I

Once there was a girl. She used to wear her heart on her sleeve but she almost lost it once so she started wearing it on a string around her neck instead.
She was happy. Or trying to be.
One time the girl met a boy.
His smile was whimsical.
His hair was perfect.

Apparently you can use your thoughts to create new circuits in the brain and therefore ultimately literally change your brain's responses to things. "By willfully treating invasive urges and compulasions as errant neurochemistry- rather than as thruthful messages that something is amiss- patients have altered the activity of the brain region that generates these thoughts."*
In my case, if I keep telling myself that this pining-for-my-long-lost-love-very-Cathy-and-Heathcliff-thing I do is not an actual romantic star-crossed lovers' scenario but merely a product of errant neurochemistry then maybe I might really get over this. For good. (As opposed to just transferring the same kind of behavior onto the next person that comes along.)
I just can't stop seeing your face.
Everything reminds me of you.
All the time.
Not romantic. Not soulmate. Not a sign.
Invasive.
Errant.
My brain is hardwired to do this. My brain is hardwired to fantasize.
Crap.


* Sharon Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain

"Não nos despedimos daquilo que fica para sempre."

Sometimes I get so caught up with taking the high road, so caught up with being the bigger person and not clinging not wanting not projecting that I become obsessed with acceptance, obsessed with forgiveness, obsessed with compassion and loving kindness and release. It's like I want to skip an entire step in the whole conflict resolution process and jump directly to the end. The part where you kiss and make up and no hard feelings. The part where it's okay. The part where you don't deal with the hurt and the crying and the ugly words and possibly even uglier actions. The part with the tears and the snot and red puffy eyes, where you punch your pillow, the walls the air and scream, the part where you lie on the floor and you question everything and, god forbid, you feel resentment and even self-pity. Ouch.
I thought that if I could keep this composure, if I could dress the robes of calm, of peace, of non-aggression, of love, of kindness, of compassion and tolerance, if I could be this person in every circumstance and throughout every situation in my life then I would magically become so light that I would float over the ugly part, and not have to get muddled up in it. Skim the surface maybe. Dip my toes in possibly. But not past the ankles. Not past the knees. And never ever in a million years plunge so far in as to have my head barely floating above water.
Well I kept this composure. I dressed the robes and I was calm, and I was tolerant, and I was understanding, kind, forgiving, and all about the letting go. I was stoic and I stuck to my character throughout the entire story. Even when it was hard. Even when it was darn near impossible and went against everything my most primal insticts tried to tell me.

I still got hurt. I still got hurt and so badly that I cry and scream and pound my fists and ask why me and feel resentment and anger and (sigh) self-pity. I am not the image of everything that I wanted to be anymore. Far from it. I am the sad, weak, defeated human who has anxiety attacks and can't breathe.
Despite all my efforts to rise above, I still got caught up in the bad and the ugly and I am still treading the mud.
(And FYI, you can't jump to the end. It's just not possible)

On detachment

Detachment, also expressed as non-attachment, is a state in which a person overcomes his or her attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and thus attains a heightened perspective (...)
In Buddhist and Hindu religious texts the opposite concept is expressed as upādāna, translated as "attachment". Attachment, that is the unability to practice or embrace detachment, is viewed as the main obstacle towards a serene and fulfilled life. Many other spiritual traditions identify the lack of detachment with the continuous worries and restlessness produced by desire and personal ambitions. (Wikipedia)
Well, I, for one, have to say that this detachment thing is doing my head in.
When is enough detachment too much detachment?
Where do you draw the line between not desiring, not wanting, not clinging, not demanding and simply just not being yourself anymore? (Assuming, of course, that the self even has a part in any of this.)
Monks and nuns aside, what is detachment, in practice, to a young single woman in today's western world? (And a young single woman who wears her heart on her sleeve, at that)
When do you stop being (desirably) detached to becoming (undesirably) a doormat?
How is it that you get to a point where you have created so much space that there is no room for yourself anymore?

Boxes

I have this box. It's one of those that you're supposed to put pictures in, that has a frame on each side. My box doesn't have pictures in it. It has things. Random things. Things that I put inside to unclutter my heart.
The ring that I was wearing on the night that we met (or "recognized each other" as he liked to say. We'd seen each other around our entire lives...) He was leaning over the bar with that devilish grin of his and swiped the ring from the counter.
A bunch of scraps of paper with things scribbled on them which I write every time I want to say something to him. I miss you every day.
Song lyrics.
Snippets of emails. Transcribed SMSs. You are the best part of every day.
Pictures. Three of me looking miserable and crying over him. My friend Anna snapped them over lunch the Saturday after we broke up because "one day you will laugh at this day." One of this cute little character holding out his arms and saying "I'll just pretend to hug you until you get here." (Actually believing that if I stood there long enough with by arms out he would. Get here, I mean.)
I'm thinking that if I shove all my memories into a box then maybe I can remove them from me and then maybe there can be a chance that I don't go to bed and wake up the next day with his face in my mind.
So I get it.
I get that people have their things. Their boxes. Maybe not actual boxes like mine, but some sort of metaphoric box to dump their crap in. I get that they have to do whatever they have to do to move on.
Maybe that means disappearing from the face of the earth.
Maybe that means cutting off all sort of contact. Erasing your number off their phone. Erasing you from their friend list on facebook (or even quitting facebook altogether, who knows?)
Maybe that means that you are left to think that everything you thought you had ever believed about that person was wrong.
Maybe. And I get it.
It doesn't make it any easier that I get it. It doesn't make me cry any less or stop myself from thinking WHY THE **** IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? (again) It doesn't take away the ounce of self-pity, the edge of frustration, confusion, annoyance, pain. It doesn't make me blame myself, him, the universe (you pick the order) any less. I get it, but I don't like it.
I have this box. I have this box where I put things. Random things. I have a box where I put things while I hope, wish, pray, beg to unclutter my heart. And I'll keep stuffing the box until this goes away. Until you get here. Until it works.

First impressions

My friend Sarah drew a cartoon of me once. It was a little black and white character sitting cross-legged in meditation position, with hair strewn all over the place and a t-shirt saying: The Buddha Dates. In this little cartoon, and in about 5 seconds of sketching, she captured the essence of my entire being.
Grounded. Zen. Centered.
Haywire. Scattered. Lost.
Heartbroken and ecstatic.*
Basically a human paradox all of its own.
I have to say it is not an easy thing to live with, this thing of being a walking contradiction, and it is not something that sits well with me.
Why? Because my entire life I have been taught (in different ways and by different people) that you have to be this or that. Feel one way or another. There is not enough room in one person's heart, soul, inner space, or whatever you want to call it for everything to coexist at the same time.
Or is there?
What if I don't have to be this or that, one or the other?
What if I can be everything and still be me?
And what if being me, right here and right now, with the mess and chaos and stuff yet to be dealt with, is OK? What if it is as good as it gets? What if I can be happy like this and don't have to be enlightened and completely sorted out, like, ever?
Buddhist nun Pema Chodron writes:
"You can start where you are."
Ok then. I'll take your word for it.
I am starting where I am.