It's spring and my life is waking up. Just a few years ago, my life was extremely turbulent and my mind was an unpleasant place to be in. Everything was always in flux, but far from always in a good way.

This past year has been calmer, quieter, so stable it has bordered on a bit boring. But, it's been something I needed.

Now, things are beginning to pick up again. However, this time it's different. I can feel the motion of before, but things are clearer. This past year gives me a platform from which to launch from. It has been a place of stable mind and thought that has let me ground and center. The loops are still there in the background, but I know how to work them now. I am not afraid. My eyes are opening. I am awake.

i am in a dark place tonight
i do not like this place
i am a big mean evil nasty bitch
i don't like me right now
i'm moody and irritable
quick tempered
i need to calm down
get a grip
ground and center
but i cannot find me
and if i cannot find me i cannot center me
i drift away
not in my body
not in my mind
outside of my own existence
but still a part of it
i wander always
tomorrow i'll be somewhere else

I feel very good right now. A lot less dissociated than I have been for a while. I had a cigar then went down to Spy Pond. I sat near the shore and meditated. I have drifted back away from mindfulness in my life, and I have forgotten how wonderful it is to find that place. To look at the amazing that exists all around me.

I do better with short to medium length meditations spread throughout the day than I do with longer ones. No matter how hectic any day is, no matter what else I have to do, no matter where I am, I must do these meditations. They are better than any psych med ever was.

My mind gets lost in loops and I lose the path. I become distanced from myself, those around me, and the Everything. But, it is okay that that happens. It is the way I am. The best I can do is keep to the path as best I can and accept my limits. I am the way I am for a reason, and I must take my problems with my blessings.

My temper has been showing through again lately. I need to reign it in. That needs to be a goal. A new meditation regimen is in order. purpleglitter thinks that the hormone imbalance my endocrinologist noted may be causing some of my moodiness. Perhaps, but that is no excuse. Must calm my mind. Must seek center again.

There are very many stresses in my life right now. I feel as if I'm being pulled in every direction at once. So many hooks wanting to sink into me. Wanting to pull me apart again. A seemingly endless supply of things to be stressed by. At some point I have to accept that I cannot make everything well. I must simply make the best with what is. Accepting that is something I'm working on, for it's easy to say, it is easy to know, but it not easy to truly accept and be mindful of. Now is an important time to make that effort. To be mindful and stay centered. The winds are howling and change is coming whether I want it or not. If chaos is to rain down, then I must be at peace with the storm. I must not fight the wind, instead I must seek the future.

I'm very thankful that I ended up in Massachusetts. If I had instead ended up in an AOT state, I'm sure that I would have been forced to keep taking psychiatric medication. I don't think I would have ever gotten to state I am at now if I were on Geodon or Thorazine or whatever other zombiefying medication they'd want to stuff down my throat. My mind needed to be opened, not closed. Even anti-depressants would have hindered the process I've gone through, as their effect is that of a dissociation from sadness. I needed to address the sadnesses, and not feeling them would have prevented me from doing that.

This process is not over. It will never be over. Every day is still challenging. Every day is still hard. But, the hope I have found shines through the difficulty. The brightness has always been there, I simply couldn't or wouldn't let it in. My shell has been cracked, and through those cracks the light now seeps through.

I'm still not ready to hold down a job. I still have to take things in my day to day life slowly. I need to make sure I do my meditational prayers in order to keep myself mindful throughout each day. I didn't keep mindful Saturday, and had a very bad time towards the evening until I went to sleep. I felt a bit Flowers for Algernon that night, but when I woke up Sunday morning I drank coffee and did my meditations. I was able to move back into the place. It is important that I do not lose the path again. The path I am to walk is path I must take, if for no other reason than there currently is no other path that I can take.

I may not ever be able to hold down a "real job" again; but if that is the way it is to be, it is the way is to be. I trust the winds. I am the way I need to be for me to do and see the things I need to do and see. Just as a whale is not able to see the expanse of the ocean from the sky, a gull is not able to see the depths of the whale's realm. Both experiences are gifts and neither the whale nor the gull is the less for what the other can see.

I'm coming to terms with accepting that I have been blind, but that blindness has lead me to my new sight. That something beyond me brought me here. I see my actions differently, I see myself differently. I see that my actions and the actions of those around me have brought me here. I take responsibility for what mistakes I have made in the past out of that not lookingness that I was in, but I do not regret those mistakes. Mistakes are neither inherently good nor evil, they just are. I must take care to walk in the light as much as I can. I accept that I will make new mistakes. Mistakes are meant to be and they are only really mistakes from our limited incarnate point of view. I cannot be what is not meant to be, for whatever I am and become and was is that which was meant for me at that time. This does not absolve responsibility, only regret.

factum est illud, fieri infectum non potest
done is done, it cannot be made undone
     - Titus Maccius Plautus

merryperseis and I went down to Spy Pond again today.The geese and ducks and swans followed us as we walked around Spy Pond and I fed them.. I love feeding them. The geese are my favorite. They'll eat right out of my hand. They mob me from all directions and push to get in front. Somehow it all is very calming to me. Interspecies connections are very important.

purpleglitter came over last night. We spent the night chatting. I haven't seen her as much lately, now that she has much work on her plate. I miss seeing her everyday.

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merryperseis and I just got back from feeding the geese at Spy Pond, which is technically illegal in Arlington. There is something peaceful and calming about feeding birds, and the birds seem to like it, so I see nothing wrong with it. Some pissy residents were worried about the number of geese in town, and felt feeding them attracts more. I say, you can never have too many geese.

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I've been drifting in a fog lately. I don't really know where I'm going, what I'm doing, or who I am. I desperately need to get my bearings. I waste so much time just lying down thinking about nothing. I need to get my life on a track. I need to do something.