In a delightful lesson in impermanence, I checked my bank account balance on Tuesday night and discovered that my checking was empty. Poof. In fact it had been overdrawn a couple of times and money had been automatically transferred from the linked savings account to cover the charges. The charges were all on Tuesday, which is interesting because I was at work all day with the card in my wallet. In fact about the only time I use my check card is grocery shopping, and since most of the charges (hundreds of dollars) were at Safeway stores, we're betting that someone on the inside took the number and charged it directly on the machines. Fortunately (a) it's only money, and (b) I get it back.
We had the giant cocktail party tonight at the house--it's 2 AM and the stragglers are hanging out in the kitchen and the comfy room. Good party, although lower turnout than at other times, but I got to talk to a lot of people, which is the point. Set a new record for the highest number of people in one place I've dated or slept with--not that there could possibly be anything nerve-wracking or unpleasant about lovers and ex-girlfriends sitting around talking to each other. That did happen at the most recent Woom, but everything felt pretty pleasant this time around. And despite my selfish decision to keep the dojo separate from the rest of my social life, as a sanctuary of sorts, one of the guys showed up anyway, as the boyfriend of a friend's girlfriend's friend. Small world: he's actually been to the house before, but it's always such a blur of people that neither of us clearly remembered the other.
Some things got resolved tonight: keys returned, boundaries clarified. We're not friends, as such, but civil acquaintances, not seeking out and not avoiding, and remaining in that static pattern. So it's done, and it's time to really let that two years go and learn to carry the memory of it myself. Some good memories, a lot of bad memories, and a seemingly endless series of behaviors vying for the title of "not my proudest moment". I have a quiet hope that she'll leave town, but that seems to be mostly that I don't want the reminder of everything I did to trash any relationship between us. I don't understand it and I'm very afraid of it: why did I build such a magnificent sandcastle just so I could destroy with such slow, vicious force? Even the last time...I wanted everything to be okay, but I was also picking a fight. Why would I do such a thing? Do I normally pick fights? Is it just in relationships?
At the same time as all this, when I'm feeling somewhat broken and confused, I'm not feeling depressed or in despair, because I'm still here in this body, breathing in and out to expand myself out to the edges of my skin, and I am here and it is now and the universe carries on. My existence here is a blip, a momentary manifestation of being; every moment is everything, every action is a sacrament, and the things I feel pass over my like clouds over the sun, and the fact that somebody or another doesn't believe in me doesn't keep it from being true. That I acted without honor is karma that I have only to let go of: I will get no forgiveness from her, probably ever. I have to trust in myself, in my ability to feel and change. I may well be as screwed up as she thinks I am, but she thinks I'll always be like this, and I know she's wrong.
When I have let her go I won't be having this conversation.
The Dharma, incomparably profound and infinitely subtle,It is a great gift to live a lifetime where we realize our ability to look inward at ourselves. It doesn't always feel like it, but it is. Really. Look at the suffering of the unconscious people in the world. Willy Loman kills himself for a reason.
Is rarely encountered, even in millions of ages.
Now we see it, hear it, receive and maintain it,
May we completely realize the Tathagata's true meaning.
It's much easier to feel centered when better rested...