Wandering, Times Three

At 24, on weekends (when I had them off) for a while, I took to walking through the too-large, too-empty colorless high-ceilinged rooms of my new house, walking slowly past the new furniture, wondering where my soul had gone. Time stretched into frightening nothingness and it seemed that by walking — slowly, endlessly walking — I could somehow fill that void.

It’s easy to find ways to fill up the void.  Having a job that you take home nights and weekends, every night and every weekend.  Having children.  Then having more.  Letting life revolve around you, propelling you round and round, always in a different direction, any direction.

There are too many blank spaces again these days.  Life has conspired to leave room for thought, for direction, and the idea of becoming one’s own rudder again, when the rudder itself stretches into gaping darkness, seems like an endless bad dream.  The walking has begun again, only there’s nowhere to walk to.

~~~~~

I read something today that seemed incredible to me, a laundry list of things one might feel when beginning a spiritual awakening process.  Every single item on the list was also a sign we associate with depression.  Deep inner sadness. Check.  Sleep issues.  Check.  Physical disorientation.  Check.  Every one.  And I have felt ALL of them, at one time or another or all at once, since about the age of 9.  Which means that:

1. The awakening signs list is a load of crap, or
2. I’ve been depressed since I was 9 (or before), and
3. Everyone else I know is depressed as well, OR
4. There’s totally something to this awakening stuff and it completely absolves me of guilt over feeling so crappy for so long, BUT
5. Since I was 9? Am I not yet awake, then? WTF?
6. Because dude. That awake stuff is, like, my business.  I help OTHER people.

I don’t know whether to feel heartened by this or to feel like running screaming in the other direction (maybe that’s an overreaction … checking list for “overreacting”).  Does knowing this, if true, mean I can release not only any expectation of this ever to go away but also and sense of responsibility about it?

It’s like a relief and yet not.

~~~~~

Speaking of reincarnation, I’m going through a sort of one.  That’s, of course, in addition to any painful deep inner stuff I may have already mentioned.  A job thing, squeezed now into a smaller space, and soon my belongings, rapidly and unwelcomely having grown out of the everything-fits-in-my-car stage of only a few months ago, to be also squeezed into a smaller physical space: I’m moving in a few weeks.  Again.  But this time I get to take along new things like a bed and a chair and a desk and a coffee table and dishes and a TV (why?) and a Wii (why??) and a motorcycle.

The alternative seems to be along the lines of chucking everything into storage and leaving the country for someplace exotic for many many months, but that was going to take planning, and since the farthest I got on that road was to buy a guidebook and I am still lacking small details like immunizations and visas and plane tickets and, well, PLANS, moving seemed easier.