Episode 62: Chaotic Neutral 📿⚔️

YYYYYY SEND IT!!! RIP TO HALF MY HAIR & MY LOVE LIFE!!! Sharpened resolve. Sharpened edges. Sharpened senses. KAHLIL GIBRAN!!! FUCK YOU!!! HELL YEAH YOU TELLEM!!! Gone, all of it. THE DHARMA!! ASL!!! I’d pay you NOT to post this!!! DEBILITATING PHYSICAL PAIN!!!! EXTRAORDINARY GRATITUDE & PRESENCE!!! NO RUNNING!!! HABITUAL PRACTICE!!! DAILY ROUTINE!!! MY INTERNAL COMPASS IS SAYING WEIRD THINGS!!! The Feng Shui equivalent of an ‘out of order sign to the universe. & THE NEVERENDING PAPER!!!

Excerpt from the show:

“Well, this week sucked.

No, but really, it’s actually been kind of beautiful, kind of tragic, and kind of like a test of endurance. With so many ups and downs, I don’t even know where to start.

Well, I’ll start here…. RIP to half my hair and my love life. But I also have to say… it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this grounded in myself. Grief has a funny way of doing that sometimes. It’s sharpened my edges, my senses, my emotions, and most importantly, my resolve — to put some good habits and practices into place — to clear out my life. My grandfather reminded me today of something one of my favorite authors wrote on hardship, that if everything suddenly falls away, it is making space for something better. Neither of us could find the exact quote, but most of Kalil Gebran’s writing contains great wisdom. For instance, this quote, ‘Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.’ ~ (Khalil Gibran). And if there is anything this life of mine has taught me, it is that. Not that I needed another character-building exercise, but at least I’m coming out on top. I mean my grandfather commended me today for sending a text to my ex that said basically FUCK YOU, a hilarious moment I never thought I would see the day… my temperate CEO of a grandfather said ‘hell yeah, you tell’em!’

Just another one of the many beautiful and difficult moments of my week. Along with having to tell my family who I was about to go on a trip with my ex to see, my friends (who it turns out never thought it was a good match in the first place but heals their tongues), and my clients who have run into us on the street and asked how we were. It’s been one hell of a week. But one of the things this separation has done is push me deep into my dharma practices, my mediation practice, and my Tibetan Buddhist practices. It has also done something beautiful, it has created space for a lot of things to take place in the absence of this person. I sat a few nights ago, in the basement of the Stagecoach Tavern, at the revival of the Down County Social Club, and listened to this incredible singer, surrounded by strong and formidable women. And I remembered that love does exist, sometimes in the most unusual places. Radiating from the face of the woman singing, in the hugs of the women around me. The world was, maybe more redeemable than I thought. And then I posted a poem on Tumblr, on which someone commented, ‘I’d pay you NOT to post this.’ And I remembered that the world is GARBAGE again. But maybe not as bad as my poetry about heartbreak. So, I’ll give them that. And basically this week I just tried to exist, as best I can. I allowed myself moments to break, moments to be angry, and moments to just keep on going. Sometimes there is no time for falling apart, sometimes you have a 40-page midterm exam that you have to finish in 7 days, and it doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life because that’s just more important and everything else can wait. Amid my moments of beauty and tragedy, for like 4 days, I had the worst physically debilitating symptoms I have had in a long time. My whole chest hurt like a mother every time I breathed. And knowing my somatics well, I intellectually can understand that if you don’t feel the grief it will find a way to make you. So I did breathing exercises, I stretched and I prayed, and I saw yet another practitioner, and despite my every attempt to just get the hell on with my life, my chest had something to say about it. And so finally yesterday, in a very uncharacteristic twist, I reached out, to all the people I had just left in British Colombia on that beautiful retreat. And I told them I had been having a hard time since I got home. Which I’m every possible way was unlike me. And immediately someone responded and sent me a private message. And called me, and I straight up fell apart. For some reason this woman, she just saw me. And I sat on the other end of the video call and I cried and I cried and I cried. And she told me that even though we had barely had a chance to speak, during the whole time we had been there, that she would look across the room at me, and think that I was a silent force. That I felt like if you wanted someone to just hold you until you were done crying, you could just lay your head on my chest, and then I would cook you a good meal, and we would laugh all night. And I don’t know, if, in my life, I had ever felt more seen by a person. Because that is me, that is who I am at my core. No matter how hardened I get, or absent or silent. That is me. And so for the first time, I let myself feel it all. The dreams I had created, the life I was trying to build with this person who was gone, all of it. And she reminded me, that things leave so better things can take their place, and if this was good, imagine how much better the next thing will be. And I took it all in, every word, every bit of magic, and I have never been more grateful. And so I took myself, and a friend out to my favorite dinner spot in Hudson. And I heard all about their travels, and the incredible things they are building and creating, and the ways they will change the world. And I went home, and I practiced sign language for an hour. And I lit incense, and I meditated, and I made fresh juice, and I bowed my head in prostrations, and I tried to remember, that what I am becoming, what I am creating, is so much more, is so much more epic than this failure of a relationship. And I went to bed, 2% better than the day before. And I woke up, without a bundle of ropes wrapped around my chest, finally, ready to do this thing with all I’ve got. This thing being life. I’m sure that was implied.

Because I do not have the luxury of running away. I cannot get high or get drunk and screw off and put a temporary bandaid on my life. I just have to slog through it, meditate through it, cry through it, listen to super weird music through it. Ohh you guessed it I have a very eclectic mix of songs for you this evening. Because y’all I gotta say I was not anticipating that THESE songs would be what’s getting me through, couldn’t be weirder, normally I go for sad, why don’t you love me any more music, y’all know me I’m just actually a big sap. But maybe not anymore, maybe that part of me died with the end of this last relationship. As someone wrote me about my show last week. Love is dead. And I wholeheartedly agree. So here’s to Jack White, blasted at top volume, here’s to the roar of my truck engine, here’s to taking the first step towards my pilot’s license. Here’s to hours and hours toiling over midterm writing, to going back to fixing bikes, to love us dead and I’m the only person who can make or break my own day. Here’s to dealing with your problems instead of running away from them like a coward, here’s to facing it all. To making space, for the next great thing to come along. And here’s to fighting for better days. And here’s (I’m sorry if there are any fans out there) but here’s no NEVER HAVING TO LISTEN TO ANOTHER PHISH SONG AGAIN IN MY LIFE. The one great silver lining. Because you all remember, I’m the Queen of Silver Linings, and I can now say THE APPLE IS ON THE TABLE, in ASL and GOOD TO SEE YOU so I’ll let you decide who’s winning this breakup!! I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the monastery for morning mediation.

And with that, here’s, ‘That’s It, I Quit, I’m Moving On,"‘ by Sam Cooke, because well. That’s it. I quit. And I’m moving on. Followed by ‘Sixteen Saltines’ by Jack White, and ‘Blue Orchid’ also by Jack White (but this time as The White Stripes) because these days I’m a little more chaotic neutral than chaotic good. So catch me off-roading up a mountain alone listing to this at top volume. Wearing all black. Rip half my hair and my love life. The funeral’s next week…”