I wrote this post in April 2024, but didn’t publish it. It is a picture of the difficult ‘upside down’ frame of mind I lived in for months. Perhaps in posting, it will be helpful for someone who is there now, who needs to know they are not alone. That there is relief if you just keep breathing. Time will march forward once more, and you can relish your life once again, and even feel comfort and content. – Elizabeth, June 2024.
Right now, I’m in one of those “Men in Black” phases. What I mean by this, is that the world looks so different to me than ever before, that I literally feel like I was thrust into another universe. A world that looks like the old one, but feels like the emotional opposite.
I’m expecting a memory eraser to show up any moment, clearing out recollection of either my former life — or this one — so I can start being useful again. Each day I’m faking ‘normal’ so hard…
A friend of mine recently said to my wild-eyed self that there are all kinds of ‘sloppy copies’ out there of each of us practicing to be the best us’s we can be. And that just now I can see them. Who I am now, she said, is the one who wants to be a masterpiece, because that’s what we all try to do, be perfect. I find her perspective oddly revelatory.
I do see a gazillion “copies” of myself everywhere. It’s as if this entire universe is happening just for me, and all the people I interact with are but parts of myself. All is one, but not in a good way. Everything is collapsing into a single point. And it is scary.
I also find it bull-shitty and terribly daunting to think I could ever become a masterpiece. Like that’s a fool’s wish, and I’m the fool. Yet fools have always been important, in Tarot, Royal Courts, and Shakespeare…
When I practiced bowing like crazy in my Buddhism practice for months on end, I did this with belief that an awakening would lead me to peace of mind. To calmness. To happiness. It has done the opposite. Everything looks bleak and menacing and dark now. Even Tom Hanks seems like a devil (yeah, it’s that bad).
Of course, it’s probably wrong to blame my spiritual practice. But is it? After all, when you earnestly seek light, only to find yourself in a menacing world of dark, isn’t this like the Buddha’s path? When he had that horrible night with the dancers looking like corpses? Take me back to middle-aged, middle-class, working mom, with a 75% nice and ordinary life, half-asleep and fooling myself into feeling like I was good. This awakening thing is NOT for me.
I find it hard to believe now, as I sit at Starbucks, hiding behind my headphones, trying to keep my job intact so my kids will still believe I’m ‘normal’ and can send them to camp, that this could be true. My mistakes, my errors, my arrogance, all my fails are slammed in front of my eyes and ears in the latest song on the speaker, or the stranger who is the walking incarnation of someone I slighted as a child. It’s all right here, and here, and here, and…. time. does. not. move.
I feel/fear I may live forever. I understand why people want to die. Or run away never to be seen again. I am grateful this hell-world is not 100% harsh, but it’s not even 1% happy either. I accept I have one thing: the courage to live. I think I deserve a medal for it. If only I felt I deserved to live. Fortunately, I don’t worry about deserving. Ha!
My friend is right. All I see is all the mistake I’ve ever made, happening in real time with real phenomena like crazy weather, and crazy people, and I can’t possibly judge any of it. But I must be judging them, or I wouldn’t even be noticing this phenomena. Or maybe I’m just “noticing”?
This reckoning is mine. But, I’d like to take a pass.
I can only feel badly, shame and also a stubborn “feck it” as I attempt to fast-forward to launch my new life. But how and when will I know what that new life is? Can it please start NOW?
But life won’t let me start it. It’s April, and I’ve been feeling like this since December. I have to be here, feeling stupid, and frightened and mad and sad, and forgiving of others and just downright perplexed why ANYONE would take on any spiritual path with vigor. I honestly wish I could go back to blissful ignorance. But I can’t. Now I’m in the spiritual mafia: you want to leave, but they just keep pulling you back in.
A path taken is the path you are on. I feel empathy for Jesus and Buddha and all the other seekers who must have hit a place like this. They got past it, it seems. The Wilderness? Near Death? I just want out, except you can’t forget if you’d committed yourself to remembering the journey of your consciousness long ago…
There’s not much more I can say, except I’ll leave this honest breadcrumb here in hopes it finds me in the future, feeling like “me” again and ready to love, and give, and help others some more. The me who can have a normal conversation with my kids. I have zero desire to push or proclaim a religion, or even make my life a masterpiece at this point, but I do want to carry on with every day love and every day enlightenment.
Fast forward to June 2024: yes, I do feel like loving, giving and relating (and creating!) again, in the most exquisitely ordinary way. I feel like myself again, but with a greater sense of acceptance and compassion, which I will cultivate. In a later post, I’ll share what helped me transition from living in what I can only describe as “hell on earth” to living my life, beautiful and imperfect, with freedom and with some purpose again.
