The repetition was getting to me. I was really excited about this program. Three months in, I realized that nothing was happening but not even the kind of nothing that solidifies in its nothingness. Instead, it’s the kind of nothing that tries to convince you that there is something, even if the teachers refuse to pin it down.
What should one expect? There’s always this saying about how your effort is going to be what yields results. You get what you give. Are you really dedicated to your own growth? If this isn’t working for you, consider that the problem might be you.
The facilitator would probably say, “Why do you think you feel that way?” Her vague responses never made any sense to me. It was like one of those toys from my childhood where you pulled a string and an arrow spun around. Whatever image it landed on, it would recite the matching nursery rhyme or animal sound.
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Lots of effort – annotation, page numbering, quotes, referencing, highlighting, sticky notes and tags. Meaningless clutter. You get out of it what you put into it. The notebook is in the trash now.
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Christmas Eve, I woke up at six am, which is late for me most days, and my body just wasn’t having it. The kind of pain I experienced was not real or it was too real. It’s difficult to say. Like pain in a dream state. I was in the bathroom and looked right in the mirror and said, “Go back to sleep until you don’t hurt anymore.” So I did.
Christmas morning, I woke up after 9 hours of sleep like a person pulled out of deep meditation. For awhile my steps were shuffles, but it wasn’t all that terrible. By evening, my face was rashy and I felt sideways. I took a Benadryl 30 minutes into episode 7 of Stranger Things, which I’d waited all day – weeks – to see.
Today, I woke up not hung over from all the glasses of holiday Cava and late night Benadryl, but in a kind of psychic torment. You must relax. Your only assignment until the new year is to relax. This isn’t entirely true. There is the argument that I have to go to work most of next week. Hands over ears – I know what my body is saying about that. You only have one assignment. If you listen and obey, you will heal. Everything will fall together. We have been here before.
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I’d already determined that I wasn’t going to pay for the next semester, a quiet withdrawal. I don’t want to email anyone or discuss the situation. I’m so tired of discussions. The prompts made no sense. I flinched each time I logged into the platform. Who are you doing this for?
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There’s only so much that can be said or known. I know this, love is what we are commanded to do and to be. I know I am in awe of each moment that I allow myself to be aware of. Ideas have gathered around me like a flood up to my shins. Everyone has an opinion that boils down to one thing that they say over and over.
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Advent left me cold this year. Even the 24-hour retreat that I’d been looking forward to for months was about as substantial (for me) as tissue paper in water. The silence wasn’t even a relief.
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If this is a dark night of the soul, it’s remarkably clear. The scattering of stars aren’t going anywhere.
This isn’t how I intended to start off blogging here.
Good is coming.