born to run
I think things are going in the right direction. I mean, some of my hard work and sacrifices are looking to pay me back. There is hope on the horizon and love and opportunity. I still have my health and my sanity.
But I find still that I am tortured inside. I am chased by a feeling of emptiness and numbness. I find it hard to extract meaning from anything. I cannot easily imagine myself doing something I love and finding joy in that. It all feels separate from me, from my present experience. I am unhappy with some of the ways this is working together.
First, it is my work. I feel pretty burned out about the whole thing. Meanwhile, I am studying and discovering new ways to work and be present with patients, but this does not seem to be generating any joy or lightness or even satisfaction inside. It doesn't make good sense to me.
Also, I am not being paid enough to live in this city. This could be the undermining factor behind the joylessness.
I've made effort, heroic effort to be paid a living wage and it has become clear within the past several weeks that that will not be a possibility in this particular situation.
What this situation will provide is maybe a bigger prize than a living wage. Freedom. And this is the reason I keep showing up.
Hmm.
Separation has seeped into my blood. Separation from warm animals, including humans. The many faces I see every day are trained like zombies to an invisible nothing ahead of their eyes. Occasionally someone smiles, clearly from a low socio-economic class, as these are the only ones free to do so.
I don't know the rules to this insane game and I don't really want to, even if it might serve me somehow.
Separation from my family has become my reality. The quiet pain of that is part of my cellular structure. The separation of my old friends would be painful if I could bring myself to admit that it is over.
Yesterday I thought maybe I am the weird one trying to keep up connection with people I may only see once a year just because we shared something like unconditional love years ago. I want to keep all the past love in the present, I want to carry it all like Gaia. But this just isn't my choice. And my powerlessness to this would be unacceptable if I had more energy to resist. And that makes me more tired, and more sad that I don't have the energy to resist that decay.
My country. I love it so much. I travelled the place with stars in my eyes and my heart open. My dog and me sleeping in deserts and mountains and appreciating monuments and cities and rivers and oceans and forests. Often no one came with me. But even when they did, it was my relationship to the place that I was growing.
The dirty mess it's in is painful for me. I am asked about it nearly once a week and I am tired of talking about it's dysfunction. It is with heaviest heart that I leave it behind me. I have been so curious as to the conditions which drove my ancestors out of their homelands to cross the ocean....because it feels so close to my heart. What is it that makes some of us cut ourselves off at the roots and try to transplant on a far shore? And what bruises do we carry? And do they heal?
And love. Separation from the closeness of physical space with the one I love. This is a difficult and confronting path. If I imagined myself independent before, this shows up the places I am weak. I find, finally, that I love through my breath and through my skin and our breath and our skin is so far apart.
And so he is the ocean, and he is the forest and he is the kookaburra and the rain. And this is the only way our breath is shared and our skin can touch.
Which is a deepening, through personal love, of relationship to the whole. Which, if I am honest, is exactly the sort of love I have wanted all along.
I just finished my first run in a while, and my relationship to my feet is a joy which needs more frequent exploring, as it links directly to the heart.
ahhhhhhhh.
In spite of it all, because of it all, I am grateful. So grateful for the fortune to make such choices as I am making.
Thank you Jesus.
Thank you Sophia.
But I find still that I am tortured inside. I am chased by a feeling of emptiness and numbness. I find it hard to extract meaning from anything. I cannot easily imagine myself doing something I love and finding joy in that. It all feels separate from me, from my present experience. I am unhappy with some of the ways this is working together.
First, it is my work. I feel pretty burned out about the whole thing. Meanwhile, I am studying and discovering new ways to work and be present with patients, but this does not seem to be generating any joy or lightness or even satisfaction inside. It doesn't make good sense to me.
Also, I am not being paid enough to live in this city. This could be the undermining factor behind the joylessness.
I've made effort, heroic effort to be paid a living wage and it has become clear within the past several weeks that that will not be a possibility in this particular situation.
What this situation will provide is maybe a bigger prize than a living wage. Freedom. And this is the reason I keep showing up.
Hmm.
Separation has seeped into my blood. Separation from warm animals, including humans. The many faces I see every day are trained like zombies to an invisible nothing ahead of their eyes. Occasionally someone smiles, clearly from a low socio-economic class, as these are the only ones free to do so.
I don't know the rules to this insane game and I don't really want to, even if it might serve me somehow.
Separation from my family has become my reality. The quiet pain of that is part of my cellular structure. The separation of my old friends would be painful if I could bring myself to admit that it is over.
Yesterday I thought maybe I am the weird one trying to keep up connection with people I may only see once a year just because we shared something like unconditional love years ago. I want to keep all the past love in the present, I want to carry it all like Gaia. But this just isn't my choice. And my powerlessness to this would be unacceptable if I had more energy to resist. And that makes me more tired, and more sad that I don't have the energy to resist that decay.
My country. I love it so much. I travelled the place with stars in my eyes and my heart open. My dog and me sleeping in deserts and mountains and appreciating monuments and cities and rivers and oceans and forests. Often no one came with me. But even when they did, it was my relationship to the place that I was growing.
The dirty mess it's in is painful for me. I am asked about it nearly once a week and I am tired of talking about it's dysfunction. It is with heaviest heart that I leave it behind me. I have been so curious as to the conditions which drove my ancestors out of their homelands to cross the ocean....because it feels so close to my heart. What is it that makes some of us cut ourselves off at the roots and try to transplant on a far shore? And what bruises do we carry? And do they heal?
And love. Separation from the closeness of physical space with the one I love. This is a difficult and confronting path. If I imagined myself independent before, this shows up the places I am weak. I find, finally, that I love through my breath and through my skin and our breath and our skin is so far apart.
And so he is the ocean, and he is the forest and he is the kookaburra and the rain. And this is the only way our breath is shared and our skin can touch.
Which is a deepening, through personal love, of relationship to the whole. Which, if I am honest, is exactly the sort of love I have wanted all along.
I just finished my first run in a while, and my relationship to my feet is a joy which needs more frequent exploring, as it links directly to the heart.
ahhhhhhhh.
In spite of it all, because of it all, I am grateful. So grateful for the fortune to make such choices as I am making.
Thank you Jesus.
Thank you Sophia.
posted by hymenoptera's honey at 1:10 AM
0 comments
