I Am Trying…

It may not look like it, but I am trying to embrace the whole “abandoning hope” as a practice, where it counts, on the inside. I mean, I understand it is freedom of the highest level — intellectually, that is — but unfortunately, no one’s ever achieved any sort of enlightenment by thinking their way really hard into it. I guess there are people who think they’re more enlightened than the rest of us, but really, aren’t they really just more show-offy and generally insufferable about their spirituality?

Lately, in the moments when I’m not being okay with “things as they is,” I’m overwhelmed with the idea that everything is completely pointless and stupid.

Lately, I feel filled with the bile of discontentment, and disappointment, and an ineffable sadness that I just can’t seem to shake.

Lately, I don’t even feel like trying to be likeable.. And it’s not as if I ever made any great efforts to get people to like me (I always figured it didn’t matter anyway, because whether someone likes you isn’t something you have any control over, anyhow). It’s that I just don’t feel like being cheerful and chirpy and optimistic. I feel like my whole approach to life has turned into “Oh yeah? What have you done for me lately?” If the universe tapped me on the shoulder and said “are you Aileen?” I’d turn on it and snarl, “Who wants to know?”

I feel let down because I disregarded what I was sure were the ironclad teachings of so many years of solitude: how to be alone without being lonely, to find joy and solace in my own solitude and quiet places, to recognize those times when I need the wide-open spaces in my soul where my mind can roam, or those quiet dark corners where I can fold up my wings and hibernate and escape into my own mindplace. It’s in the wide-open spaces and the dark corners where my spirit is rejuvenated.

You know how you’re supposed to unplug your cell phone after it’s fully charged, otherwise something happens to the battery and the exact opposite happens and the charge doesn’t last as long? That’s how I feel. Like my battery’s been plugged in too long, and the charge just isn’t holding.

Sitting here the other night, listening to the storm winds moan at five in the morning, it occurred to me that if by unlucky chance Irene had made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane, I would have had to evacuate somewhere, and I would have had to do it on my own. And as scary and as inconvenient as it would have been, I would have figured out a way to get that done, to get me, and my cat, and a few days’ worth of stuff the hell out of Dodge. Because that’s what I’ve taught myself to do — figure out how to get things done, because otherwise they wouldn’t get done. But the other night, while I was fearfully huddled on my big chair listening to that wind, I literally felt paralyzed. Like I wouldn’t know what to do if things got worse, and I’d be one of those unfortunate people with nowhere to go and no one to go to.

Right now I’m kind of stymied because some things are absolutely out of my control and yet they are having a direct impact on my life. I’m sitting in one of life’s waiting rooms, waiting for my name to be called. Me! The one who always strode into a place, flung the door open and bellowed, “I’m here!”, sitting timorously, waiting my turn.

This is the awareness I am trying to bring back to my life right now, that in life, we don’t have control over most things, no matter how much we delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. The really hard part is to face that reality with my head up in calm acceptance, not with my head down in bitter resignation.