Cat on a Leash Mind...

When I was a kid, I had this cat.  He was awesome.  My first ever cat and I loved him so very much.  He was an indoor/outdoor cat and when he would disappear, I would be totally lost.  Luckily for me, he always came back.

There was this community event on base where we lived that was a kind of pet show for kids to show off their pets.  I wanted to take my cat.  So my parents took me to the event with the cat.  He was in a carrier but once we got there, we put him on a leash.  What ensued was both hilarious and traumatic, for me and the cat.  Once out of his box, away from his home and comfortable surroundings, he freaked the fuck out!  He did back flips and side flips all in a futile attempt to unensnare himself from that fucking leash.  He could not calm down, and finally, we just put him back in the box and went home.  Never again to attempt to show him off.  He informed us with circus like hilarity that he was not a leash walking cat...

Why am I talking about this today?  Well, I just returned to my morning meditation group after talking a month or so off.  I didn’t intend to take a month off, I just kept oversleeping and since I am not working, I refused to set an alarm.  It is hard to attend morning meditation at 6 am when you don’t wake up until after 6:30...

This morning I woke up at 5 am.  I have not been sleeping well.  Partly my neck pain but also just a lot of emotional shit that feels like it is raining down on me and so I wake all night long with anxious, existential dread.  I am able to go back to sleep but I am now waking earlier and so this morning, I decided that it was probably a good sign that I should return to meditation practice...

And my mind this morning was like my cat on that leash.  It was all over the fucking place.  Like Daffy Duck when he goes bezerk.  My mind was flipping out, my counting went to over 20 several times (I am only supposed to count to 10 and begin again at 1).  I didn’t even realize I was at 18 until I started to count 19 in my head.  I felt compelled to leap out of my lotus position and begin, well, just about anything.  My mind was active and very unhappy to be still and stationary.  Monkey mind is the usual vernacular, but today, my mind was cat on a leash, totally.

I don’t know what I am doing with my life.  I am sad about a number of things and relationships. Some of which are changing and I don’t like it and some are just sorely lacking.  And I do not know what the fuck to do about any of it.  I just feel lost.  So very fucking lost.  What am I supposed to be doing?  Who am I supposed to be right now?  I finally have my life pretty much totally to myself and that feels like way too much of me for me to handle right now.

All my usual avenues of escape are not appealing to me.  Dating?  Fuck no.  Shopping?  Futile.  Eating?  No.  Compulsive activity?  I am just too fucking tired.  I really do not know what the fuck I am doing.  And I suppose, that is how it should be.  I have never been here before.  I haven’t lived alone in over 25 years.  I have been a mother on a daily basis and now I am just alone a lot of the time.  And this thing that I wished for has now arrived and I just feel lost and overwhelmed and sad and I want to do something, anything to make it be different than what it is.

So instead of doing all the habitual things that I wanted to do...I just went to meditation again.  And sat there with my unhappy and discontented mind.  And watched it freak out and disassociate and be unhappy and just did my best to love myself and my mind...I am going to call it a win because I stayed the entire 30 minutes and just kept returning to my breath no matter how many times I drifted off with my thoughts.  I just escorted them back to my attention and began again...

That is all I know to do right now, just begin again.  Still.

Sigh.  I know it could be worse, but I do not enjoy feeling lost and sad and scared and lonely.  I do not do those emotions.  I have successfully avoided them this entire fucking life and now they have come home to roost and I do not fucking like it.  But I see the futility of my escape attempts.  My job is just to be here, now, feel what comes up, do my best to accept it as being exactly the way it is supposed to be and do the next right thing...

Fuck me, it is hard today.

I am doing my best to laugh at my Daffy Duck/Cat on a Leash mind.  To be kind to it. To have compassion for its freaking out and do my best to comfort myself.  And this is all while I have to resist my very strong urge to just run away, disappear into something or someone.  I know that will work for a little while, but then I will awaken having done the thing that I always do which only solidifies a pattern that I do not like. 

So, today I sit with my cat on a leash mind and try to be ok with it.  I know this too shall pass.  I just would really like it to pass sooner rather than later...

Again, still...