blu3nude

When I get emotional, it’s hard for me to sit still. On Sunday, I went to the bookstore after lunch. I just wanted to go somewhere where I could distract myself. I ended up purchasing “Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be” by Lama Surya Das. It seemed fitting. He’s an American, so he writes from a Western perspective. It’s an easy read so far, as long as I can hold back the tears.

Here’s some quotes that I found interesting:

Chapter Two: Loss and Change

“Loss is a part of life. Impermanence is everywhere we look… How we deal with these losses is what makes all the difference. For it is not what happens to us that determines our character, our experience, our karma, and our destiny – but how we relate to what happens.”

“Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn.”

“Everything passes; nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip, and find serenity.”

“Rather than feel our feelings, we try to lose ourselves in habitual activity.”

Chapter Three: Naming Our Losses

“For some of us, the most consistently troublesome thing about loss is the destruction of expectations.”

“Jung said, ‘The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.’”

In the third chapter, he suggests journaling your losses, and how they make you feel. Here’s mine:

• lost pets, companionship. i was shocked that they were just gone. dead. the end.
• lost the kid next door that died in a SCUBA diving accident, when I was about 10. too young to really understand. but that was the first person i knew who died. he was my brother’s best friend. i wonder if he’s looking out for him.
• lost friendships throughout school years. it always baffled me when friends would suddenly abandon me to climb the social ladder. people still do that to me today. i give, they take. the end. felt betrayed, anger, sadness.
• my house burned down when I was 17. Lost all my stuff. All of it. Didn;t really even fathom that was a possibility before. Lost a sense of security. felt confused and sad.
• lost my home when my parents moved to Vegas when I went to college. There was never a home back in CA to return to. I never wanted to come to Vegas. Lost a lot of friends as a result. Lost a sense of community, a nostalgia connected to my childhood home. I feel like a stranger when I go back sometimes. Lost my roots. felt disconnected.
• lost my innocence. lost my security. there are some things that people do that you never really knew a persona was capable of doing to another person. lost my faith in humanity. ander, sadness, guilt, shame, inferiority.
• lost my scholarship. lost my sense of direction. lost my goals. lost my purpose. if i’m not a high-achieving engineering student, what am i? i was confused. i felt a sense of freedom in that i wasn’t doing things just becasue that was what i was supposed to do. lost some shyness. i felt for the first time, i was really living. i didn’t have to do anything.
• lost my dad. lost my security. lost the only person who could tell me that everything was going to be ok. lost the rock of my family. lost my stability. lost my freedom. i was angry that he had to go, and that he had to go like that. i was angry that i had to be the stable one. i’m the youngest, shouldn’t they be taking care of me? lost my freedom in that i felt an enormous burden of responsibility. sadness, anger, all internalized in a big depression. let the drinking begin.
• lost control. gained an addiction. lost my self-respect, lost all confidence. lost the person i once saw in the mirror. lost my boundaries. lost any sense of reality. lost my love for myself, most of it at least. lost control, that’s the key.
• lost my sense of security when the house was burglarized. lost my jewelry, some of which i had had for years. lost a computer, dell axim, acoustic guitar that i purchased with the proceeds from the wrongful death lawsuit for my dad years ago, lost a camera, lost pictures, lost faith in my ex (b/c he never fixed the fence. that was the moment i lost much respect for him). now i find security in the baseball bat i keep by the bed. my dad used to keep a machete by his bed. i know how to swing a baseball bat, not a machete. the police said it was just kids, and that was the extent of their investigation. lost faith in the police. lost more sense of security. anxiety, anger.
• lost my job, my career path. lost security. lost direction. anxiety. relief.
• lost love. lost the sense of being important in someone else’s life. lost some cats. lost security. lost touch with reality some more. lost companionship. sadness. loss of friendship. was it all an illusion. confusion, anger, relief, and finally, a deep breath.
• lost many opportunities to be something. lost confidence. lost potential. lost the feeling that i can do anything. lost the sense that everything will work out for the better in the end.

after writing all of that down, i realize it was all beyond my control, except the scholarship and the job. and you know what, i didn;t really want either of those things. i was directed into engineering becasue i excelled at math and science. but, i excelled in all academic subjects. literature was my favorite. so fuck the engineering scholarship. And the job? I didn’t really want to be a CPA. I just wanted the security. And I still qualify to be a CPA in many states, so I can pick it back up if I want to. And that job just sucked. I’m glad it led me to the job I have now — cushy governement job (as long as I get through the upcoming layoffs). Couldn’t have gotten it without the big name on the resume.

I know I need security. But I didn;t realize that I felt a loss of security from most of the events listed above. I need to find that security within myself, and not try to get it from external sources. I just feel so unstable. Like I could just float away if left untethered. I’m sure that stems from the lack of self-confidence. hm.