Crash and burn

In the middle of one of those cycles in the journey through the Underworld of letting go of everything. It started yesterday, somehow triggered by Andy Bey's version of Lush Life from his 2004 release, American Song. Also by reflecting on Dia de los Muertos coming up, feeling that autumnal grief I feel every year. And encountering the absolute and total unmanageability of my daily life. From little things (tried to clean up a coconut oil stain in saltillo tile by using a calcined clay poultice sold as the magic solution to just such a thing-- ended up not removing the stain and adding a lovely white additional stain) to "big" things, experiencing total systems collapse. 

Another catalyst for this crash and burn has been doing a very thorough sex inventory-- really a lot more about relationship, but definitely including sexual conduct. The source of most of the misery of my life and the arena in which I have caused most of the harm to others, is absolutely in romantic, sexual partnerships. The thoroughness of the process using the Big Book Awakening workbook has been humbling for sure, as well as horrifying in some ways. 

Burning culm dump

I miss the woman I'm in love with so desperately and insanely that it's been a sort of immolating feeling the past two days. Combined with that acute feeling of desire for this absent woman is an unusual upswelling of insecurity, neediness, lack of footing and lack of confidence. What follows from that is a lot of negative self talk and a feeling of self loathing that is not pretty. And last night, I realized that I have been holding on to this situation for dear life, trying to control and keep it. Operating on that old canard that if I just work hard at it, it won't evaporate and I'll have earned consistency and reliability. I knew that what I had to do was to let go and find some way to trust. Turn it over, step 3 wise. That I had been exhausting myself trying to manage it. That I just had to roll the dice and keep my heart open and stop acting out of fear. Easy!

The PhD program has been frustrating for the past several months, and I have my annual committee meeting Friday, 11/3, and I'm feeling hopeless about the entire enterprise for some reason. Just one of those phases in any long, arduous process-- the dark and down cycle. 

Get knocked over seven times, get back up eight times. That's what this ends up being. But for the moment, I am flat on my ass. Nice.