Lifting the Mists of Melancholy

My life has been heavy. Walking through cancer and chemotherapy with my mother and witnessing my father's health decline until his recent death has been heavy. My job has been heavy. Trying to be there for my mother as she passes through the most crippling grief and loss she has ever experienced in her life... watching her wear her heart on her sleeve and being unable to stop the tears from coming when they come has been heavy. I've been walking around carrying that heaviness. I've been carrying it in my back and shoulders. More than that, I've been carrying it in my heart.

Something really mundane happened Friday afternoon at work that woke me up to the fact that I need to let the mists of melancholy I've been carrying around just lift. I passed one of the managers in my chain of command in the hallway and she asked how things were going. My response was "okay," but it was a loaded "okay..." loaded with stress and overwhelm and "okay but not really okay if you know what I mean." I've been in the middle of a huge project at work and things haven't gone as smoothly as I would've liked and I don't have a big team of people helping me to work through the issues and it weighs on me sometimes. So my okay was intended to say a lot... all of that and more. My manager... she just kinda looked at me and said "It's Friday... ". She said something else but I'm not really remembering. The "It's Friday" part was really all I needed to hear.

I thought to myself, "Damn, chalip... lighten up."

I'm in need of my practice right now. I've been limping through my life. I've been on a rocky boat, just holding on. I need very much to lighten up. I need very much to sit and really experience and feel everything I've been holding on to so as to let it go. I need to watch the mists of melancholy lift, and I need to smile. Really smile.

I feel rested for the first time in a long time. I've been working crazy overtime... the kind of overtime where you come home mentally tired... exhausted... and fall into bed, into a coma really... then get up the next morning feeling exhausted still to do it all again.

My daily practice... the active parts of my daily practice... are the ways I take care of myself. And I haven't taken care of myself in a long time. Everything has been in a holding pattern, waiting for that moment when I could exhale and focus on myself. I've been running around "like a chicken..." a friend would say. I look at the way I've managed this time in my life and it is a big red flag that says something to me. It says, "Hey, chalip... you've learned a few things but you still could use some work in the living a balanced life department."

So today is a leisurely day. Today is a day with no rushing around... This morning I woke up and made pancakes. I'm listening to some really good jazz music as I write this. When I'm done with this post, I'll listen to Zencast or some other dharma on disc, then I'll sit for the first time in I don't know how long. I'll do my yoga, I'll load the washing machine, and I'll cook dinner at a leisurely pace. I'll do some chores. I'll vacuum and dust. And I'll imagine the vacuum cleaner sucking in all of this heaviness... all of this melancholy.

Later tonight, I'll watch or listen to something or someone that really makes me laugh. I don't know who it will be... Chris Rock, Katt Williams or Dave Chappelle should do the trick... or maybe I'll watch disc 2 of The Boondocks season one... I've been saving it for a rainy day.

When I come back to this space, when I blog again, my intention is to be lighter.

Comments

[Nyaze Vincent]

Sharing your weight makes mine easier to bear. Thank you.

[chalip]

Thanks for saying so, Nyaze...
I'm famous for whining and complaining on my blog. I worried that this post might come off that way and read like a "turn off" but that wasn't my intention.

Honestly, in just writing it some of that weight lifted, and I did enter the next day feeling much lighter than I did.

What I learn through Buddhist study and practice is that we all suffer. We may judge our responses to our suffering as I sometime do... call it whining and complaining... but it is still that experience... that dukkha... that unsatisfactoriness that Buddha was pointing to all those years ago.

When we can experience for ourselves that it's not just an ego experience... when we can experience for ourselves that we live in a world with countless beings who suffer just as we do, it can be comforting. Not because they suffer... but because we are not alone.

bows,
chalip

[chalip]

Oh... and hey Yaze (now that we've been acquainted...)

Dig the myspace page.