell apart about two weeks ago.  I curled up on the floor, bawling.  My wife told me to go see a counselor, but of course there was no way I was going to call on my own.  So she called and set up the appointment.  I didn’t really see a counselor yesterday, though, it was just a “screening” to try and figured out what to do next.  Now I have an appointment with an actual counselor, but not until June 30th.  So, now I have to just wait around…They also sent me in to see a psychiatrist, and she put me on some medication.

While I believe that medication may be the right thing to do, it kind of makes me angry that I am there again.  It makes me angry that I have to swallow a few pills each day just to float around what might be considered “normal.”  It makes me feel, like always, that my life is just one big checklist of things that I need to do differently, or that I have to do at all just to be happy.  It seems like some people can just be happy.

My wife and kids were gone for a week until a few days ago.  I actually did surprisingly well while they were gone.  Now that they are home, though, I am having a harder time.  (That is not to say that they cause me to have a hard time…nothing could be further from the truth)  My wife and I got in an argument last night, and I went to bed upset.  I feel like my indecisiveness and busy schedule is just in the way of everyone else’s lives.

Feeling like I am inconveniencing others is probably one of the hardest things for me to deal with, but at the same time, sometimes I just want someone to care for me.  Someone to go out of their way to have to give me attention…I want to be someone’s inconvenience, sometimes.

I love my wife, and I know that she loves me.  I also know that she does go out of her way to try and care for me.  She is just as, if not more, busy as I am, and yet she gets so much accomplished each day.  Me, I just trudge along.

It stopped being a brutally-honest soul-bearing vehicle a long time ago.  It stopped being therapeutic a while ago.  Now it is either a place for me to complain about stuff, or a place to philosophize to a non-existent audience…

Monday was one of the worst days I’ve had in a long time.  I cried a lot.  I felt overwhelmed by a feeling of apathy and frustration.  I felt totally alone.  I have an appointment to meet with a psychologist in a few weeks.  I’ve been doing better since then, though frustration seems like it is my constant companion.

I am thinking that this might be my last post.  I think that this blog has run its course.  I don’t think it is helpful anymore.  I need to communicate with people, not shout into the darkness (and it is pretty dark and lonely around here…)  I need to connect…not wander in circles by myself.

I have decided (I think) that I hate blogging.  I used to think it was kind of fun, but now all it does is make me feel more isolated.

When my wife and were first married, she was really diligent about writing in her journal everyday.  After a while I actually started to get jealous of her journal, because I felt like she would turn to it instead of me.  She wold confide in it before she’d confide in me.  I think that this is what is happening with my blog(s).  I use them as my place to “confide” instead of actually making intimate and meaningful connections with people.

I am not sure what that means as far as the future of this blog, but for now, here is the next chapter from Comfortable with Uncertainty:

“Encountering the Edge.”  The “edge” that Chödrön is talking about here is the edge of “egolessness.”  And what, exactly is that?  Basically “egolessness” is when we are no longer giving in to longing, no longer repressing things, and when we are no longer trying to avoid things.  When we simply allow everything to be, and allow ourselves to be.  There is a peace that we inevitably encounter when we can reach that point.

As far as encountering that edge, Chödrön helps us to see that it is a somewhat uncomfortable place, at first, and we can prepare ourselves, therefore, in meditation.  Meditation is the place where we can practice dealing with that, and where we can actually learn to exist that way.

I had a student come in to my office this morning.  He is an older student, maybe in his 50s or 60s.  Anyway, during yesterday’s class a question came up that no one (including me) knew the answer to.  I gave my best guess (and told them that’s what it was…a guess).  This student who came in today ventured his guess, which was different from mine.  I tried to move forward, though, because I didn’t want the class to get confused and bogged down by the unimportant question that had arisen.  Anyway, this student came in and told that he felt like I had “snubbed” him or that I had shut him down in class.  He said that this wasn’t the first time I he had felt so.

I have had this come up before, but only with a certain colleague (with whom I butt heads all the time.  I try to just stay away from the guy, because try as I might, I can’t seem to keep from “insulting his intelligence…”).  So now I am really concerned and self-concious about how my actions are being perceived.  Am I really such a harsh person?  Am I really so dictatorial and pompous?

I’ll probably be worrying about this for the next few weeks.  I wish that I wouldn’t, but I know that I will.

My wife told me the other day that one of the things she liked about me when we first met was that I seemed like someone who didn’t care what other people thought.  In a large way I don’t, but I also want to be liked.  I almost need to be liked.  Why is everything about me so bloody complicated?!

Today’s lesson revolves round our second slogan: “Of the two witnesses, hold the principe one.”  Basically, what Pema Chödron is getting at here, is that I am the only one who really knows if I am being open to stuff or not.  I am the “principle” witness.  While the feedback and criticisms I might get from others are often valid and useful, it is ultimately me who can tell me how I am reacting to my situation(s).

I don’t really like this.  It feels like this slogan is encouraging me to disconnect from the rest of the world, to trust only myself.  I am disconnected, lonely, and isolated enough as it is.

Some days feel lonelier than others.  Today was kind of a lonelier day.  I don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling kind of “disconnected” all day.  Maybe this lesson is just bad timing…

But, I guess that I am learning that I am still pretty defensive about things.  My principle witness is telling me that I have put up all my shields to protect myself from these “arrows” encountered here.

The title of today’s chapter is “Staying in the Middle.”  I’ve been thinking a lot about the “storyline” I try to live each day.  I am quite constantly concerned about how I appear, not in a superficial, physical way, but in a more “does-this-fit-the-narrative-that-I-want” way.  I try to be a certain type of person, a certain type of man, and so I then have to position myself in certain ways and places that make that goal approachable and apparent.

“Staying in the Middle” is about learning to accept without indulging, and to ignore without repressing.  So much of my time, my effort, my life is spent trying to repress those things that I feel need repressing, while at the same time indulging in those things that I feel need to be present in my life.

I think the idea of not repressing some things kind of frightens me.  Part of me is frightened by the darker sides of my persona, those things that have dragged me down into the utter wastelands of emotion, to the points at which everything feels insurmountable.  Another part, though, is frightened by the enormous potential I might possess.  I have accomplished a lot by simply coasting along.  I think part of me is frightened by what I might actually be able to accomplish with a bit of elbow grease.  Still, though, I have to remind myself that neither of these paths is actually what I am after here.  I am after the middle way, the way that is somewhere between indulgence and repression.

I am also somewhat nervous about abandoning the narrative that has defined me for a long time.  Actually, I am not quite sure exactly what that means…Is my role as a husband and father part of that “narrative?”  What about my status as a musician or professor?

“Egolessness” means that the fixed idea that we have about ourselves as solid and separate from each other  is painfully limiting.”

This idea keeps coming up…the idea that we need to simply allow things to happen, and accept what is in the present.  This idea that the only thing that is actual is the thing that is in the present tense is definitely something I struggle to live.  I lose sleep over future and past events.  I have learned to define myself based almost solely upon past experiences.

My wife and kids left early this morning and won’t be home until tomorrow.  I have been really quite busy the whole time they’ve been gone.  Things definitely feel different when they are gone.  It makes me feel kind of sad because now I really am all alone with no one to talk to.  Everything will be back to normal soon, so I am not worried about it.  Still, it made me realize how isolated much of my life is.

Today’s chapter is titled “Nothing Solid.”  Basically, this chapter is a reinforcement of the idea that we shouldn’t try to avoid unpleasant feelings.  Those places to which we run when we are trying to avoid pain are not real, and don’t really make the pain go away.  The only thing that is “solid” is the present.

I have been trying to be more open about the way I feel, about what I want and need, but I don’t feel like I am getting anywhere with it.  When I was quiet about how I felt, or what I needed, things on the outside flowed smoothly.  Internally, things were difficult, but that was only me.  When I am vocal about things it makes both the outside and the inside tough…

“Turning Arrows into Flowers”

I am not sure why, but this chapter is part of the reason I’ve been neglecting my posts.  Something about it hard for me to convey.  It is simple enough, basically an outline of four obstacles (or maras) that stand between ourselves and enlightenment.  Maybe I feel obligated to go into each mara, maybe I feel compelled to talk, at length, about what each one means for me…

Sorry that things are kind of weird right now.  Perhaps I am just exhausted.

I think that a certain part of me misses being an emotional wreck.  My first few years of college were pretty dark.  I spent a lot of time kind of wallowing in my depression.  But I also found a lot of comfort in the arms and minds of people who I chose to “let in.”  Now, part of my letting them in stemmed from, I think, a desire to wallow further in my depression, to let other people know that how “messed up” I really was, but I think another part of my letting them in came from the other side.  I think some of these friends really, truly cared about me and wanted “in.”  Anyway, part of me misses that feeling of having someone carry you, having someone pull you near them and tell you that everything is going to be okay.

I don’t doubt that my wife loves me.  I don’t doubt that she cares about me and for me.  Part of me, though, connects that feeling of being “loved” with the darkness wherein I lived for those years.  Its almost like I want someone to say “I will wait for you.  I will stand by you, hoping for you.  You are worth me giving up everything else.  I know things aren’t well with you now, but I will wait with you and help you through this because you are worth that wait”  And I think I feel I can’t get that kind of love unless I am broken.

Even right now, trying to work through this makes me kind of teary-eyed and kind of lonely.  I know, know, know that my wife loves me, and that my life is moving in much better directions than it was in 2001.  But, I guess some parts of me aren’t convinced that this is better.

This is a rather scary place to be.

I’ve also been thinking about my sense of accomplishment.  From an objective point of view, my accomplishments probably look quite amazing.  A Master’s degree, a full-time, tenure-track collegiate-level teaching gig, a family with two kids, a home in a highly-desirable part of the world, all before the age of 28…but that is hard for me to recognize.   I think that, as a kid I was almost too gifted.  I raked in extraordinary accolades in almost every endeavor.  Excellence got to be somewhat commonplace.  It soon went uncelebrated, therefore.  I think that this has caused me to downplay almost every accomplishment as not very significant.  I am not sure what more I could do (save finish my stinkin’ dissertation) that would make me feel like I actually have things to feel proud about.