The last couple of days I have not had a nice thing to say about myself. Not out loud. At work, in the world, I’m normal, I’m even cheery, but in my head some hateful person has taken over my mind. I’ve noticed it and I’m aware of it, so it doesn’t go completely unchecked. But the hateful voice just keeps reminding me of all of my so-called flaws, reminding me of my general unhappiness and my lack of passion, my loneliness, my ability to miss every opportunity, my impulsiveness, buying a house that’s too much for me, and my god, my weight, my weight, my neverending weight.

The list is long, and tragic really. But what I can’t figure out is, why now? Is it because I was so proud of myself for getting the house. Huge accomplishment! Or is it just this time of year, a couple of months before my birthday. Every year another one comes around and every year, I’m stunned by how much my life hasn’t changed, how I’m still alone, how I’m still fat, how I’m still bored to death at work, how I’m still piling high reasons why I can’t even try to do things based mainly on the idea that I’m not good enough.

In my last post, I talked about the 3rd chakra and will and Anodea Judith herself responded! So exciting!  In her comment she said “Sounds like your Will energy turns you against you with negative self talk. Find out WHAT your will is, first, and be gentle and loving with yourself.”

What is my will? What do I want, really? I could say I want what everyone else wants: to be loved, to be happy.  But I’ve steadfastly avoided those. Just as I was making the decision to buy this house, I was reading old e-mails. I have no idea why. Maybe I was trying to survey my life here in Austin. In one from about 5 years ago was telling a friend about a date I had. The relationship went nowhere (obviously) but he was an extremely interesting, smart man, a writer studying psychology. On our second date, according to this e-mail, he just suddenly said “You don’t like anyone near you do you? whether emotionally or in physical proximity?”  I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten about him honestly, but when I read it again I knew it was true. Is that what it is? When I’m out and about in the world, do I project a vibe that says “Don’t love me. Don’t even try.”  When I’m safe and alone in my house “I’m so tired of being alone” as Al Green says.  Does being safe mean being alone to me? That’s a new, sad thing to say.

It’s frustrating. I’m about to turn 44 and I still don’t know what I want. Or do I know? And there’s just another part of me that forces me to give it up. I want to do everything, but I can’t do everything. I want to live everywhere, but I can’t live everywhere. I want to practice so many things, but there’s only time for one. Choose. That’s the constant rhythm of my life: wanting, but feeling incapable of getting. But isn’t that the rhythm of everybody’s life. Isn’t that what suffering is? Isn’t the cause of suffering wanting?

But Anodea (hope I can call her by her first name!) didn’t say find out what your will wants. She wrote “find out WHAT your will is.” I’m not sure I know the difference right now.

My father died 20 years ago today (January 19). It’s been a long 20 years, but still, somehow, unproductive. I still miss him. I’m still angry that he died when he did. I’m still adrift in some ways since then.

When he died I was a senior in college about to start my last semester. This is a pivotal point in a person’s life. Especially a person like me who can just sort of, go with the flow. I had no real goals, although I applied to graduate school. (That was one of the last things my father helped me do, get out those applications, edit my essay, help me decide where to apply.)  Not really thinking about it. I just thought graduate school would be a safe bet, a continuation of school, which was pretty much all I knew after 16 years. And I’m great at doing what I’m told.

When he died I just floated, not with lightness, but without any sort of grounding. I went through the motions, again without really thinking about what I wanted, whatever was easiest, whatever caused the least stress for everyone. So I went to graduate school. Again with no goal in mind for the education or the degree.

Real goals, things I really really really want to do, rest at the back of my mind, waiting for me to pick them up and do something with them. I never do. Let me restate that: I often let them continue to rest, until they fade away, and I forget them completely. Because as I sit here now, I can’t think of a single real goal from graduate school. Everything I did was along the path of least resistance. Everything I chose required little action from me, little choice.  Somehow hoping my stillness would bring great change.

I was left with this wanting, this feeling of incompleteness and joylessness. I wanted more, but not only did I not know how to go after it, I didn’t even how to think of it. I would try something and hope it would magically change my life. At the first sign that it would not, or the changes I would have to make would be too great, I would drop it and move on to something else. I’ve done this with hobbies, sports, cities, people.  I’m constantly starting over, beginning again. And I’m a fabulous beginner. I can go from absolutely no knowledge to low intermediate in the time it takes others to figure out how to pronounce the thing. But I leave. I always have.

Yoga will be the challenge to this. I’ve been doing yoga for a year now and I don’t see giving it up any time soon.  Just when I think it’s routine and just an exercise, I’ll have to leave a class in a hurry racing to my car before I burst into tears. Holding it in the parking lot. Then safely away at the first stop light, I Sob. Sob for whatever feeling that came up in whatever asana. Sob for my life. Sob for my fatherless family. Sob that I still feel lost after all these years.

I was rereading an article from Yoga Journal about change: the willingness to change, how to change, the change process. In the past year I’ve made huge leaps and strides. Found mulitiple edges and reached over all of them. I feel different from the person I was a year ago. I am different, I feel it in my bones and my flesh.

But the anxious one in me constantly brings up a really good point: How can I be so different, when my life looks just the same? Same job, apartment, body, loneliness. How can I possible be different? Or is the external change coming? First inside then outsite, maybe. I don’t know.

I’ve been running into lonely poems. Last night, well at this point two nights ago, my yoga teach put up part of a poem by Hafiz:

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

It was so sad and beautiful that I looked it up, and found the first part even more sad and beautiful:

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

“Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly/let it cut more deep.” I can’t get over that. The loneliness is a constant. I can’t imagine it going even deeper. It never goes away, no matter the city or job or body, or how many people around me, it stays. It’s the same. It makes the same grooves, the same cuts, unchanged.

But I want to change, be different not just feel different. I want new grooves, paper cuts making a new map of uncharted happiness, newly discovered joy.