I've been chasing a dream, something that doesn't exist.  Believing to, believing to, well, I thought I saw, believed I saw a potential future, a happiness that I hadn't known before.  I don't know that exists or that my pursuit of that was even good for me.  Maybe I was living in a dream and not waking up.  And maybe the sadness of all my life was because I didn't have anything to be happy about, and that was why I was sad.  I know I believed the fairy tales, the 'happily ever after' part.  And maybe holding that standard is what has caused so much pain because I believed it existed and I didn't have it. 

Maybe it is a better thing to, well, maybe I need to stop.  It is all awareness.  All of us, every day suffer pain.  I heard Bette Midler say once that we are all only moments from tears, and I know that to be true.  Life has not had many happy pleasures for me, but I've had some joyful moments finding pleasure in the simples of things. We all put on a great front, a face, an appearance.  But we all hurt.  Buddhism says that suffering is part of life, not that it is a burden of life but it is inherent in living.  It is real.  There are more words to the teaching of Buddhism, the acceptance of suffering, the understanding, and the ultimate end of suffering.  I aim to learn more.  As I experience it happiness is a cool refreshing breeze that passes through our lives, as comfort as relief.  It is the tinkling of a small bell.  It is laughter at silly things.  It is the first taste of something delicious.

My pursuit, my desire to find more happiness has only caused me mental and physical pain and I think today that stops.  Today becomes real.  I am on a soul journey to be sure.  Life for the past 10 years has been so very painful, emotional and withdrawn.  I couldn't know what was happening but my soul did.  It was a gift.  My understanding of life until then was the knowledge a child has, I never grew beyond that maturity and held to that because I believed it was the only way to happiness I could find.  Not that I know anything, but I know more now.  I have wished to continue my life to be the way it was before things got crazy but I'm grateful now that I can't.  The past me doesn't have the depth that the new me has.  And while I've such emotional pain it makes it hard to function in the world, it is the place where I can find words and heart.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And it smelled like it did when I was a child

Image
And suddenly it smelled like it did when I was a child, yes, I remember it well.  Some of our senses seem to have memory, something I noticed years ago.  My first apartment on my own, walking in and looking around liking what I saw, windows all round the place, lots of light, a garden apartment with grass outside, nice big kitchen, window over the sink, a little niche in the hallway where a phone once resided, a building built awhile ago with all the character of it's time, arches, tile, comfort.  And then opened a cupboard door, the delicate smell there took me back to grandma's house, her kitchen pantry next to the back door.  And all the senses then kicked in, the sound of the seat pushing back, the shopping bags stuffed in the corner, the sound of the screen door slapping against the door frame and the squeak when it opened, the three cement steps out the back door, the smell of breakfast, the shape of my grandmother working at the stove.  The sound of foot...
Read more

Mercury retrograde

Image
If you believe in the ebb and flow of influence in the universe you may know of the backward movement of Mercury, the retrograde.  It is still moving forward and yet appears moving backward.  That's life isn't it, on a path you keep walking yet circle back or need to step back to gain momentum to move forward. Some think Mercury retrograde is detrimental and self-defeating if one is trying to make continuous unimpeded progress.  I've come to another train of thought.  I look at it as if rowing a boat, you pull and stroke to propel the boat forward, yet as you lift the oars to stroke again you lose a bit of momentum and just glide.  With your continuous movement the oars re-enter the water to pull against the resistance and move you forward once again. Good lesson for life - even a car has to sit and idle at a traffic light, we can't always move forward without momentary glides, and stops, before we act again to help us gain more momentum.  We neverthel...
Read more

I've fallen and I don't want to get back up

Image
It seems in the spiritual world the message these days is about falling, and making sure to get up.  They are words of encouragement to be sure, reminding us that no matter how we fall, no matter what life hands us, the measure of who we are is that we get up again.  Well I've got some experience with that, spent most of my life like a Jack-in-the-box, always brushing off when life hit hard, jumped right back up and into the fray, refusing to be undone by challenges. ...and life happened. Today I found myself wanting to argue with that, was tired of the message about getting back up. One more comment and I was seeing red, I wanted to argue, wanted to scream that sometimes you can't get back up, you don't want to face the life, certainly not where you've been and not the challenge, the battles, the failure, the difficulty, and sometimes you just don't have the strength to get back up.  Sometimes,  there is nothing left to stand on. So, it left me mulling over ...
Read more