Are We Dreaming There Are Better Days To Come?

I began this blog some months ago in order to chronicle my recovery efforts from an emotionally abusive relationship.  I started it a bit too late, however; most of my recovery had already been completed.  I was happily in a relationship.  I began grad school.  My life, in many ways, was upended, but in ways that I was largely able to foresee, in ways that I welcomed.  I navigated those new waters as best as I could.  I felt that I was doing well, and this blog, suddenly, seemed irrelevant.  I stopped posting.

One week ago, K broke up with me.  He told me he had fallen out of love with me.  We had had our issues, as any couple does, but what I felt were simply bumps in the road, he felt very deeply.  I did not know how bad things had become until late February.  K is not one to make known his grievances, and so I had no opportunity to redress many of them.  He told me that he was thinking about breaking up with me.  I managed to convince him not to do so, and we continued on uneasily for another month, with me on my best behavior.  In late March, he actually did try to break up with me, but again I convinced him not to do so.  Last week, he did it for good, holding fast to what he believed was best for both of us, and I have not heard from him since then.

To describe this place I have inhabited for the last seven days as agony would be to vastly understate the matter.  It seems that the tears do not stop flowing.  I have had panic attacks, been unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to function.  My hip bones are jutting out.  This is pain of a magnitude I never thought it was possible to experience.  When I lost RJ, as painful as that was, I knew that I was, in actuality, ridding myself of a boy who was selfish, immature, cruel, uninteresting, and most of all, not worthy of me.  None of these things apply to K.  This is an actual loss, a loss causing me so much grief and pain that I feel sometimes like I have forgotten how to live.  K was quiet, tender, caring.  Intelligent, talented, perpetually fascinating, and worthy of a respect I do not give many.  Handsome, fit, strong enough to defend me from harm, but gentle enough to wrap me in his arms.  He almost single-handedly restored my faith in humanity, and in love.  This was not only one of the few souls on Earth I knew I could be with forever, but one of the even fewer that I wanted to be with forever.

All of that is gone now.  It is completely unclear to me if I will ever see or hear from him again.  He knew I was planning my suicide, and yet has not contacted me to see if I am still alive.  It feels like I am being treated as though I was unfaithful, or committed some horribly cruel act.  I made mistakes in our relationship, yes, but they were not large ones.  I do not know what I did wrong except to love someone more fully and wholly than I ever have in my life.

Suddenly, sadly, this blog is relevant again.  I still do not know if I am going to kill myself someday, but I do not want to.  It is not that I want to stop living, it is that I want to stop living with my heart in so much anguish.  And so, though it is early days yet, I find myself turning to those things that somehow, against all odds, carried me through RJ's departure.  I will need them more than ever; this is a far vaster undertaking.  K did not destroy my self and my sense of self-worth as RJ did.  In the ways, unique to him, that he was able, he helped build me up again.  Losing that, and in what still seems to me such an arbitrary way, has of course shaken my foundations.  I wonder many times if I am lovable at all, and what is wrong with me that even a man I gave everything to still rejected me, and why I am so worthless that K has not concerned himself even once with verifying that I am still on this Earth.  All of those things hurt in ways I cannot describe, and no amount of other people telling me how great I am can drown out K's silence.  Maybe he doesn't even platonically care about me anymore; maybe he never loved me at all; maybe he is not the man I thought he was.  But I do not want to believe those things.  I do not want to have my trust in others shattered again.  K's parents raised him and his brothers well.  I never saw evidence that they were the sort of sorry excuses for human beings that RJ was.

Perhaps, right now, K is suffering, too.  Perhaps he has stayed away from me because it is too difficult for him to be around me when he knows I am hurting so badly because of what he's done.  I don't know.  Maybe I never will know.  But I hope that my understanding of him, of a wonderful, smart, handsome, funny, loving, utterly irreplaceable man, will shine brightly always.

With a heart weighed down with darkness, I now must set about picking up the pieces once more.  My life depends on it.

Stillness

Okay, let's just get this out of the way now: I hate winter.  I absolutely cannot stand it.  I've lived in New York all of my life, with a brief stint in Massachusetts for college, so you'd think I would be used to it by now.  Instead, I find I dislike it more every year.  I hate the snow; it looks beautiful for about three minutes and after that is just filthy and in your way.  I hate the static, the dry skin that burns in a different spot with every movement, the chapped and bleeding lips, the itchy sweaters and constricted movement.  But most of all, I hate the cold.  I hate how it causes me to curl into myself, hunching forward, all of the muscles on my back tensed.  It's deeply uncomfortable and exhausting.  I seem to be far more sensitive to lower temperatures than the average person: when other people are comfortable, my teeth are chattering, but when other people are boiling to death, I am quite at peace.  This sensitivity seems to get more and more pronounced as I age.  I'm not sure why this is, but I remember at age 13 or so, I suited up, went outside, and crawled around the backyard for three hours pretending I was a polar bar struggling for survival on the frigid tundra.  I seem to have managed pretty well just then, but maybe that was because, back then, I didn't have "grown-up worries" like shoveling, inclement weather driving, or using personal days in order to stay home from work to be concerned about.

Against all odds, however, recently I have managed to find a redeeming value in winter: the stillness.  Oh, what a beautiful thing it is.  Everything is muffled after a snowfall.  Flora and many fauna are sleeping, tuned in to the earth's gentle cycles.

I began cottoning on to this peaceful and delightful aspect of winter a few years ago, a bit before Christmas.  I was housesitting for my mom while the rest of my family was away vacationing.  I stood at the kitchen sink, washing a few dishes, and admired the merry crowd of birds that had gathered on the other side of the driveway in the snow to feast on the just-filled contents of the four bird feeders.  It was such a joy to watch them as I worked, and I thought to myself how wonderful it would be to have a house somewhere in the woods of New England, to live alone, and walk amid the snowy trees, feeling present and alive.  And so my second novel was born.
I receive various e-mails and publications regarding yoga, meditation, or, more broadly, living an examined and mindful life.  I have noticed, in various places now, articles about the stillness of winter, and what lifestyle changes such a quiet, introspective season is guiding us towards.  I have sought to incorporate these changes into my own lifestyle.  One day, I meditated during daylight for the first time in quite a long while; I opened the blinds on my window to have a good view of the bare branches outside, and let the sun shine warmly on my face.  That was a very special meditation.  I redoubled my efforts to practice yoga more often, as my commitment to it had been flagging as of late.  It is mostly passive, restorative yoga that I practice now.  And, twice, I have utilized new mental imagery during my meditations, to bring my body and mind into balance with the season.
I sit on my pillow as usual, and then imagine a pond.  This pond has frozen over; it is surrounded by freshly fallen snow and tall, shadowed conifers, the entire scene sparkling beneath a full moon.  I think about how silent everything in this scene is, and feel to a very deep part of my being the stillness of the slumbering earth.  I imagine I am at the bottom of that pond (my gently burbling steam vaporizer helps with this), seated in the sand, feeling the minute currents that barely stir my hair.  The fish and other aquatic creatures nearby are all resting quietly along with me.  There is almost no sound to be heard; we, like a bear in her den, are all quiet in body and mind, conserving our energy, awaiting the awakening of spring.
These two mental visions -- of the pond from the surface and then of my vantage point in its depths -- are all deeply relaxing.  It becomes something I can sense and actually feel instead of something I ponder with logic.  This meditation helps me to discover, for myself, what is so special about winter.  Perhaps, with practice, I will come to tolerate or even embrace it, despite the problems it presents.

Namaste.

Temporariness

"This, too, shall pass."

How many times has one of us bristled upon being told this by a well-meaning companion, after we have gone through all the trouble of venting out our anger and frustration?  I know I hate to be told this; it comes across as almost condescending.  However, when tasked with giving advice to someone in some less-than-ideal situation, it's usually the first thing that pops into my head.  In one way or another, I want to tell them, you will not have to deal with this issue anymore.

I have been thinking about this advice with regards to myself lately.  And I think that it is the only thing stopping me thus far from expressing my impotent rage in any means beyond writing or complaining.  Every day, my anger at my family builds.  (The Artist excepted.)  Every day, I have no control over anything they are doing.  Every day, I do have control over how I am responding.

I have my moments.  I just finished sending a profanity-laced tirade to K a short time ago, venting about everything I could think of.  And when the going gets rough, my thoughts usually turn to extreme measures such as postponing grad school so that I can move out and never speak to them again.  Which, of course, when you boil it down, means that I would be deferring an important goal in order to escape a toxic situation.  I shouldn't have to choose between the two; circumstances should not be such that my voice is unheard within my family and my needs and very existence go unrespected.  (Again, the Artist excepted.)  But the fact is, I have lived at home for over a year now.  True, I moved home so as to leave an apartment which was across the street from RJ's apartment, and because the enormous amount of time I spent alone was starting to really mess me up, so I naturally did not expect that my relocation would be a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire."  But I've made it this far, and the end, sort of, is in sight, perhaps within the next year or two.

This, too, shall pass, indeed.  It may take awhile, but it will.  The endless cycle of pain caused by RJ, in which I thought I was caught until the end of my days, did pass.  College, which made me utterly miserable and seemed interminable, did pass.  My heartbreak over losing my best friend in high school due to a falling out, did pass.  My heartbreak over my ex-boyfriend, "the Firefighter," breaking up with me, did pass.  Every horrid thing which I have experienced in my life has passed thus far, or will do so eventually.

It is this knowledge which I must keep in mind as I head home from work tonight, and this knowledge which I must remind myself of as often as is necessary in the year ahead, for I think that will be my greatest challenge heading into 2011: learning to accept how very many things I cannot change, and ceasing my lifelong struggle against them.  Everything will pass, over time -- I will appreciate and remember the good, and let go of the bad.

Wishing everyone a very healthy and happy new year.  Namaste.

2010

In ten days, 2010 will draw to a close.  What a year it has been!  Developments which I could not possibly have foreseen in 2009, much less dared hope for, have come to pass.

As is natural at the end of a calendar year, I have been reflecting upon the events of 2010, and what the changes it wrought have meant to me.

At the most basic level, the passing of 2010 will push 2009 further into my past.  When I refer to the painful events of last year, I will no longer say "last year."  This in and of itself is liberating; I think I may have said "last year" more times in 2010 than I have in the rest of my life combined, in a seemingly endless circle of cross-referencing what has happened now with what happened then.

What happened then is over now, and has been for quite some time.  The life-altering events of last year -- nearly all of them revolving around my ex-boyfriend "RJ" and the dissolution of even the remnants of our friendship -- affect my life in many ways and will continue to do so for quite some time, but with every passing second, the influence of those events diminishes.  Although my path was diverted by the influence of the heartache and depression I experienced, I am forging my own path now, determining its direction independently.

If 2009 was a year of a broken heart, unending darkness, and a near-total loss of hope, 2010 was a year in which dreams were born or realized.  Through utter serendipity and probably the greatest stroke of luck I have ever been bestowed, I met a gentle, loving soul with whom I would be happy to be partnered for the rest of my days.  I also finally began planning a future in a new career; I have been unhappy, underpaid, and underutilized for five years in my current office job, and I at long last found myself ready for a change.  I found out yesterday that I was accepted into my chosen course of study at a local college, and will be pursuing a graduate degree beginning in a bit over a month.

I believe today, more than ever, in the common bit of wisdom about everything happening for a reason.  I believe now that I needed to struggle through 2009 in order to come out the other side, 2010.  I don't think I would have had the strength to initiate such a drastic change in my life at any other time, but now that I have gotten through 2009, I know that I can accomplish almost anything.  I don't think I would have had the maturity and wisdom to tend to my relationship with K as carefully as I have, but now that I have seen how terrible a bad relationship can be, I am able to truly appreciate who K is and what he means to me.

I still don't know what it was that stopped me from carrying out my suicide plans last year.  Fear of inflicting a loss on my mother and sister after we had all already experienced my father's unexpected death?  Wondering who could provide my cat, "Tabby," the same loving care as I could?  Considering the possibility that, perhaps, this too would pass?  It was probably a combination of these things.  And it is an understatement now to say that I'm glad I stuck around to see what the new year would bring.  It has brought healing, accomplishment, love, and hope for the future, things that taste all the sweeter now for how convinced I was that I would never taste them again.

There was always a glimmer of light nearby.  How wonderful that I held on to it in the darkness; how beautifully it shines now.

Namaste.

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.