When I think of how far I have come in the past year, I think how exactly is this possible? Just when I think that I know it all, the universe delivers something that you simply can not ignore.
About a year ago I was in a very weird place.
Not a bad place but a weird place.
Teff & the girls left last January, that was hard for me. Even though Teff was driving me crazy, I still missed her and the girls. I feel bad for finally pulling the trigger and giving her a deadline, but I thought that she would realize she needed to get her act together. I suppose I didn’t think that she would run all the way back to what she had run from the year before. I was wrong.
I wasn’t working. That was not such a bad thing, but I am so used to working the transition was tough. I knew that I was doing the right thing, for my health, for my family, but not being in the workforce was an adjustment.
Reginald & I were over for about a month, and I was still dealing with that. When I love I love deep and hard, losing that love was tough. Few people understood the connection that he and I had, but we did, and that pain was tough.
It was around that time…I met my friend. She’s a pistol. My first conversation was about 3 hours long, and I laughed for 2 hours 45 minutes. I needed it badly. Laughter was not a common occurrence then for me.
I met her on the internet – and we exchanged lots of mail back and forth. Soon our mail turned to phone conversations. Now this friend is crazy. No really she is. But she knows it and that is part of how and why she can deal with me…I am pretty crazy too.
There is something special about her though that caught and held my attention. Her faith. She is a Buddhist.
When she said that the first time, I thought of singing monks in sheets on a mountain top. I didn’t know things were different.
As the months wore on we got closer. As the months wore on my brand of crazy would clash with her brand of crazy but we worked through it every time.
Part of it is her brand of special, and she is, but part of it is her faith.
I would ask questions and eventually I started investigating her faith deeper, eventually it became my own.
It is my baby Buddhism practice that I blame for today.
I typically walked around looking as if I were mad at the world.
It gave me the cover that I needed and kept people away from me. Sure sometimes people would break through the crack but mostly people left me alone.
As I am learning through my faith, when you chant that no longer happens.
People talk to me all of the time now. I try to buy bigger sunglasses and turn up the iPod louder…but people are still attracted to me. Sometimes they are crazy.
I was in Center City today handling some business for the house. I haven’t shared the details but there is a lot that needs to get done.
I was in Kinko’s printing things out and the woman at the machine next to me just started talking to me. The other thing about the practice is that it increases your patience and compassion. I know some of you are laughing but it does, because I helped her.
Leaving the Kinko’s I tried to enter back into ignore me mode….but as I am learning there is no ignoring me most of the time.
The strange woman tapped me on the shoulder to explain that she wanted to talk to me because she thought that the man who was in front of the Kinko’s was following her.
She spoke of the Department of Justice, of harassing phone calls, of strange events, and of a taped conversation with her doctor. When she tried to play the tape for me I drew the line and got ghost.
What I have learned is that we are not paranoid ENOUGH as a people, and there was a CHANCE that this woman was not just crazy. She really may have been telling the truth. If that was the case? I needed to not be any more involved than I was. It’s bad enough that on most days I can spot the tail behind me I don’t need additional observations.
I like the Nicole that exists while she chants, it is light years ahead of the Nicole who did not. I would like a crazy filter though if anyone has one.