Two things I do not want to do:

1. Write this entire freaking post on my phone with my thumbs, and
2. Get up and find my laptop.

But unless I want to break my streak, I gotta do one or the other, so number one it is.

I have not mediated so far today. I've decided for purposes of this blog and other daily goals, "today" means the period between when I got up in this morning and when I go fall asleep at night, regardless of whether or not it's past midnight. More practical this way. Also more practical to assume anyone who actually reads this (Read: No one) will either not notice or not care about the actual date stamps. But, what can I say? I'm a bit neurotic about some things.

I want to keep the streak of meditating at least a little every day alive. I wonder if watching some episode of Gilmore Girls I've seen a dozen times while my mind goes completely blank counts. Somehow, I doubt it.

I read this article (that I meant to link to at the time and will attempt to make a point to in the future) about how the world's happiest man-- that is, the man who was shown to have the highest chemical capacity for happiness-- attributed his boundless joy to meditation. A French monk, he spent much of his life as, if I recall correctly, a business man, and was supremely dissatisfied with his life. When he became a monk and devoted much of his day to the practice of meditation, that all changed for him. Now he's being studied by, I guess, a university or something, who are mapping the actual physical changes in his brain that meditation has evidently caused.

The thing that struck me about the article is that the researchers stated that they see such changes in long-term meditators who practice for hours a day, but similar changes begin to happen after just one month of meditating for twenty minutes a day.

Boy, that link would make it sound way less like I'm talking out of my ass. But whatever, I'm too lazy to link on a smartphone, and you, dear reader, are totally in my imagination, anyway.

The point, before I give up on this frustrating digital experience, is that it's maybe within reach.  I'm not to twenty minutes a day yet, but if I could maybe build up to that in the next month, I could be just two months away. Maybe not from being the world's happiest man...but maybe, just maybe, my life's happiest Linda.

I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait and see. First step: figure out how to get a few minutes in before I go to sleep.

Did you get the joke about it being a "digital experience, " though? See, because thumbs are, you know. Digits.

Day 4. On with it.

I'm very tired, and I don't have much to say tonight. Thank goodness for that "one printed page or less" rule that I have a vague chance of actually following this time.

I didn't exercise tonight. I've been trying to do it every night since I got on a scale about a month ago for the first time and a long time and found myself twenty pounds heavier than I expected to be, which was already twenty pounds heavier than what I wanted to be. So I switched into emergency mode.

I've been doing a pretty good job sticking with it-- some days are less intense than others, but I haven't skipped a lot-- but my body is a lot older than it used to be. I've been living with a persistent, low-level soreness nearly constantly since then, and today, I finally decided to give my poor knees a break.

This accomplished mostly guilt and an increase of pain-- I've stopped producing endorphins long enough to feel how sore I really am, I guess. And the guilt...I guess I can't stick with a program like this unless I really beat myself up about how negligent I've been in the past. So taking a break for even a night brings out a lot of anxiety that I'll slip, as well as whatever reaction to the beating up I've been repressing. I don't know. It's weird.


I have a son now.  There's no good way to introduce him here, I guess: in this place that's predated his existence by over a decade. In this ritual that, despite long breaks, bore me from what was very nearly my own infancy.

There's...a lot to get into about him, Ezra. Or rather, about my reaction to him. The pregnancy, the emotion, the regrets, the birth...how they all affected me, how they all have shaped the way I see parenting. None of it is really about him at all, honestly: he's a smiley, happy, perfect child. He takes after his Dad in the happiness department, as far as anyone can tell, ten months in. And for anyone who missed the last, I don't know, 5-10 posts: his Dad is not Zack, my former husband.

There's a lot to get into, about motherhood, and me-hood, and the point at which they meet. But it's a longer post for another night. Or, rather, many other posts, many more years, if I can keep this silly facade up.

What I'll say about it, for now, is that I was watching this episode of Mad Men tonight-- I'd watched seasons 1-4 before, but I started over with Dan and we're somewhere in season 6 now-- and there's this scene where Don delivers a monologue about parenthood. How underwhelming it can be. How you find yourself faking it; pretending to love them as much as you are told you're supposed to love them. Pretending to feel all the things that you think you're supposed to feel.

I can't find it on Youtube, but if you have Netflix, it's Season 6, Episode 4. Near the end: 41 minutes and 30 seconds in.

"I only ever wanted to be the man who loves children. But from the moment they're born, that baby comes out and you act proud and excited. Hand out cigars. But you don't feel anything, especially if you had a difficult childhood. You want to love them, but you...don't. And the fact that you're faking that feeling makes you wonder if your own father had the same problem. Then one day they get older, and you see them do something, and you feel that feeling that you were pretending to have. And it feels like your heart is going to explode."

 The words itself don't do it justice: Mad Men is clearly one of the most well-written, well-directed and well-acted pieces of television ever created. John Hamm is flawless here: he says this all with such captivating, vulnerable honesty. He explores this feeling that we just don't talk enough about in our culture: the shame that so many people feel that they don't love their children enough. That, for many, the story of how much having a child will change your perspective and your priorities and your life is just a fairy tale, like so many things before it.

I love my son. I'm not saying I don't. He's a joy, he's a happy little baby who makes everyone smile. The way he moves, and the noises he makes.

But I don't love him more than I've ever loved anything, at least not yet. And I don't think I could ever love him enough to have it be the...all-important, all-consuming purpose that we're supposed to find, as people. The thing that's worth more than dying for; the thing I'm supposed to live for. I'm sure I'll come to love him more than I do now, but I don't believe he could ever really be that.

Every day now, I'm supposed to write less than a page, and I'm compelled, despite all competing circumstances, to write more than that. That compulsion, that purpose...I don't even believe he could ever really be this.

They're supposed to be separate things anyway, I guess. If I were a man instead of a woman, it would be much more socially acceptable that my passion in life may not be my child. Draper went six seasons without ever really acknowledging it, and everyone loves him despite the way he acts it out: the characters, his children, the audience. Everyone.

Maybe one day, though, I'll feel as though my heart is going to explode. One can only hope.

That day is not today. This is day 3.

On with it.

I have legs. I don't have ebola. I'm alive.

Gratefulness doesn't come easily to me.

I read this article that said that people who are beginning to meditate should take two minutes at the end of each session to think about how they're grateful for the mediation itself. I guess it reinforces the habit, makes you more aware of the purpose of what you're doing, and therefore more likely to continue. I suppose you're supposed to say "I'm grateful for this serenity, and all the things it will do for me, for my perspectice, and for the people in my life. I'm grateful for the silence, and my ability to quiet my mind. I am greatful for the chance to reconnect with the universe."

Or some horse shit like that.

I understand the theory behind mediation, and I understand the theory behind gratefulness. Modern literature of the Happiness Psychology Movement-- capitalized for no real reason, this is not an official name at all, just what I'm calling the last decade's trend towards researching the science of happiness- says over and over again that both are pillars of a truly happy life. You have to mediate to calm your mind. You have to be grateful for what you have, because it's very hard to be a pathetic, self-pitying egotist when you're busy filling your heart with gratitude for everything; for life itself.

Except that I AM a pathetic, self-pitying egotist. Much less abashedly so than I should be. And it's hard to have a heart full of gratitude for life itself when I'm more or less fo the mindset that life itself kind of sucks.

And there you have it. It's a chicken and egg thing. If I'm not happy, how can I be grateful? If I can't be grateful, how am I supposed to get to happy?


Except that this mindset totally misses the point. The idea is to practice gratefulness as a means to get to happy. Force yourself to acknowledge the things you are grateful for, to force out those immature, self-defeating feelings. You're better than that! You're humble, and at one with existence itself!


Blargh.


As many as my fellow east-coast cynics would agree with me, this feels like super unnnatural new-age shit. Great, I'm alive. I have legs-- I can walk. I don't have ebola. Yet.

The problem is that, logically, I've never really been on board with this "Be glad you have it as good as you do" rhetoric. Yes, there is food on my plate. Yes, there are people starving elsewhere. Dying painfully. Wrongully accused. Yes, it's good that I'm not any of them.

But part of me has always believed-- and is, to an extent, vindicated by research-- that one's level of happiness is more or less independent of these other circumstances. Just check the internet. Look up all the stories about the brave, happy young women who ultimately died of some terrible disease. Read their friends testimonials that they "never let the sickness get the best of them" and how they were "bright and sunny even to their dying day." (Keep in mind, I'm not quoting anyone here. I'm quoting everyone. If I have to read this exact thing one more time...)

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful I don't have cancer (If I don't. A Cynic like me is never sure.) And I think if I did get cancer, I'd be miserable.

But I'm not certain I'd be more miserable than I am on a day-to-day basis. I think it would just feel like I'd been training really hard for some kind of fucked-up marathon all of my life, and now it was the day of the big race.


So, preparedness? I guess that's something to be grateful for?

There's this scene in "When Harry Met Sally" where Harry claims that, being a fundamentally less happy person than Sally (though I'm not sure he really proves to be, as the movie progresses), he'll be more prepared than she will when things go really wrong. I think he means on a global level: some unavoidable doomsday.

Personally, I think that's really shitty justification for letting yourself be an unhappy person. Who the hell cares how you'll feel in the moments before the apocalypse? Live your life.

But I think there are strengths that come from being someone who is unhappy: I spend a lot of time trying to convince Dan -- my almost compulsively happy fiancé (of sorts)-- of this idea; that being someone who is often unhappy is not necessarily inferior to being someone who is happy nearly all of the time.

I don't think he buys it, and this adds to my unhappiness, and the general struggle of our relationship. But it's true, isn't it? Being someone with a much fuller range of emotions allows me to empathize more deeply with the people around me. Suffering alongside another person is the surest way, in my opinion, to cement a really deep bond. That's why I've been blessed (oh! Gratitude!) with so many deep, meaningful relationships in my life. Friendships which I would not sacrifice for anything in the world. Love for others that has outlasted any semblance of a real relationship-- and yes, I get that that can easily be seen as a weakness.

But I am grateful that I still love the people who probably do not love me anymore. I am grateful that the love that I have known has proven to be unconditional. If somewhat creepy.

And I am very grateful that blogger has long since implemented an autosave system that saved this for me when I accidentally close it out just now, switching tabs to google to try to find something to help me remember the word "unconditional." The thing about writing again is that it REALLY brings out that THING that happens when I can't think of a word. Ugh.


So. Gratefulness doesn't come easy to me. But apparently I can find my way to it if I write long enough-- even if it is slightly more than a printed page.

Day 2, then. (Oh, I'm counting last night as Day 1, even though I posted after midnight. Fuck off, they're my rules.)

On with it.

Entanglements...

My life is very different. Of course it is. It's been more than a year since I've written anything, probably more than five since I've slowed down writing considerably. The last few posts were me in the midst of a great change.

Great meaning "big." No value judgment for now. (Is that the right judgment? Do I want the one with the "E"?)

I don't have time to tell you all the ways my life has changed. It's late. I must sleep. There is a job, a new one, that requires I wake up early.

What I will say is that things are not very good right now, and, I think, in order to get better, I need to get back to my roots a little. Writing-- specifically, most of the time-- got me through most of the toughest parts of my life. It helped me to look deeper into myself. Process my pain. Acknowledge my strengths. It helped to give me something concrete that I cared about and was proud of. There are so many pages of this thing, so many words that I wrote, so many sentences I crafted.

And yes, most of them are totally self-involved mush. But they're pretty well-written, at least half of the time. And, more importantly, they're mine.

So I think, the goal, for now, for the next thirty days, is to write a little each day. I was originally going to say "100 words at least, and no more than 200." I don't know how long this is so far, but I think anyone who knows this blog is here, well, they know me better than that.

So, I don't know? Not more than a standard, American, 8.5x11 piece of paper worth of type? If it were in 10 point font with 1.15 spacing? (I do a lot of graphic design now, line spacing is big with me.)

I'm not going to hold myself to it, I don't think. If I hit a vein, and I need to write, I write. Maybe it'll give me a chance to reconnect with so many of the people I've lost. People who knew me better when they could start right here. Maybe those people are gone forever.

What I wanted to write about tonight, in my "100 words", was how, in an attempt to reverse what I've decided must be very high cortisol levels (having read this article), I have made the conscious decision to try to meditate. (It would sort of defeat the purpose of mediation to make an unconscious decision to do it.)

The idea gives me a lot of anxiety, being, you know, someone prone to anxiety. Which is the whole thing the mediation is trying to reverse. My life-- which is different-- is very busy now. Busy in addition to the fact that I've always been a very low-energy person (I want that phrase to be a hyperlink to some post I wrote in the past that proves my point, but, while I'm sure there are many, I do not have time to go hunt for one. Perhaps another day.)

Okay, blah blah blah, fast forward to the part where, having struggled with how to implement my plan to start mediation, I found myself in the tub tonight, trying to untie the knot of hair that tends to form at the nape of my neck when I don't have the time (/energy) to tend to it well enough. (My hurrying myself is rather messing with the poetic rhythm that I hoped this post would take on, but it's late, and I'm very near to the end of the hypothetical page, and I wasted all that time establishing ground rules. So. The point of the story. End parenthetical.) I decided that, as I don't feel like I have the time or the focus to mediate, and I rarely feel like I have the time or the focus to un-knot my hair, I decided to combine the two practices.

I focused on my fingers as they slid wet strands free of the knot, the sound of the bathroom fan, the sensation of the water. My mind repeatedly wandered to everything-- mostly thoughts about the future of my mediative habits, whether I would adapt it to exercise, perhaps knitting, writing-- but I did as I've been told you're supposed to do: I simply brought my focus back to the sounds, smells, and sensations of the moment without judging myself.

I don't think it would have worked so well for me, had it not been such perfect symbolism: there I was, slowly untangling the mess of my life, one strand at a time. If I'm going to do this, after all, I have to do this the only way that comes naturally to me: as a shameless purveyor of self-serving metaphors. Writers, I think they call us.


Would this all fit on a single typed page? Sigh. Day one of thirty. On with it.