And that's a wrap on year two

One of these mornings,

Will be the loudest you hear.

You'll write your story on firecracker paper,

And disappear.

The story I heard,

Is that people are bored,

And the measures you take,

To wrestle with your Lord.

All the money you take,

All the memories you spill,

Will He measure your time,

Will He measure your will?

This is about a month late.  I reckoned if I didn't write something down soon it would not be at all, so here it is.

I failed the certification exam.  So I'll be studying a lot over the summer preparing for the next attempt.

I let the last of my clients go this month.  So the past is officially the past.  I struggled with it in the immediate aftermath of telling my clients, their reactions caught me off guard.  But I quickly remembered why I'm making this change and any lingering second thoughts have since dissipated.

I'm taking the gap in employment as an opportunity to do a long road trip across the united states.  Of course that's quite exciting.  I'm especially excited to see old friends on the west coast whom I have not visited with in many years.

Seems like the only drama in my life these days belongs to other people, and my role is to not get caught up in any of it!

Anyhow, since it's right and proper for a bit of looking back in these kinds of things, here's something I wrote in my journal the other day that sums up some important ground for me:

One of the things I discovered in early sobriety is that I didn't have the first clue about handling my emotions, about how to set boundaries and cultivate healthy relationships with other people

I did not self identify as being neurotic and insecure, but eventually I discovered those attributes greatly informed how I interacted with people, how my overwhelming need for validation and approval led me into one dysfunctional situation after another. Everything has always been crazy nuts and over the top until I exploded in a fiery ball of burnout. Then I'd patch myself together and do it again. Well I'm tired of that shit and my preference at this point is to live with a little more skill and refinement.

Meditation.  Why?

Meditation is primarily about developing a measure of control over my mind. It's more like a martial art than a touchy-feely thing.

What's interesting about it is control is not about force, it's not about will, it's not about "trying".  This is quite counter-intuitive for a lifelong try-hard.

It's about letting go, releasing, detaching, being. Allowing thoughts to rise and fall without responding. Sometimes I get trapped inside the bubble of something really strong, and I learn how to gently release myself from it and let it drift away. Not self identifying as the thoughts or emotions that come up within me. Instead observing them as phenomena, watching how they originate, unfold and transition. And sometimes it feels like I've woken up, everything just is. No mental dialog, no telling stories, creating narratives, flitting from one topic to another like a crazed moth. I'm just there, taking in sensory input and noticing the smallest and most subtle of details.

An acquaintance who I think is a bit bemused by all of this recently asked me "What metric shall be used to judge one's own formations of thoughts?".  And I knew the answer right away. I think that's a good sign."

Pretty weird huh?  I'm fairly certain that I'm out of my fucking mind.  And I'm pretty happy about it.

-s