mar16

I've been losing weight. Starting to look skeletal again.

Meditated properly for the first time in a few...weeks maybe? Hmm, more than a week at least. It was good to sit in a state of relative emptiness for a bit and watch the stories playing out as stories rather than getting caught up in them. I noticed the moment I shifted to a state of meditation and thought oh - it's been a while. I'd forgotten why it's so valuable. It's hard to say whether I've been so caught up in my stress and stories because I stopped meditating or if I stopped meditating because I was so caught up in my stress and stories. I guess they feed each other.

It occured to me that after all these years of trying to find myself, get healthier and happier and figure out what I'm doing with my life, I'm basically preparing to return to the way I lived before I started all this. Only now with a lot less money, possessions, friends, and bodyfat, and more gray hairs and hopefully a bit more appreciation for life and what I have. It's hard to say - it really depends on the day/moment. I used to express a lot more appreciation for others in a way, but it wasn't really conscious. I didn't really know and appreciate what I had, it was all just there. I still find it difficult to appreciate at times, because I carry so much ambivalence over the suffering that's come with love and relationship in my life. I want to be close and I also want to get away. I want to have and I also want to lose. I want to emerge and I want to disappear. I'm often torn in two like this, so naturally I get nowhere.

There's been a real part of me that's wanted to experience losing everything, and I think I've been unconsciously driving myself towards that. Because I don't want to be afraid of losing and being without anymore. I don't want to depend on anything outside myself to feel okay. I basically want to be as confident and independent as a housecat, who intrinsically know their worth and are taken care of without doing a damn thing to earn it.

In a way, that's how I lived before except I didn't know my worth. I loved people and gave them attention and affection, and in return they took care of me. Life was easy in a way, and I didn't feel I deserved it because I didn't see that I was doing anything to earn how well others were treating me. But like a cat, I was earning it by giving them intangible things. Love, affection, amusement, beauty, companionship, which are often more valuable to people than objects, money or acts of service. But I took all that away, for a couple reasons. Overwhelming mental/emotional pain, a desire to be self-sufficient, independent and free, a desire to know myself beyond my role in the lives of others, a desire to stop performing and pleasing others and be more authentic and free, a need to work out what aspects of my being and behavior were natural and true and which were just conditioned defense mechanisms, and probably more. And in order to move towards all this, I had to stop and withdraw from all of it for a while. But in doing that, I gave up the comfortable life of the housecat and took on the stress of living in the wild with far less protection and support.

Now it's several years later, and I can confidently say that I know myself better. At the same time, there really isn't much to know. I know that I'm highly reflective and sensitive, I know that I really like to sing and dance (but can feel inhibited and awkward doing so in front of others), I know that I like eating and living simply and minimally, I know that I have very eclectic and inconsistent taste in media, I know that I like to meditate and bask in the sun, I know that I like to joke around and laugh more than talking about serious things, I know that I like talking to people who can see where I'm coming from and expand my perspectives, I know that I like to relax and take my sweet time with EVERYTHING, I know that I like clean, tidy and aesthetically-pleasing-in-a-natural-looking-way spaces, I know that I care about the way I look and like looking the way I want, I know that I like having lots of time and space to process and reflect, I know that I like spending time with/around people at least once a day but not for too long, I know that I usually prefer thinking about the intangible and mysterious over the mundane and practical, I know that I like having more than enough money to spend freely and buy whatever I want, I know that I like waking up naturally rather than with an alarm, I know that I can be just as idealistic and optimistic as I can be cynical and pessimistic, I know that I can be rather impressionable and lose myself in others if I'm not spending enough time alone, I know that I tend towards being calm and cool but can sometimes snap and lose my temper if I'm stressed, I know that I need a lot of room to process and be with my feelings or I can start to get overwhelmed by them, I know that I can find a lot of beauty in simplicity and mundanity when I'm feeling peaceful and contented, I know that I don't like to push myself or work hard for too long before returning to a state of relaxation and ease, I know that I like puzzles and games but don't like math...

Okay, the more I thought about it the more that was coming out. But I'll leave it there for now. Anyways, I do know myself a lot more than I used to. But I'm still not really sure what to do with that knowledge. I seem to be very impractically designed in a way. I'm highly capable but struggle to keep up with anything. Eventually I start to feel depressed, overwhelmed and exhausted and want to push everything away so I can rest, recover and be with myself. It's really inconvenient. Right now I'm trying to find a job and almost everything is unappealing, but I'm struggling to get what I really want even though it's so simple and basic and requires very little skill. Everything else just seems unappealing and unsustainable in a way.

Anyways, one day at a time I guess. I feel pretty refreshed today. The morning routine works! Meditation works! Showering and eating breakfast works! Let's keep it up!!