Freuden

The spring weather has been agreeing with me lately.  I derive no end of pleasure in fresh, breezy warmth cosseting my skin.  My bones have felt cold for far too long, and not simply because of winter's unpleasant lingering.

Our cats are enjoying the weather, too.  On any given sunny day, I can find Tabby parked in a spot of sunlight in the kitchen, even if that means lying on the tile floor when her soft fleece bed is a foot away in the shade, or in the square left on the attic carpet from the skylight.  Likewise for Calico; Little Thief is too busy zooming around and being irritating to snooze in one spot for long.

I've been quite sure since at least my undergraduate years that I suffer from some degree of Seasonal Affective Disorder, owing to my restlessness and depression in struggling through the endless Massachusetts winters.  The sunlight, I know, is doing me good.  On Monday I sat on the porch for awhile, my nose stuck in my latest pleasure read, John Adams, and the experience was exceedingly pleasant.  Even the enormous and terrifying bee-like objects hovering around in the bushes in front of me seemed content to leave me be.

I hope to get myself outdoors more often now, although I am not entirely sure what to do with myself.  I don't really have a partner anymore who is willing to go for impromptu walks, or to a park.  This saddens me, but I suppose I must shift my ways and expectations.  Despite a nagging, years-old knee injury, I hope to run again to a limited degree soon, and have been doggedly working out in pursuit of substantially strengthening my legs so that my muscles can stabilize the knee joint.  I do love running, and through everything I have experienced, I consider its absence from my life to be one of the greatest losses I have endured in the past several years.

I have been staying busy in other ways, as I strive to pick up the pieces K left behind in his hasty departure.  I finished John Adams just this morning, all (large-type) 989 pages of it, and found it more inspiring than I would have assumed.  I feel I know the man intimately now -- a testament, certainly, to author David McCollough's talents.  It was only through my trip with K to Colonial Williamsburg last September, and the readings and research I have done in the time since, that I have realized the extent to which learning about and experiencing American history brings me joy.  I dusted my sister's copy of 1776 in about four days over spring break, completely enthralled by it, and that, of course was highly useful to me, distracting me as it did from my recent breakup and crushing loneliness.  I am all the more determined to move to Virginia someday, both to have a better quality of life and so that I may live closer to such important sites of American colonial history.  I can only imagine the rapturous pleasure of living within two hours of Williamsburg, Monticello, Jamestown, and Washington, D.C., among many other places.

As mentioned, I have been working out with wonderful regularity, and with the most determination I have had since before what I have now come to call "the horrible."  My arms are quite toned now, and one workout in particular that I have been dutifully working on for some months is slowly becoming easier.  I also have been eating very healthfully lately, which, of course, has much longer-term, less-noticeable benefits to me, but that I know very well is benefiting me nevertheless.  It is good to feel that, at least in this one aspect of my life, I am making progress and moving forward.  (I suppose I am in school, too; I continue to pull down excellent grades and am nearly completed with my first semester.)

I also have been giving consideration lately to the aftermaths of K and RJ, and how very different my experiences were.  With RJ, I did not so much allow myself to give in to hatred of him but, in fact, wholeheartedly embraced it.  Revenge fantasies dominated my thoughts for far longer than I care to admit, and it took me a very, very, very long time -- indeed, until the end of my relationship with K -- to just legitimately stop caring about anything to do with him.  Of course, my experiences with K were infinitely more positive and affirming, whereas those with RJ were destructive and toxic, so it is natural that the aftermaths would be different.  But I believe very strongly that a large part of the difference in my feelings after all was said and done with both can be explained by the different alignments of my attitude with either.

I have discussed several times here how I cannot and refuse to hate K, despite some legitimate grievances I have with the way he handled things before, during, and after the breakup.  "K is K," I remind myself when he has again disappointed or hurt me, "this is the way he is."  And, with those flaws, he is still someone I really care about and wish well.  I don't believe he is any less or less worthy of a person for his flaws than I am, and there are still many traits of his for which I have great admiration and respect.

In the midst of pain stemming from his words and actions, I have found it beneficial, in a very real way, to redirect those thoughts and instead imagine his face, his gentle mannerisms, the graceful strength of his being.  I cannot help but think tenderly upon him when such images hold court in my mind; feelings of resentment and pride melt away.  It is simply impossible to underscore how significant a development this is, when my modus operandi for the past decade and more has been to lash out in anger when experiencing pain, both, I suppose, as self-defense, to hide my vulnerability, and to strike down the source of my hurt so that they might know my nightmare, as well.

The path of my recovery remains littered with significant obstacles, and so very often I must backtrack, or take the long way around, in order to move forward.  This is a process, swelling with grief, that I would wish upon no one.  But still, I can take a small comfort from the knowledge that I am doing as I ought, that my thought patterns are serving me (and, by extension, K) well instead of poisoning me with impotent hatred.  I have changed so much since my time with RJ, and thankfully so.  I do not ever want to feel such rage against another person again.

My day-to-day existence is soaked with sadness, still, as I mourn what I've lost both in past and future.  But I am trying as hard as I can to find the small joys that exist all around me, even such simple things as boughs everywhere springing into verdancy, a classmate making me laugh, a solid and steady Tree Pose, a good book.

I do not yet know how much longer I will voluntarily stay here, but I do know that, for right now, I am managing.

Gestures

In bed this morning, I rolled over as usual to see what e-mails had arrived for me overnight.  There were the commonplace ones -- ads from Athleta, my Google Calendar updates for the day, more annoying announcements from school.  There was a short but polite one from K, responding to my random e-mail the previous evening, in which I thanked him for the cables he'd bought me some time ago that I only last night got hooked up at long last to pipe picture and sound from my Mac to my TV.  (I christened this new functionality with the iTunes visualizer and my #1 most-played song of all time, VNV Nation's Saviour [Vox], then settled in for an episode of American Experience about FDR.)

And then there was an e-mail alerting me to a comment in need of moderation.  A comment on this blog!

It is the first comment I've ever received.  When I read it, tears sprang to my eyes.  It felt like a tiny pinprick of light had forced its way through the heavy armor of melancholy cloaking my heart.  The unexpectedness of it made it all the more touching.  May it serve as a reminder to me always that even the smallest of gestures can have a profound effect on someone's life.  In a world that, to me, seems filled with hostility and pain, a humble effort can have far-reaching consequences.

How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

--William Shakespeare

Mortality

It's been difficult to keep up with my meditation.  Time runs away from me and I soon find that it is very late and well past time for me to go to sleep, so I don't do it.  Or I am too angry, or depressed, to make the effort.  Or the noise level in my house is such that concentration will be impossible.

None of these are good excuses, though.  Not really.  Meditating will help me slow my mind in preparation for bed.  One of the times it is most critical for me to meditate is when I am upset.  And as for noise, there is nothing I can do about it without poisoning the atmosphere within my family, and so it will be a practice in placid acceptance of that which is beyond my control -- an important lesson, to be sure.

Last night I was, as I often am these days, feeling frustrated and angry as night approached.  It was also past my bedtime, but I resolved to meditate anyway.  I tried again a "focus" that I have used a couple of other times in the past: I concentrated on exhaling "darkness," imagining air stained black with anger and pain coming rushing out of my nostrils and then dissipating to harmless nothingness, allowing me to breathe in air that was refreshing, cleansing, and pure.  In order to properly capture the mental image, this focus requires me to exhale much more strongly than usual, which isn't in and of itself very relaxing.  However, for a number of the exhalations (but not all), I could feel the darkness binding my heart and clogging my chest lifting somewhat, dislodged by the force of my determination.

At the end of my meditation, my mood was improved a bit.  It is worthwhile, then.

Also at the end of my meditation, with head bowed and hands in prayer position at my chest as usual, I endeavored to forgive myself for my foibles.  I think I am harder on myself than anyone in the world could even dream of being, and I no longer wish to see myself that way.  I have my moments and my flaws, but I am unique, loving, and possessing a beautiful spirit.  It was to that spirit that I dedicated my practice last night, and will dedicate my practices in the days to come.

Reading of Elizabeth Edwards' death today has led me to think about that which nearly all of us assiduously ignore: our own mortality.  I wonder if I will be similarly afflicted someday; I do have a very strong history of cancer in my family, unfortunately.  Even before her passing, due to my generalized fear of losing those whom I love, I had been thinking in recent days about the degree to which my life would change if, say, I lost K.  I can only begin to imagine the devastation such an event would create.

To that end, I am grateful today for each moment I am able to spend in the company of my loved ones.  What I have today may be gone tomorrow, so it is imperative that I live with love and appreciation.

Hold on, hold on -- hold on to what you've got.
"Lean On Sheena," by The Bouncing Souls

Namaste.

Retreat

The past couple of days have been of the variety that test the project I have set out before myself, the project that is reflected by this blog.  I find that I am harboring an absolutely enormous amount of fury at most of my family members, and things with K took a turn for the worse last night, as well.  I continue to be hurt by his words and behaviors, and preventing that hurt from being translated into the anger I usually wear as a suit of armor to hide my vulnerabilities has been a tremendous challenge.  I'm still not sure I'm being terribly successful at it.  I did try, though; last night, after not speaking to him for several hours, I called to wish him good night and tell him that I loved him, even though I was still very angry and upset with him.  I decided I wanted a few days apart from him and told him this.

It hasn't been easy, at all.  My first impulse is always, always, to say something, anything.  But the more I think about the situation with him, the more I realize that I still am not at a place of tranquility regarding what's happened, and if I spoke to him now, I would likely lash out in anger and say things I would regret.  No, I think I need this time away from him to retreat into myself and think about things, and hopefully allow the knowledge of who he is and what he means to me to steep in my heart, strengthening it and enabling it to resist the hurt feelings that currently reign.

I'm going to try some gentle yoga tonight and any moment this week I have a chance, and my aim is for my meditations to bring me a measure of peace that is absent amid the chaos.  Chaos is how my brain felt last night as I attempted to meditate.  I did not fully define my intention beforehand, which did not help matters, and I was so frustrated, angry, and upset that focusing my attention even temporarily was quite difficult.  That span of six minutes, though, is what enabled me to see clearly long enough to decide to call K and tell him I loved him, even in the midst of this miniature tempest.  So it did accomplish something, disordered though it felt.

My goal for tonight's meditation is to further lift the clouds, even if only slightly, and to provide the nurturing, caring, and acceptance I crave that I currently am not receiving from other people.  I can't rely on everyone else, after all; the buck stops here.  I will need to do some thinking between now and bedtime to decide how best to achieve my aims.

It's tough to think of things like gratitude when I am so upset, but I am never without blessings, and so today I am grateful for the wisdom I have attained over the years, from myself, from others, from hard-won lessons, that have allowed me to grow and develop as a person.  For however much I sometimes handle things poorly now, ten years ago, things would have been so much worse.  Additionally, I now have the insight that I lacked in times past to observe, (usually) clear-eyed, my behaviors, their patterns, and what those patterns might mean.  Awareness of the ruts I continually fall into is the first step in my addressing and overcoming them.

Namaste.

Sharing

It was a weekend of roller coaster emotions, many tears and still more words, and a great deal of thought about my relationship with my boyfriend.  I have had four relationships prior to this one with K as well as emotional involvements with a couple of others; my dating life now spans ten years.  Each time K and I encounter a snag in this yarn we are so carefully spinning together, one part of me always sits back and silently observes my behavior and reactions to whatever situation is causing me anger, or sadness, or frustration.

None of this is easy, of course, but in light of the things I have been through in other relationships, particularly my last one, I find I am coping very well with things now.  I am proud of the great strides I've made in responding to difficulties proportionally, fighting fairly, expressing myself honestly, and, most of all, not missing the forest for the trees.  It's so easy to get caught up in those individual trees, and the overall message of the relationship -- that you love and respect each other -- is lost.

It was with that in mind that I sat down on my horse pillow last night to meditate before going to sleep.  I had a great many things from the past week and the troubles K and I had encountered along the way to which I needed to give some thought, and that did and will require some effort on my part.  But for my meditation practice last night, I returned to the fundamental truth that is always there, no matter how angry or hurt I am: I love this man.  Last night, that is all that mattered.  The sifting and sorting will come when the time is right.

I sat in a cross-legged position as usual, the backs of my hands resting on my knees, each thumb and forefinger pressed together.  I took a few breaths, then began to imagine beautiful golden light coming through my nose and settling around my heart with each inhalation.  My heart was glowing and radiant.  I then imagined K across from me and seated next to my bed as he usually is when he joins me in meditation.  Each exhalation sent a stream of light from my heart to his, bonding us as I gave of myself for this soul who means so much.  As his heart accepted the light from my own, a warm illumination surrounded him, caressing and healing and nourishing him.

For the first minute or two, these images were difficult to sustain, and my mind wandered.  But then it was suddenly easy, and my concentration levels spiked.  I could literally feel a lightness and energy in the left side of my chest: a true testimony to the power of the mind.  When the tiny bell from my phone's meditation app chimed, it actually startled me, for once, so absorbed had I been.  I breathed normally for a short time, transitioning myself back to the world, and it almost seemed like a surprise when I opened my eyes and saw that K was not, in fact, seated across from me.

I hope to try this meditation again when he is in the room with me, meditating also.  I believe that these images will be easier to conjure, and more powerful for his proximity.

Today I am grateful for the two new pairs of glasses I now have, both because I am fortunate enough to be able to afford them, and because they enable me to experience almost-perfect sight, something I have no chance of accomplishing now on my own.  For however terrible my eyes' deficiencies are (and there are many), at least mine are largely correctable.  Other people do not have this luxury.
There is much more besides for which to be grateful, of course, but I simply do not have the time to list everything!  I think it would also get repetitive.  I'll just do my best, here, and focus on what seems to be particularly relevant on any given day.

Namaste.

Thanksgiving

Yesterday was, of course, a national holiday invented for the sole purpose of feeling and/or expressing gratitude for the blessings each one of us has.  Really, I think it's about cultivating an awareness that is always with us, comforting us with the understanding of how truly lucky we are.  Unfortunately, Thanksgiving is now more about a rather stupid and pointless sport, and stuffing oneself to the point of pain.  Mindfulness is kind of a foreign concept in American culture, I'm afraid.

Nevertheless, I did my own part yesterday by thinking -- more than usual -- about the things for which I am grateful.  It helped me to overcome a bit of anger and unhappiness I was feeling about my boyfriend at the time, as we'd had something of a disagreement and had hurt each other's feelings.  I realized that, in spite of how I was feeling towards him, this was a night I did not want to spend apart.  And so he came over to my house to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family, and I am grateful that we were able to spend our first Thanksgiving together, side by side.

I was grateful for the day off of work, grateful for a good workout at the gym, grateful for the delicious homemade food in which I was able to partake, leaving me sated and nourished (but not in pain).

I made time for yoga and meditation that night.  When I meditate, I usually try to think of something before I begin that I will focus on.  Last night, I chose to focus on my personal mantra, which is from the VNV Nation song, "Perpetual," that I mentioned in my last post:

Let there always be never-ending light.

In "Perpetual," Ronan Harris sings, "Let there be, let there always be, never-ending light."  And so, my mantra takes two complete breaths:

Inhale: Focus on my breath

Exhale: "Let there be..."

Inhale: "Let there always be..."

Exhale: "Never-ending light..."

This system gives me abnormally sharp focus.  Ordinarily, even (especially) during meditation, my mind is quite heavily prone to wandering.  But the attention required to perform this particular sequence works well for me, and my mind wandered less than usual.  On my "silent" inhales, I imagined light stretching as far as the eye could see, surrounding my loved ones with warmth and strength.  It is an affirmative, comforting image for me.  There is light everywhere, all around us.  May we always feel it.

Namaste.

Beginnings

I originally registered this blog many months ago because I wished to chronicle my recovery from 2009, which was, to date, the most difficult year of my life.  My existence was measured in minutes or hours for a time, as I struggled to overcome the immense emotional pain of bad memories, or the fear I felt when facing down the bleak hopelessness I believed my future would contain.

To say that I am "all better now" would be far too simplistic, but I am, in fact, light-years ahead of where I was.  And so my plans for what this blog could be have shifted.  Most days are just days to me now, instead of fights for survival.  I constantly endeavor to introduce small but significant and cumulative changes into my life, in order to make it better, in order to make me a better person.  There are countless facets to this process, which I plan to discuss as I go along.  For the time being, for this beginning, I will focus on two pieces: my burgeoning meditation practice, and a gratitude journal.

 The first part will not be particularly earth-shattering to most, especially more seasoned practitioners.  I have been meditating off and on for years but only recently have made a stronger commitment to it.  In the difficult but imperative work of emotional healing I have done over the past year, meditation was a vital aspect.  I saw firsthand the incredible powers it can grant.  It's hard to keep up with at times -- I live in a house with five other people and four animals, making the quiet I need for concentration quite scarce -- but each day, each moment, is an opportunity to try again.  I believe that, in chronicling my efforts, it will provide me motivation to continue.

As for gratitude, what better time to begin such a project than the day before Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday?  I think the world would be a better place if more people expressed gratitude for the blessings they have.  (Expressing appreciation unsurprisingly has been shown to produce numerous health benefits!)  A sense of entitlement, or taking anyone or anything for granted, is poisonous.  This will be an excellent means by which I may keep myself grounded: for all of the things I have been through, I still have so much to be thankful for.  For all of the difficulties I still face, my life is filled with light.

The title and subheading of this blog are among my favorite lines ever written.  They come from the song "Perpetual" by VNV Nation, an EBM/futurepop band that is well-known within the scene for their hauntingly beautiful lyrics and uplifting messages.  Their music has been incredibly inspirational to me and many others.  It is my hope that this blog, though it will probably always have an extremely tiny to non-existent audience, can function in a similar way.  I discovered, in my darkest moments, that sources of light can come from nearly anywhere.

Today I am grateful for my sister, "the Artist," who held my torch aloft for awhile when I was unable to do so myself, and my boyfriend, K, who has done more than any single person I know to restore my faith in humanity.