I had a day yesterday that I wished I still drank because I would have totally tied one on...however that would have just avoided what was really going on and only made an already horrible day worse. I don’t have that many bad days. I really don’t. I have some bad moments but even that feels like a rarity. Mostly, I deal with whatever comes at me and try to make the best of it.
Yesterday was a shitstorm on seemingly every front. None of it my drama, but landed at my feet and was mine to deal with nonetheless.
I stayed with my desire to run. I stayed with my urge to check out. I stayed and tried to keep my head above water. I accomplished that goal.
I did what I learned on the cushion...to stay open even when I am in pain. Even when everything hurts and I have this intense desire to shut it all the fuck down. I stayed open anyway. I allowed that which I wanted to avoid to come closer to me, even though it was incredibly painful. Even though it made me panic and freak out. I stayed with it and didn’t chase it away. I was patient with myself and others even though that patience looked a little rocky and pointed at times. I did my best to let go of my need to know, so that wisdom might supplant thinking that I really know anything. I think often that I can see all the schemes of others. I cannot. No one can. Those are just preconceptions, my own projected reality designed to protect me and keep me safe from that which scares me.
In the end, yesterday was just a day in a life fully lived. Albeit a hard and fucking exhausting day. Life is sometimes a shit sandwich, bringing large, unsolvable problems and laying them at your feet. Each of us, then piles on our own trauma and reaction to the pile, making worse that which was already bad. I like to think that yesterday I avoided that to the degree I was capable. I didn’t shut it down, I didn’t sweep it away, I just rolled up my pants and waded into life’s very messy fact pattern...and tried to find a way through for myself and those I love more than anything on this planet.
Today we are all still standing. Today, we are all here and present and alive. Today I am willing to try again. Today is all we have so I am going to try to make the best of it...again.
I made a commitment some years ago to wake up and try to help others do the same. Today, I get to try to do that again, here, now. I did my best with what life dealt me yesterday and while it was less than perfect and in fact, not even stellar, we all somehow survived and are relatively ok today.
I do not know what I am doing. I have no large life plan or manual, I can only do what I have learned and practiced day after day, year after year...be here now, tell the truth as I see it now, make decisions now, be present now, do my best now. And I have to trust that whatever dumpster fire is occurring in the moment, will in fact, pass away and allow for more moments sublime and fucked to come because that is life. Life is a beautifully exquisite shitshow. And I have found that a front row seat is a little too close to the shit for my liking. I do better a few rows back where the stench is a little less off putting and I have a better perspective and view. But I like everyone, often not at my own invitation, sometimes have to come down from my sweet smelling spot in the stands and get in the fucking ring. And that will always be messy, smelly and generally unfun. However, I will survive. I will persevere. I will be ok. Because being in the fray is part of living and I have to always remember that I said that I wanted to live the whole life, not just the parts that I find pleasurable and enjoyable. I have to be in this life, dumpster fire and all. And that comes with practicing to stay with hard, smelly, horrific things, not avoiding it all and choosing a living death over a lived life. Sometimes it is a hard choice, but it is always mine to make.
