The Lucky Dark

All my good intentions went out the window yesterday. I was absolutely mired in blackness. It came on suddenly, for no good reason. I wandered around the house thinking, "what's the point?" Finally, I just crawled into bed with a novel (Bartimaeus--Ptolemy's Gate. I finished it) until 4:00. Then I roused myself and somehow got to staff meetings. The evening was better. I got some homework done. Went to bed gratefully at 10:11. No call from Jay. Maybe that was part of the problem. My feelings get hurt when he doesn't call. Sometimes we do so well, and I really like him, and sometimes I think he's a jerk. I think boyfriends should call you once a day, and if they don't, they should be punished. I start worrying--I'm getting older, I won't be pretty, I'm too old to find someone else--you know... this could happen. I'm terrified of dying alone. Poor Boo dog, dying by herself, downstairs on her little blue blanket in the bathroom. Which is still there. I look at my chin, checking it for signs of crumbling, checking my jawline for that window dressing valence look we all start getting. Looking askance at women slightly older than me, and younger than me, and my age. Is it happening? Is it catching?

This came on very suddenly. Maybe it's the weather, which is unseasonably cold, rainy and gray. Dreary. And I haven't exercised. Maybe I'll force myself to take a little walk. But yesterday I was just about incapable of action and that really frightens me. I used to be like that, about 10 years ago, and everything fell apart--I lost my job, my relationship. I had an affair with a married cop that made things even worse. I would have dreams about lying in the cold night rain naked on an asphalt street while people stepped on me. It was a terrible time. That was the year I watched Rushmore over 200 times. I couldn't appreciate my children. The cat died. The sewer pipe broke and it flooded my basement. I cried all the time. I still sat zazen. I would sit and sweat and sob.

Depression. I really don't want to get hit again. It was so beyond me. It sank everything.

Ok. Well, I know what I have to do. I just have to keep going through the lists, setting my timer, taking my breaks, and doing what I need to do. I sit, I'm surrounded by thick fog. Everything, even simple, simple things, seem absolutely beyond me. Everybody has blue days. And yesterday was a blue one, for whatever reason. The day before was fine. So I'm sure it will get better. I'll put off the big existential questions. I think those questions are just awful. What is the meaning of life, etc. I'm one of those people who can't think about those things too much. Because I'll just lie down and die.

I'm reading Being With Dying by Joan Halifax. Just something light and distracting before bed and while in the loo. She talks about St. John of the Cross, and how "suffering, pain, dying, failure, loss, and grief" are the "lucky dark"--she states, "[T]hat great Christian saint recognized that suffering can be fortunate because, without, there is no possibility for maturation."
I think that's a lot to put on to suffering.

That's my 1/2 hour. Exactly.