Homesick

Kurt Vonnegut writes in Mother Night, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." Game face on!

Game face? What is my game face exactly? In particular. And indeed, it is a game, is it not? We are all playing the game. I only wish it were a fun game. And I also wish I knew how to play. Whatever happened to the rules I had been given? Why have I forgotten them? They're so different from the rules that others seem to follow. I cannot relate to this. Maybe this is what our sociological conditioning has done for us. All I know is this- I went on an amazing voyage and then I came back and now I am so very tired. I am tired. My spirit is tired. I feel like taking a very long rest. What is it about this place that saps my energy constantly?

I don't know where to start. I could start in the middle. Somewhere. All I know is that right now, I feel the malaise of malcontent stirring deep within. Maybe I will always have this running its course through me. But I know this to not be entirely true. For I'm, when at rest, a very peaceful and happy go lucky free spirit. I think I'm just feeling sad today. I feel blessed and cursed to have encountered the people in my life, my doppelgangers, my twins, and have had the profound pleasure of making their acquaintance, but as with anything that has ever meant anything to me, it was fleeting and always with a wide expanse of mountains and oceans in between, separating us. Why are my fellow kindred spirits so far away! Why can't I find the same here, locally? Why is it here locally, I find instead, water throwers, nay sayers, energy exploiters, and sycophants?

I am tired. Today I will just look at the lemons I've been handed and let them be. I am too tired today to make lemonade. Today there will not be any lemonade to be had. I've run out of sugar. The ice melts as soon as I come near. And the water I make in turn evaporates instantly as the fire in me burns so fiercely for passionate and authentic contact. I burn and I singe. It is dangerous when it gets out of control. How I need to reign in my energy. But WHY dammit! Why! Why do I have to reign anything in? So people around me can handle me, deal with me, accept me? I want to say FUCK THEM but sadly, I have things to work on before I can safely and peacefully slip off the radar of what the "other" says or thinks about me. Right now, I have to work things out in society. I have to confront certain aspects of myself that are making me intolerant of others' intolerance and inane judgments. How I wish I was born during the time of Buddha. I could just go to Amarpali's and hang out peacefully with like minded people forever. But there are no mango orchards to run to here. Anyway, I am not a quitter.

I fear that I may have just accustomed myself too much to cutting away pieces of myself to fit in. But then this strange thing happens; I cut myself to fit the bed and then immediately feel anger at myself for doing so and try to furiously re member my self... and thus begins the cycle of overcompensation. What a nasty battle. If I could only stay one way... Ahhh... here I am asking myself to make even more changes for the "society" here, and I don't even LIKE it here. It's silly. In any case I know I haven't gone through every hell that I've gone through to come back to this. Jesus. No. I LOVE me. ALL OF ME. I will change what I have to change to suit ME and keep my core intact. It has remained the same core my whole life. Eventually I will stop the temporary measures of cutting that I've been in the nasty habit of doing to myself. Of course I speak metaphorically, because, if it's not related to anything intimate, I am a big baby when it comes to any kind of physical pain.

At least for two months this year, I had the luxury of allowing myself the freedom of wholeness. But maybe it was not me that allowed it, but the environment I was in. If it were just the environment, then I'm in trouble. Boy am I in trouble. Am I just a piece of driftwood floating along the ocean... my moods shifting uncontrollably with every pull of the vast lunar energy?

All right. I'll admit something to you now. I know exactly what it is that is troubling me. Here it is. And it's not even a big deal. I am homesick. Really and truly homesick. I am sick of my current home and homesick for my home home. I am tired of being here. I am tired of playing this silly superficial game. I am tired of encountering jerks and bullies who want to steal my fire, put out my fire, hide behind my fire, exploit my fire.

The displacement I feel here is made all the more evident when I know there are people in my life that love me, cherish me, treasure me, value me, and accept me for who I am, ALL OF ME, and I, them. And these are the same people who give as much as they take. They are not energy vampires. They lead their own lives as intensely and as passionately as I do. And that is what we have in common. Passion. Life. Victor Hugo, whom I have been quoting quiet often lately, has written, "It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live." These people live. And live as authentically as possible. The phrase, "Well, anything in moderation..." never touches these peoples' lips. They do not ever live "moderately." They live FULLY, insanely beautifully, romantically, tragically, authentically.

Tragically these very kindred spirits, they live SO FAR from me, miles and miles from me, that it hit me like a ton of bricks today that I just nearly collapsed from the weight. Sometimes I wonder how it would be, if the world were kinder to me and humored my every wish, if I had these spirits around nearby all the time... But, yet I speak in haste, for I know the world IS kind, and I am being a big brat... For again, as Victor Hugo eloquently writes, "Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God."

Still, there is no better feeling for me in the world than to be in the company of someone else and to not have to explain or define my self in any way. It is like going back home. Home is where the heart is, and the heart says nothing. She just feels everything. My heart just wants to talk to your heart, unfettered, uncensored, unafraid. Heart to heart talks... they take on such significance when done in this environment. It has been such a rare treat. My heart is so hungry, there is not much to eat here, and she continues to starve.

I have been blessed and lucky to know these beautiful spirits that understand me, get me, see me, really SEE me, and see their own reflections smiling back... yet, I cannot complain too much, for my life here is taking shape and I am making it as full as I can make it considering everything else. It is in my nature to do so. I will just have to bide my time and continue to learn from what this environment has left in store to teach me. For I have some more learning to do, methinks, before I can fly safely and happily away. Before I can fly back home. And my home... anywhere and everywhere there are others on the same path as me, on that groovy bus with me...