jan9

One of the other tenants died the other day. He was in the basement apartment, we never spoke but I saw him here and there. The landlord told me he turned out to be an alcoholic and addict, and once he moved in I started getting used to seeing ambulances outside for what I'm guessing were overdoses. He was around my age.

It's strange how coldly and quietly it happens from a distance. Seeing the lights of the ambulance outside again, hearing about some ruckus and mess he's been making, and then one day getting a 5 minute call that he died. And that's it, his time is up and he's out of the world for good. A life that started and ended in pain and misery, or at least encountered and was swallowed by it somewhere along the way.

The first person I thought of when I found out was my mom. She's not an alcoholic or drug addict but she's...let's say, an emotionally fragile person. I'd say she's an addict in the more socially acceptable sense of needing to use things, interactions, thought patterns and behaviors to numb out and distract from her thoughts and feelings rather than sincerely and healthily being with, feeling and expressing them. I was her confidant for most of my life, and from a young age she would routinely tell me how she wished she was dead. I still remember the horrible sinking feeling in my stomach and drowning sensation in my body whenever she'd get into that state while I sat there listening and consoling her. Naturally I lived with (and continue to live with) a perpetual lingering fear that someday it really will become too much. For most of my life I was basically her primary source of light, comfort and security.

Recently I've stopped playing that role for various reasons which I believe are ultimately necessary if either/both of us is to start the process of healing and growing from our many cumulative wounds and fears. It's been, overall and in terms of sheer length of time to process and come to terms with, one of the hardest things in my life, and in a sense it's cost me almost everything I once had. I doubt whether I'm doing the right thing all the time. I regularly feel guilt and shame for not being there anymore, and fear of what could happen in my absence. I feel selfish and cruel for choosing to let go and focus my time and energy on myself now, sometimes working at my recovery and growth but often just resting and being alone doing things that seem inconsequential rather than engaging with her and others. But I do understand now that solitude, rest and recreation aren't really luxuries for a whole and healthy life - they're integral. Especially for me right now.

Still, it often doesn't feel right in relation to my "selfless caretaker" programming - the same programming she had which led her to the state and situations she's currently in within her own body/mind/life, which drove her to neglect and abandon her true wants and needs to the extent that she wished she was dead. I lived like that for most of my life too and now I'm doing what I can to escape the same fate, including distancing myself from her and others. Some part of me hopes it'll show her that it's possible to change and learn other ways to live. I hope she'll see and start to feel that it's not a bad thing for her to let go of others, learn to take better care of herself and start exploring what she really wants and needs. That it really is okay. But I don't know if she will. She might just hate me for abandoning her and spiral downwards.

She and others in my life have resisted my detaching for some time, and it was incredibly stressful and hard for me to navigate. I'm often still in a state of internal conflict and uncertainty about it and how to go about things, and I've accumulated plenty of mistakes and regrets along the way. There's been a lot of turmoil and grief involved, and fear of what could happen if I let go and leave others to their own issues and feelings while I focus on my own. Not only for them but also in terms of whether they'll still care about me at all or even continue being kind to me. I used to be the type who was always available to make sure they were okay and felt cared for, partly because I'd worry about what might happen if I wasn't around to keep their feelings, moods and decisions in check. Recently though, my perspective has been changing on that kind of behavior. Recognizing where my fears are stemming from and the codependencies I learned and have been enabling and perpetuating. I want to trust myself, others and Life now. I want to trust that I don't need to be there, that in many cases I'm harming both of us by being there when I don't sincerely want to or have other needs to prioritize, and that I can instead be there for myself and keep my attention on my own unfolding self, process and life without anyone ultimately being the worst for it. Basically that I can be responsible for myself and trust others with the same. As things are I and my life aren't where I want them to be, where they're meant to be in a sense. I barely have the baseline of security and stability established for myself whether internally or externally, let alone the things I truly want and could do in the world. I don't have excess energy or resources to give away to others, I need them for myself and in a sense for more people than just them. If I keep it up I'll continue burning out until one day I'm destroyed, and no one will even see it coming because I always acted stronger and more stable than I really was.

I worry about her, and recently I've started praying for both of us. For her I pray that she be taken care of, and for myself I pray for forgiveness. Usually when I do, I hear a voice immediately speaking back that I am forgiven. I don't know why it comes, I'm not sure if it's emerging from the voice of God/Life/Truth in the mind or the ego letting me off the hook. But it comes, and I'm trying to trust it. So I don't force myself to check in on her and others if it still doesn't feel right to, if it's not coming from the right place and if I don't really feel I can be there in the ways they want me to be. I put my trust in them and in Life to bring them the people and things that are right for them, cry my tears, release my thoughts and fears and continue with my day. I continue to wonder how much of this is avoidance, but even that I ultimately have to trust in the grand scheme.

Recently I've been more open about my internal experiences, and one thing I've noticed is that I'm often framing things in terms of how much better things are than they used to be. And in the deepest sense this is true. I spent the majority of my life hating myself and feeling that life was a burden. I wasn't actively suicidal for most of it but like my mom, I was unhappy and wished I was dead. And now I can honestly say that for the most part, I love myself and I'm happy and grateful to be alive. I still have fears, anxieties and limitations but qualitatively it's nothing like it once was, and I feel incredibly grateful and lucky for that. But sometimes it feels wrong for me to be talking from a place of strength and gratitude the way I sometimes do, partly because I actually have far less than I once did in almost every external sense. My life certainly doesn't look the way most would want for themselves, I don't even have a job right now let alone a stable and fulfilling career/vocation or even much money, and I still have pretty major internal and relational issues that need work. So it feels weird to be talking as if I've overcome things when it's all so unsettled and in many ways unmanifested.

I just feel, overall and most of the time, much better than I once did regardless, even with all the empty spaces and new things I'm uncovering to fear, confront and contend with. For most of my life happiness was just a vague concept. Then one day I was filled with true happiness for the first time, and it came entirely from within. That's the day I really consider the first day of my current life. A living rebirth. I've cried so many tears of gratitude since then, it just wells up inside and overflows like that first time. But it's not necessarily an abiding state. It returns fairly often but just as often I completely lose touch with it and get lost in thoughts and feelings of insufficientness and unsafety.

I've been practicing letting go of my thoughts/agendas and speaking more uncalculatedly from the heart, and I suspect that much of what comes out is just a kind of unloading of experiences that I want to share but haven't. Often what comes out are stories that come across as clarifying or inspiring. I feel conflicted about this, but I also trust that what's coming out isn't really about me. It's just what's needed in the moment for whatever reason, that it's impersonal in a sense. If it happens then I and/or someone else needed to say/hear/witness something in that moment that'll influence the next, even if it's to see that there's a flaw in something I apparently believe. I don't have proof of this and am not even going to try to explain it logically but it seems obvious intuitively when factoring in all the data. So after some reflecting, I let it be. But I do continue to doubt myself and the process. My faith isn't so secure I guess.

Life is so unpredictable, really. It can start to seem predictable at times until one of those days when it just goes off the rails. And you don't see it coming. I may be on the top floor today but for all I know, one day I or someone I love could spiral into the same doom as the basement tenant. I'm grateful to be alive right now but for most of my life I wasn't, and one day that could change again. And for all I really know even the experience of death could be something very different from what it seems to be from the outside for the living. So I guess I don't really know what more to say on it. This body/mind continues to move and words continue to emerge from its mouth and fingertips. To what ends, I can't honestly say.

I want to become stronger. Not just acting or looking stronger on the surface but being it down to my core. I want to be stronger for myself and everyone. I've met so many genuinely beautiful people and it kills me that I can still be so weak and fragile around and towards them, that I can't be stronger with and for them. I want to really be the kind of person some of them see in me. Right now I don't feel worthy of their appreciation. I want to be a stable and reliable person who's worthy of the trust others feel, without being a martyr, caretaker or codependent. Someone who takes care of, honors and enjoys themselves and who can share that with others, whose own spirit strengthens, clarifies and uplifts others. But I still have so many shortcomings, and deep down I still haven't really forgiven myself for the pain I've caused others. In some ways I've been weaker and worse than even the average person, let alone a strong one. So I don't know if it's just another shining compensatory projection or if it's really possible or right for me. Maybe I am meant to be weak.

I guess all I can do is trust the process and that it'll either come to pass or it won't, and that that's what Life really has in store regardless of my thoughts and feelings on the matter. After all, this is just another fleeting moment in the mind of this one little life, which I am grateful for. So thank you anyways.