Samudaya

Buddhists believe that the key to ending suffering is letting go of all desire or craving. That's a sizable leap on my part from the 1st to the 3rd of the Four Nobel Truths, but an interesting idea to explore nonetheless.

In my lifetime I have experienced considerable fluctuation in my ability and willingness to want. I used to be terrified to want. I remember doing everything in my power to quench desire at every turn. I'd deny it. I'd distract myself. I'd accept pitiful substitutions for the true object of my passion. Either way, I avoided desire like the plague. Acknowledging my desires was tantamount to numerating my miseries. I was so unhappy in so many areas of my life that the exercise of thinking about what I wanted out of life produced more despair, as reality only made those desires seem less and less attainable. During this point in my life I would have agreed that desire was the source of my suffering.

Right now I am about to start a new job. I am about to be divorced. I about to be in a much better financial situation than I've been in my entire adult life. I am on the brink of realizing what I fantasized about during my despair, starting over. It's a very exciting place to be. I expect to meet new people, travel to new places, experience the things I ached to experience when I thought I never would. I am equipped with a much better understanding of who I am, what I like, what I despise, what I stand for and what I won't. I am happy. I am unmistakably, palpably happy. And yet, I'm still haunted by longing.

I feel like there's a difference between expectation and longing. The latter requires more vulnerability. Does that seem strange? Are those two words synonymous to anyone else? They aren't to me. I expect things to change for the better in my world. But I feel like naming my longings (or identifying them) reminds me of emptiness, reminds me of the voids. I guess the bitter reality is that the objects of all desire are transient or impermanent, no matter how we cut it. I can't hold on to pleasure. It will slip through my fingers eventually. I can't hold on to people or relationships. They change and die. I can't hold on to things or money. Stock markets crash. But there are things in this life that I want and I feel like sometimes my "enjoy it while it lasts" attitude is the same as trying to deny longing. It seems rooted somehow in despair. I'm trying to figure out how to turn that around. I'm trying to figure out how to want what I want, expect to have it at some point and acknowledge and accept that I may not always have it--all at the same time.

One of the things I've longed for most is the freedom to be my own person. I feel like I am living that freedom more and more everyday. I've found community among those who aren't threatened by or judgmental of my exercise of that freedom. Those probably seem like "givens" to most people, but remember I was a pastor's wife. I lived under palpable scrutiny. I was constantly reminded that every inhalation and fart of mine had life changing implications in the lives of others in my community. It's frightening to think about having had that much perceived power over other individuals. It's frightening to consider the ill effects it has had. It's amazing to be free of that kind of community. This kind of freedom is something I've longed for years. Is it too transient? Temporal? Impermanent? I sure hope not.

Anyway, this has been a long, convoluted way of saying that I am very, very happy with my life right now and I hope it just gets better from here. I want love, happiness, fulfillment, security, companionship and peace. And mind-blowing sex. Can't a girl have it all?

List Guy vs. Heart and Soul Guy

I've been contemplating motherhood. I go in and out of really wanting to be a mother. I attribute much of my vacillation (in this and many other matters) to my being a Gemini. I may really feel like I want something one day, and be totally repulsed by the same thing the next day. It can be quite frustrating to the person trying to figure me out. I figure if I go in and out of wanting to be a mom right now, it might not bode very well if I really do have another person for whom I must be responsible 24-7-365. I've come to a compromise: I'd probably be a better step-mother than mother.

No. Seriously. Think about it. It's really a pretty good gig. I don't mean "baby mama drama" step-parenting, but responsible step-parenting where all the adults involved are normal and, at the very least, respect each other and want what's best for the children. I'd have no stretch marks (well, no additional stretch marks) or hemorrhoids, but snuggles and someone to cheer for at baseball games. I think it could be pretty nice. Contemplating step-parenting has helped me to realize that what I say I want "on paper" and what I really want in my soul are in conflict with one another. This is a red flag for me. It's a warning sign that I'm not being honest with myself about some things. Or that I'm afraid of something.

Life's circumstances have thrown me into this independent woman role. I don't think that's a bad thing. I had a lot of growing up to do in many, many ways. Being on my own, without a parent or husband to lean on, has forced me to be responsible in areas I got away with being a slacker before. I appreciate that. I feel like I've learned how to be an adult: to take the good with the bad, to be resourceful, to get on despite disappointment, to plan and to accomplish goals. I am finally at a place where I am certain that I will be OK in this world all by myself. I don't want to be alone forever, but I don't for a second feel like my life will somehow end if I find myself without someone to share forever with. There are some really amazing pluses to living alone and being unattached. I get to indulge selfishness. It really is all about me because, well, there is nobody else to consider. I like that most days. And then, there are the other days...

I have an idea of the kind of person I'd like to share my days and nights with, but he is two. There's the "List" guy and there's the "Heart and Soul" guy. List Guy is comprised of attributes, accomplishments, achievements, demographics. I think my List Guy is a big fat lie. There are things on my list that I say I want, yet, I don't find myself drawn to the guy of the list...or maybe he's not drawn to me. The ListGuy isn't really in my world. I don't run into him in my work. He's not the friend of my friends. He's not they one who catches my eye on the Metro. It may be that I've never met a List Guy. Maybe I'm not in the right circles to meet him. Who knows? But then there's Heart and Soul Guy. Heart and Soul Guy is rough around the edges. He's naughty in ways List Guy would never consider. He's honest and doesn't put on airs. His honesty reveals things that absolutely wouldn't make the list, but somehow I don't care. He is, after all, honest.

List Guy will make the parents happy. List Guy would make dad comfortable. List Guy would get nods of approval and thumbs up from the friends. List Guy would bore me to tears, I think, after a while. List Guy makes me wonder whether he's too good to be true. List Guy makes me feel skeptical, makes me always wonder if there's something beneath the surface that I'm missing. List Guy feels like an effort to avoid ending up with Ex again. I really think that's what the list boils down to. Somehow my little brain computes that if List Guy hits all these points on paper (that just happen to be everything Ex wasn't) all will be well with the world. I never wanted Ex to be perfect. Just honest.

Heart and Soul Guy is risky but fun. He follows his passions and is not conventional. Heart and Soul Guy lives outside the box and creates his own drum beat by which to walk. Heart and Soul Guy sees my vulnerabilities. He knows what he wants in the world and goes after it. Heart and Soul Guy knows what it means to be a man. Heart and Soul Guy appreciates that I am a woman. He knows there's a difference. Heart and Soul Guy doesn't take advantage of my giving, nurturing nature. He cherishes it and makes me feel safe as I give. Heart and Soul Guy sees beyond the tough, independent facade. He knows I don't need or want to be taken care of. He's OK not taking care of me. Heart and Soul Guy connects with me on level that can't easily be put into words. He gets me. I get him. I can't make Heart and Soul Guy make sense to everyone, but I feel no need to make excuses for him. He possesses a "rightness" that I will just know when I've found it.

List Guy ignites no fire in my heart (or loins) when I think of him. He's safe. He appeals to my need for security. He appeals to the ideas of normalcy I've internalized. He's really quite cookie-cutter to be honest. List Guy doesn't have kids (hence, no baby mama drama). Heart and Soul Guy's loving fatherhood captivates me and stirs my soul. Heart and Soul Guy is very little of what is on the list, maybe a few things, but he makes me laugh. We never run out of things to talk about.

It's really quite simple, you'd think. Fuck the list.

I'm not at a place where there's room for either guy in my life, but I really find myself wondering what I'm looking for when that time comes. I know too many people living miserable lives that look great on paper. I don't want that life. I want to be true to me, not to what looks good to anyone else. And I don't want to give in to my fears. List Guy answers all of the things I'm afraid of. There's no apparent risk with him. That is so unrealistic, but it's so hard to break away from the idea that if he is just these few things...I can avoid more pain and heartache.

As much as I know I can't build a life to protect me from pain, I struggle to recognize when I'm building a fortress. Sometimes I see it immediately. Other times it takes a bit longer to see.

In my heart and soul I want to love passionately and freely. I want to be completely vulnerable. I want to connect on a spiritual level. In my heart and soul I want to laugh until I pee. I want to admire beauty and character. I want to have the time of my life. I want to taste life and see it in his eyes. I want to feel alive. I want to know palpable goodness. I want to risk letting down my guard for these things. I want to be able to risk opening myself to experience all of this, even if it means it ends in disappointment. I will have risked. I will have lived. I will have loved. It will have been good.

Sense Memory

Sense memory is a funny thing. I remember learning to evoke it in an acting class in 10th grade. Funny how a scent, a taste, a sound, a song can take you back to a time and a place with full detail and full emotion. I had a couple of such experiences this week.

February 22rd marked the 1 month anniversary of totaling my car. It was also the day I finally bought a new one. Sitting in the car dealership, writing the date over and over again on all the papers I signed brought back all the fear I felt when I knew the accident was going to happen and that there was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent it.

February 23rd marked the anniversary of the death of the love of my life. I had had a crush on Sean since I was a little girl. He was 2 and a half years older (read: off limits by any reasonable parents' standards) and we went to the same church. I was finally allowed to date him officially when I turned 15. We got caught making out by the soda machine in the church basement long before then. We dated until my freshman year of college. At the beginning of freshman year I was "influenced" by the student Christian organization that my boyfriend wasn't "Christian" enough, that I was "unequally yoked", so I, like a dummy, broke up with him. It turned out to be a technical break up as we continued to see each other when he was home for breaks. We were in college in different states. I remember we had plans to get together during spring break 1993, but before he got home I got the call from his grandmother. Sean had been killed, shot in the head while he sat in his car, on the way home for spring break.

I have never cried about anyone's death. This one broke my heart. I cried on the 23rd when I realized the date. We were young and in love. I am so sure, in retrospect, that I would have married him and had his children had he lived. In September of the very same year I started dating Ex. Maybe, just maybe there's a connection. I'm still very close to his sister and brother. They treat me like family. They treated Ex like family. I'm so sure they would have been my family had Sean not been killed.

OK, this story is not so depressing. In the line of sense memory, the other day I heard Anita Baker's song, Sweet Love. It takes me back to a very funny memory. His name was Jared. He was my boyfriend in 8th grade (we were the same age, so it was allowed by the 'rents, besides my dad and his dad were Boy Scouts together). He was the flame that wouldn't die after the break-up 8th grade summer and well into college years. We weren't together, but you couldn't have told us that when we were together. (OK, I just went back and changed his name to protect his identity. He may be married to someone who may take exception to our college years.) But the memory has nothing to do with all that...just with our one particular day.

We decided one afternoon, hanging out at my house in the summer, that since all of the rest of our friends were having sex, we should too. We turned on mood music. Anita Baker. I distinctly remember the pain of our unsuccessful attempts whenever I hear the song Sweet Love. We gave up after 2 or 3 tries and decided to just go outside and ride our bikes. Ah, young love. I die laughing every time I hear that song.

Certain smells get me too. I associate them with certain people. It's usually a very good thing. The smell of Hennessy, weed and Curve for men is intoxicating. Reminds me of very, very good times.

What takes you back?