Hang On To The Pain

Anxiety:  An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event.  (Ed. Note: I've looked this word up so many times I have it memorized.  There's a picture of me on the page, for chrissake.  Alternately, when I opened the definition for gratitude I hear crickets chirping.)

Here is some stuff I wrote to myself after mom, dad, and Kenner died:

I release my anxiety into the universe.  (Ed. Note: My anxiety totally ignored this request.  It went precisely nowhere, roughly speaking.)

This is MY anxiety - it is not THE anxiety.  It is part of me.  It has a message that it wants me to hear.  It isn't trying to punish me or torment me or kill me.  (Ed. Note: I just added the kill part to that last sentence.  It isn't in the original document but I thought it might heighten the dramatic effect.  Kill is a word that grabs your attention but since you don't have access to the original you can't tell if it's in there or not.  Perhaps if you went on a pilgrimage to the Middle East you could find the original on a papyrus scroll, preserved from decay by the hermetic environment of a cave hidden below sea level.  The Dead Sea Scrolls of Seaweed.)

Uh, where was I again?  Oh, yeah: 

I'm not angry at it or afraid of it and I'm not trying to make it go away.  (Ed. Note: Bullshit, bullshit, and big bullshit to those three lies.)

I can sit quietly with it.  (Ed. Note:  Well, I can sit with anyhow.)

One of my things is to try to learn a lesson from every experience I experience.  I find the lessons are particularly hardy with a negative experience.  Pain focuses my attention.  Five years after these deaths I've got a thicker skin and a hardier constitution and a deeper wisdom.  When the pandemic began to put a crimp in my self-indulgent lifestyle my initial reaction was . . . well, I was pissed and annoyed that all that pleasantness was being . . . well, fucked with.  But I cycled through my recovery cycles to get to the good in the situation and I cycled at a significant clip.  I got there awfully quickly.  I learned about hanging onto something that was gone and how detrimental to my serenity this was.  I don't mean to suggest that this was instantaneous but it happened and it happened right quick.