Transformation

Let's address the topic of transformation. I am what I decided to be. I create myself in every choice moment and unfolding event.

I am standing at the other end of a great abyss, one I repeatedly fantasized about over the passing years, but did not imagine I would ever reach, much less surpass to the extent that I have. Is it a slight death, I can't help but wonder, to be self congratulatory at this point? I hope not, because I deserve this.

To take stock and for the record, this time last year I was living a life of utter self destruction. I was smoking anything a person could smoke like it was my job. I never slept on time. I didn't eat at all or correctly most of the time. And I never had any money. I was always late, and always struggling. I know, this sounds like the start of a religiously inspired born again testimonial... The strangest part: I was fiercely attached to my lifestyle. It's not like I didn't know that I wasn't doing right by myself, its that I didn't care. I knew it was fucked up and I liked it that way.

There are a lot of questions about this that float around for me. Why didn't I care? Was it some kind of manifestation of self hate? Was it some kind of resistance? Some kind of protest to the life I was living? What changed in me recently to put everything in order? Is it my age? Did I finally, finally get sick enough of it all? Is it all thanks to moving to New York?

In my mind these days, I say to myself often: I used to think I had problems. And then, I moved to New York. This doesn't mean what it seems to mean. I don't have more problems now, I don't know what it is to struggle more keenly, in fact I have so many less. But I see daily what problems look like. I see people with issues, everywhere. For some reason this has me straighten up and ground within myself; it has me working harder to assert who I really am, authentically. And I think this is what is most curious to me... what I found by doing so.

One by one, I've dropped all my vices. Things that I remember rooting my personality in, my self-identity. September saw me cut off tobacco. December/January saw the departure of my transitional living space on the seaport. No internet in the new place on purpose suddenly has me sleeping on time and consistently. Jan 31 I joined an expensive gym; so expensive I force myself to workout daily. February: exit right some new but seriously toxic friends. March: Persian New Year + family + master cleanse help me drop food, self medication and sex. The return to food saw only healthful things, I still haven't eaten anything deeply fried, and white bread/rice hasn't really made much of a comeback. Neither has sex. Or serious intoxication. And I feel powerful as a result of each of these little victories. Every little one pushes me up a notch, and with each notch the self degenerative decisions of my past confuse and confound me a little more. Who was I then? Why was I like that? Why did it take so long to get here. To this moment that unfolded like I'd always imagined it would, like a switch. Something simply flipped and I just shifted. Even my life at the beginning of March seems foreign and far away compared to where I am now. How strange and amazing is that?

I remember watching my sister first apply to Duke for her MBA, then get accepted, then complete the program, with determination and absolute resolve. She did it while excelling at her career, purchasing a new place, then moving to a new city, purchasing another place, and getting promoted at work. I remember feeling indifferent about it all, while I was happy for her, I considered it in the space of "things that made us different" labeling it so that I could pad my self disappointment. One night during the course of it though, she told me about the catching feeling of accomplishment... "Now that I did this thing, what else can I do?" Something about my current journey takes me back to that conversation we had... I think I finally understand what she meant, and I actually don't think we are all that different anymore.

Rat race mentality creeps in a little... now that I've finally straightened up I can compete and join the ranks of good enough to transcend into better and then best. The person I was always meant to be! The one my parents and sister sometimes looked through me and saw, with cocked heads and confounded brows. Imagine what I could have done if I'd come around to this 10 years ago. There is my dad talking... But it really doesn't matter, does it. Maybe, I think, I am like the Siddhartha who had to indulge in the lavish excess of the material world to enjoy the spiritual one, to reach nirvana... he crossed that same river many times before he sat down under a tree. So why bemoan the journey? Celebrate it.

But not for long, there is still a lot of work to do, sister.

Self actualization is not for the faint of heart. And as a result I'm pretty thankful for the blazing determination inside my ribcage. Is ignorance really bliss? Not here, not now. To drag myself through the dirt of life to get to this little mountain top makes suffering the nasty truths of who I was and the pain of change absolutely worth it.

Upward and onward..

Loneliness

The year is now 2011. The years continue to melt away... 2001, the year of prague, 2006 the year of beach parties and costumes, 2007 the year my leg broke, 2008 the year of boyfriend healing, 2009 a year of sorrow...  all surely fading into the light and distant memory versions of themselves. I've brought myself to New York, a city with more people than I've ever seen at once, more people on any given day than the combined bodies I'd ever see in a week or a month in North Carolina or even in Our Nation's Capitol, DC. And for the first time in my life, I am vividly lonely.

Even typing those words springs immediate tears into the edges of my eyes. I've never understood how people can get lonely, no matter where I've ever been there have always been warm hearts surrounding me. It didn't take even 6 months to find my feet in DC and yet here its been 10 months to the day already since I've come here and I have an experience of New York that is nothing short of frigid. I know New York is a hard city, but I didn't expect this.

I came here because I wanted to be challenged. I came because I saw a million people just like me. But how does this work... where the more people that are around a person, the lonelier and more withdrawn one feels? I am not here to complain, just to express it.. express it up and out of my heart, express to uncover the inner exuberance that lives just behind this big brick wall of sorrow and heart tightness. To release how hard this winter has been on my soul, how close to the surface I feel this searing strange pain. It's totally unlike all the other versions of sadness (many) I've experienced to this point. I'm trying to find the words for the desperate clawing void that fills my mind and my torso with such sudden tsunami strength. There aren't any that adequately capture it. But it is always there lately and sometimes at the smallest provocation it utterly consumes me. How am I supposed to connect with anyone with the inside of my body twisted up in such a seriously saddened state? How can I take a Lysol cleanup wipe to the inside of my heart, to the landscape of my mind? Where is the sun? Why won't the weather give us a fucking break? I think that would help, at least just a little.

Listen, its not the end of the world. I don't want to leave. I came here for a reason, and I suppose this is part of it. To learn how to toughen up, from the inside out. To learn how to keep walking, to keep moving, to keep trying, to keep reaching. I know I am not the only one that feels this way. I know that its not a permanent state despite how encompassing it feels sometimes. Maybe its an invitation to get busy. Maybe that's why everyone here is so busy all the time... to stave off the loneliness. To keep it at bay. But I've learned from the masters... that the only way out is through. Another one of my trials and self imposed tribulations. We who are so in love with suffering, we who come to New York and love it despite all of this... madness and sadness and badness.

So, like I said 10 months ago, full of anticipation and trepidation, I'll say again - this time with many battles behind me and many demons conquered but many more left to tackle... Welcome to New York.