My counselor says, “no….this is not fortune…it’s you finding your path.”  Normally I’d agree.  I love looking for my path and then talking about it in that very Tao-informed way.  But I’m not sure I can take any credit in looking or finding anything.  My life has changed because, and I completely mean this, the universe asserted itself and demanded that I respond.  And I responded…yes in a thoughtful way.  Yes in a responsible way.  But not because I wanted to…because I had to.  And lo and behold…I don’t know if the choice was “right”…but almost literally everything has changed.

Maybe this is a perspective thing: everything changed because some fundamentals shifted in this choice.  I now feel as though I can support myself and my near future is more stable.  Helpful, definitely helpful.  I now feel I have more power to govern some of the more toxic relationships in my life…I have new found weight to shift that I didn’t have before.  Also, very helpful.  I don’t hate what I’m doing…this is very good.  Never good to use “hate” as a regular descriptor in your day. But the effects of all of this seem exponential…If I’m a tree, even the tiniest little twigs are gathering in a new-found sense of life. It’s like I’m breathing again…after six years of not.

And here’s the crux, I suppose…I didn’t really have to do anything but make a choice…a choice which confronted me and not the other way around.  I just had to respond.  It is fortune, I think.  That mysterious hand that reaches in and intervenes when you, yourself, are unable.  It’s the answer to a prayer or the acknowledgement of a desperate cry for help.

Whatever it is…whew…it’s a life saver.

And it hasn’t and I’m glad it hasn’t.  But it’s not where I expected to be…and so I guess I’m mourning a little bit recently over the passing of my old plan.  It’s definitely gone.  Not my dissertation or PhD but the way I thought I’d get there.  It all seemed so clear.  And on a dime it changes; one day I’m sick about filling out more student loan papers and the next I’m fully employed and up nights because of the good, final shock of it all.  Chicago has demanded I stay…and so I will. But that was never my plan.

I remember distinctly having time-oriented conversations with lots of folks when I first got here.  The first time I met Paul he asked me how long I was planning to stay. “5 years,” I said without hesitation.  5 years passed last August.  5 years of Chicago dust, angry wind, and hundreds of thousands of words of sociology under my belt and here I am…where I never could have imagined I’d be.  In some ways wonderfully good.  In other ways disappointed I’m not much further than when I started. Some days I feel liberated, others trapped.

And now I’m sitting here at my desk at “home” with a Blue Cross Blue Shield card in my wallet with this address on it and I’m worried about filling out beneficiary paper work for my term life insurance.

All told, August will be my 7th here.  I’ve lived 12 lifetimes in that time.  My friends have completely turned over 3 times that I can count.  There’s only one person in Chicago who has known me since I moved here. I’ve lived in 4 different places in this city and painted complete apartments twice.  I’ve been heartbroken once by a person and yearly by my program of study.  I’ve had one panic attack and am currently, actively not speaking to two people.  I turned 30 in Chicago.  And I just may turn 40 here. And is this home?  I still don’t know.

But I’m holding out hope.

1. Learning French. I think it’s because I cannot imagine ever making the sound required to do that correctly.

2. Skydiving or anything that involves defying gravity.  No and no.

3. Telling people that they really bug the hell out of me.  Not collectively…just certain individuals.

4. Losing out or being left out of things. Just things.

5. Being forgotten.

6. Going blind.

7. Losing my voice…both literally and metaphorically.

8. Having kids…like giving birth to a child of my own.

9. Being humiliated.  I only know this one after the fact and I’ll tell ya…the moment I realize I feel humiliated my palms actually sweat. I feel like I’ll never recover from it.  And then I do and everything’s fine.

10. People who are intimidatingly free. Like they live only on whims.  I need a plan…always.

11. Other drivers.

12. The feeling that I’m missing opportunities right in front of me because I’m thinking too big.

13. That I’ll never be able to really relax.

That’s all I can think of right now and I’m falling asleep so that’ll have to do.  But 13 is enough, isn’t it?  Much more and I’d raise a lot of red flags…although this really does feel like the tip of the iceberg.

I’ve always played that little game with myself.  It’s a more abstract way of throwing down breadcrumbs–purposely–to remember and reflect on the differences between the way I think things will happen and the way they actually unfold.  Whenever I hit a “that moment,” I’m consistently amazed (and sometimes awed) by the incredible ways things work out.  It didn’t used to be my mantra but one of my new favorite phrases to insert anywhere doubt lives is “It’ll all work out.”  It’s my game that allows me to know that’s the case.  And even more incredibly, I’m never dissatisfied with the ways in which things work out.  It turns out life is a much better storyteller than I…it always throws in a plot twist I never could have dreamed up in a million years.

What’s interesting about the way the game has changed for me over the years is “that moment” used to be determined at the start of something big: when I started grad school, I wondered what it would feel like the first time I said, “This is the start of my 6th year” (sadly, I never imagined saying things like “this is the start of my 8th year” or “I’ve been doing this almost a decade” but I’d better start getting prepared).  In my first year in Chicago, I wondered where I’d be living 5 years down the road.  (The answer turns out to be “here.”)  And when it comes to people…well, those are stories I never could have even dreamed.  It seems, almost, that Chicago has upended almost everything I expected when I first got here.  My best friends are people that, upon meeting them I thought, “I want to be their friend but I don’t know how.”  Somehow, I figured it out–we figured it out.  Others I thought I’d know forever have fallen into the “friend ‘everything’ drawer.”  You know that one, completely jam-packed drawer of not even organized chaos that you just shove random things in and think, “I’ll definitely have to organize this drawer one of these days.”  That “friend drawer” is full of partial acquaintances or those “lost” forever in that morass of “I knew you really well once.”  I wonder what that moment will be like…the one immediately after I realize I’ve mostly cleaned out that drawer?  Aw, let’s face it: that drawer and my living room will never be really free of clutter…there will always be fragments of friends hanging out in there.

And here’s the most curious part of the “that moment” game: there are whole categories of things I’ve dared myself not to even imagine.  Things I want so desperately, so completely, that the thought of not having them actually gives me pain. The thought of missing them makes me irretrievably sad.  I specifically remember a series of moments like this when it comes to singing.  I remember walking out of contemporary choir and thinking, “It’s never going to be more than this and that’s okay,” but secretly wishing in my heart it would be, but I didn’t know how.  And “that moment” is here now…and some days I wonder where that path will continue to lead…and I can’t know; I just have to not ask questions.  When I use perfect, gut-wrenching honesty, my game has proven to me that a majority of things I’ve asked for, wished for, hoped for…I’ve gotten.  And when I examine the means, I know it’s a story I never could have created myself.  Had I undertaken it my way, I never would have reached the end I wanted.

Basically, my dining room reflection allowed me to conclude that I’m a crappy writer of fiction.  But I always knew that.  More importantly, though, if I allow the better writer of fiction to work…the ends…well, they’re always a story worth waiting for.

I know, I know.  It sounds awful.  In the best possible light it can be it sounds new agey and crunchy-granola-esque.  On the worst side, it just sounds like I’m giving weight to pure hokum.  I have no answers for you; there’s just something about it I’ve found fascinating for years.  I probably don’t consider it totally out of whack just because a whole portion of the ancients (the ones we like to forget existed like the Egyptians and Incans…the tribal folks) had it work for them.  It only doesn’t make sense in the post-Enlightenment world which embraces scientific rationality.  And listen, it’s based on the stars and their natural cycles through their orbits…so it’s the same brand of hokum as biorhythms and some of the more Eastern practices of medicine and wellness.  It’s a spirituality which Christians can be awfully judgy about.

Anyway, this is not intended as apologetics for astrology.  I don’t base my life or decisions on it–the same as I don’t pray for financial stability or seek answers to very practical questions in church.  BUT, I do find comfort in it sometimes and today’s really works for me.

Earlier I wrote about the Inevitable.  I still stand by everything I said.  But it’s funny how time further and further away from a moment of intensity or renegotiating or the inevitable becomes more tenuous.  In the moment, I had a grip on what was going on.  It’s been a couple days now since that intense moment and the grip is gone and I’m alternating between frustrated and angry, between hopeful and despondent.  I’ve found some comfort in distraction but distraction is a tool of the Hunker Mentality.  “Just don’t think about it,” you tell yourself…and nothing gets solved…you just wait for the feeling to pass without really feeling it. Experiencing the inevitable introduces other inevitables…ones you hadn’t thought about…and all of those are changes.

So, in yoga this morning I was asking the Great Expanse for some answers…guidance actually.  And what came back to me was: Don’t Question it.  Stop asking questions.  Stop trying to find answers.  Just be with it.  Truly, I was overjoyed hearing thing.  It made sense and felt good–a rare combination–because I think it taps into a Truth we can lose track of: thinking there are answers is a ruse.  There aren’t answers about the future; all we have is now, which, if we’re experiencing it, is being answered now. No need for questions.  I felt a wave of relief, hanging out there in Warrior I, a wave of power and resilience.  “I can not question it,” I breathed to myself. “Yes, I can…Si se puedo.”  And then I walked off the mat, out of that studio, and lost the moment.  Lost the magic.  Questions, questions, questions for miles around.

So, here’s the kicker about my horoscope today.  I came to school to get some work done and enjoy some AC (as it’s back up near 90 again today here in tropical Chicago) and as I sat down at the computer I just thought to myself, “I need a little inspiration.  I’m not sure where to find it.”  Of course, as part of my “I’m going to think about writing” ritual, I checked Facebook for all the good dirt and my daily horoscope was there. Lo, it said:

The stormy arguments and narrow attitudes that have been coloring your home or working world come to an end soon; and all because you finally put some healthy boundaries in place.It’s a day when logic and pragmatic decisions need to take priority. After the day’s work is complete, a little self-indulgence is in order. A confidence that no matter what happens today, it will all work out for the best. Having some faith in yourself and others is exactly what will make that come true. Any long term plans with your partner that will benefit you both in the near future is best worked out together today, rather than as a surprise.

Surprisingly, it’s what I needed.  Because this whole week has been about making boundaries (even the syllabus I’m writing for my culture class is filled with discussions of creating boundaries and why that’s important).  And the second part was my realization from yoga today; while I don’t have “a partner” necessarily, my life is shared in a lot of directions.  It was a relief to read it; whether or not it’s “true” or “predictive” (which I don’t think it is), I felt vindicated in my insight this morning, which is really all I needed.  A little validation from the Great Expanse itself.

Thanks Great Expanse.  And by the way, when did you get on Facebook?

I wonder why yesterday the toaster burned the toast and today, without touching the toaster or doing anything differently, the toast is perfect? Where did I leave my flip-flops? I wonder if an all-girls high school education actually made me more masculine than many men I know? I should take a shower. Almost done with IRB. That breeze is cool. I wonder how other people experience pain?

Literally…that was in two minutes.  I walked home from yoga this morning; it took about 25 minutes and I had a lifetime’s worth of conversation with myself.  Going in 25 directions.  Whenever this happens I feel the distinct need to write everything down as quickly as possible.  There could be good nuggets of something in there which only time will reveal.  But despite this mental chattering, there was one thought I kept coming back to, I think because it didn’t originate in my brain.

In the 2 or 3 moments in between crazy shooting thoughts, I actually felt compassion.  I’ve been reading this book by Pema Chodron called The Places that Scare You and I assumed it would be a lot about fear.  It’s actually more about the opposite of fear, which as it turns out, is compassion.  Who knew?  Maybe this is where I’ve gone wrong all these years. Here’s a picture just in case you want to read (and you really should…what else are you really doing?)

Anyway I usually don’t feel ideas; I think about them, dissect them, think more about them, start to worry about them, get anxious about them, then am exhausted and can’t sleep.  That’s usual.  But, I’ve really been working on “heart opening”–I interpret it more as willing myself to feel things rather than approach them intellectually.  It’s given more dimension to my ideas; we all think a lot about love or anger or hurt.  We ultimately want to manage them, so we approach them as events and then get a plan to deal with them.  But I’m learning that if we feel them, they actually have textures…things we can grip onto a little bit and push our edges.  In other words, I think I’m learning that if we feel things, we can grow in ways that thinking about them cannot approach.

But, back to compassion.  So, I think “heart opening” is working a bit.  I was practicing feeling compassion which isn’t empathy or sympathy.  In those, we place ourselves in the shoes of others (sympathy) or recalling when we’ve actually shared the experience of another (empathy) and felt with them.  Compassion, I think, is the following step.  In compassion we stay in our own shoes, recognize the place of another (be it filled with suffering or joy), and then love them as only we can.  It’s not sharing the experience; it’s just opening our arms and loving, regardless of what happens to us or what we’ll get out of it.  I think compassion is the act of giving away love unconditionally.  We always approach that idea from the receiver’s end…I haven’t really even imagined what it feels like to give it.  I think it’s a good thing.

So this is what I’m feeling about today.  Even writing this down has slowed the chatter.  And it makes me think that in order to give this…dude, you gotta tap into a kind of strength that you just have to trust you have…because I think it’s tough.  You may hurt in the process.  But its completely worth it, I think. I mean, I feel.

Ha-HAH. Caught myself there.

I attribute the change to a couple things but most centrally…yoga.  It wasn’t so long ago (2 months, actually) that I regularly started taking yoga classes (not half-heartedly doing DVDs in my dining room…which I refer to as my ‘yoga studio’).  Somehow, the interaction with a teacher and other students began to work away at some of the anxieties that had built to the point of all of my ‘lesses.’  And in a way that doing yoga “at the gym” as a “workout” could never touch.  A return to the breath–the present moment–was and is the most holistically therapeutic thing I’ve ever done.  So much so, that I feel it has spurred “returns” in other places that, frankly, I thought were long gone.

“What the hell are you talking about Katie?” you must be thinking.  I understand that…the notion that enduring the burning, searing pain in my hamstrings created by a forward bend or working through the panic that arises right in my throat when I maneuver my way into a handstand or headstand could actually manifest itself in very real ways outside of the yoga studio (in this case, not my dining room) seems bizarre and crunchy-granola new agey (this is my own system of classification, just for the record).  But here’s how I’m seeing this work out:  old friends I haven’t spoken to in years have popped back up in moments that I really needed them.  (What freaks me out is that if I think real hard about it, it almost seems like I’ve “summoned” them to me…I know, I know…I’m in a panic about it myself.)  School which was an absolute albatross in February has returned as a true interest.  My financial situation–always tenuous at best–that was positively dire three months ago has positively worked itself out…and not just as a “hey I got a job at Best Buy” type of scenario but as a “hey I’m a fucking sociologist…now pay me to teach it” kind of way.  (Again, if I look hard, the Universe has clearly…CLEARLY…steered me back into the classroom in a very definitive way…and has arrange a payment system that is better than I’ve ever encountered before.)  I’ve been granted closure in the situations that were tearing me apart emotionally.  I’ve been granted insight into the most difficult challenges.  I’ve actually found in a new way what compassion means…especially in approaching myself and others with compassion.  And it’s because of those fiery forward bends and the heinous twists that make me feel like a real failure on the yoga mat.

It so interesting to really begin to understand what yoga teaches.  Everyone thinks about the “flexy-bendies”–you know, those people (usually women) who can lick their shins and turn themselves practically inside out and afterwards talk about how being a human pretzel gets them to a new level of enlightenment.  I have a new respect for them…yoga’s made them that.  But focusing on the physical stretching is just too one-dimensional; yoga has to also stretch your mind and your heart too.  Otherwise, we should call it calisthenics and be done with it.  No, yoga builds spiritual muscle-memory; it teaches you to endure, to dare, and to deal with emotions as they come and in a way that allows you to learn control and mastery of them.  Yogis talk about it in terms of detachment.  I just call it sanity.

But I’m glad I’m plugged into it.  It seems whenever I really focus on it, the Universe responds to me and returns me to exactly where I need to be.  And gives me things like this as a sign that I’m doing okay.

Anyway, I digress.  She wrote a very interesting post about relationships and the point in which a relationship crosses the line from mutual responsibility to me just letting someone else off the hook for not giving me what I need.  But the one thing that really made me think was her question about the “sunsetting” of relationships–the natural falling away of those who once served a very important purpose but have since grown more distant and, sad to say, less important.  At the very least, our relationship to them has changed significantly.   I have to say, this notion both terrifies and intrigues me.

I have always been something of a warrior princess.  If I think something is important or worthwhile, I will clamp on to it like a vise and fight to the  death to keep it.  What I often lose sight of is that the process of holding on generally turns it into a mangled, ragged version of what it once was while I’m standing there sweaty and out of breath.  It would have been better for the integrity of whatever I’m holding and  for me if I’d have just let it go and slip away quietly…and maybe beautifully. There’s a certain grace to letting things go the natural way.

On the other hand, if I’m being sunsetted…well, that’s just about my worst fear which I’ve come face to face with before…and it’s still my worst fear.  Being let go always feels to me like a total rejection with a side of shame.  In whatever way, I’m so disappointing in this relationship that they’re not even going to try anymore.  Personally, I’m scarred by this–yes, I’ve been sunsetted–and frankly, I’ll always be a little skittish when I suspect someone’s leaving me before their time.  Kristine knows.  For one day a couple months ago I thought she was moving to Tampa and I freaked.  No, sunsetting and I will never meet in a spirit of love and friendship no matter who’s doing the sunsetting.  But it’s not because it shouldn’t happen. It just always hurts.

I think we’ve become used to having our own comfort at our control.  We have things when we want them.  We have choices…lots of choices.  We can artificially sustain things as long as we want (except life, but we’re pretty close to that too.)  That kind of life has allowed us to lose touch with the natural cycle.  Birth leads to life leads to decline leads to death.  That’s how it’s always been.  And I think there’s a truly natural wisdom in that.  And if we let each stage have its moment and respect it, I think there’s something inherently beautiful about each.

Letting go, I think is easy.  Accepting that something’s run it’s course.  That’s just about the toughest thing we have to deal with.  I think because we’re all a little bit warrior princess.

And then, yesterday, it hit me.  Like a friggin’ ton of bricks.  There it was, unfolding in front of me, much like the path of the most perfect putt does to Junuh in The Legend of Bagger Vance. I saw my way home.  I saw the end and I saw the path.  Finally those pieces clicked into place.  And instinctually I cried at the sheer simple beauty of it.  And out of a profound sense of relief.  (Which was short-lived when I realized that I was crying in a semi-private forum…ah well…it was in the moment.)

I’m tempted to just sit and think about the process.  How did it happen?  Why yesterday? But, I just can’t now.  I’ll never know the answers to that question.  It was, in fact, a simple gift.  Simple in presentation in that it was there one minute when it hadn’t been the previous minute. Simple in that it found me in the quiet and stillness.  Simple in that I was at ease.

Inspiration is funny.  Everything we know about working hard, challenging ourselves, making strides…it all seems pointless when true inspiration strikes.  It’s elusive both in its presence and absence.  But not ever without notice.  These kinds of deep breaths feel very good.

And I’m proud to announce that I think I have a muse.  That’s surprising too.  My muse looks nothing like the ones in Greek mythology.  I want to be able to use the word “diaphanous” in muse-talk.  I just can’t even imagine that…but it does make me laugh, so I guess that’s something.

Hooray for revelation.  Today is a whole new day.

I’m having a PhD-cum-life moment courtesy of an exchange I had today with a friend of mine who is honest but exasperated…possibly honestly exasperated.  I can’t say I wouldn’t be either.

The specifics of the event are not important but the lesson here is something for me to think about.  Or actually, precisely not think about.  One of the serious problems I have in balancing life and PhD is the inability to shut my brain off.  It’s become an occupational hazard.  I cannot speak for all of academia; these results may not be generalizable.  But as I examine all of the reasons I was so hesitant to keep moving on this after classes were over, this theme of “overactive brain activity” recurs frequently.  I live in a state of hyper-thinking and it’s hard to manage.

I’m already insanely observant in a subconscious way.  I know this because I know whole songs that I’ve never heard before.  As they filter into the world as white noise, I hear and know them even when I’m not trying.  Same thing with tv…my knowledge of television would indicate that I watch it 24-7.  In fact, I do not.  But I can be doing 4 other things and still know every detail of a show, including the credits.  I think it’s this quality that makes me intuitive about people; I don’t have to study them to know exactly what they’re about and what they need.  In a lot of ways, I’ve always considered this a gift.

However, I’ve begun to see in the long term that this quality ramps up to dangerous levels when I do academic thinking.  I can think in the abstract all day long and feel wonderfully comfortable.  My brain chugs happily along just thinking conceptually.  But then reality hits.  It’s a different beast but my brain doesn’t make the accommodations necessary and I end up looking at real life situations in an analytical perspective that’s so narrow, I risk wrecking what’s real.

Need a “learning lab of life” moment? Sure.  Think about the last conversation you had with another person (sorry, dogs and plants do not count here).  Now, take just the last sentence of that conversation.  Next, imagine all of the possible ways that sentence could be interpreted, running the gamut from the best message ever to apocalyptic.  Now, run a quick analysis of the most likely meaning.  If you want to add in body language and facial expressions, do that here.  Do those observational clues match your earlier language analysis?  What inconsistencies stand out?  How do you feel about what you think the likely meaning of the last sentence was?

This is how I could very systematically watch all of my friendships explode.  Aforementioned friend gave me a pearl of wisdom that I’ve always told myself but that earns a new gravitas when received from someone else.

“Just stop analyzing it.”

Yes.  Yes.  I want to do that.  But I don’t know how when my whole focus (which I’ve fought months to regain) at this moment is analysis.  This is why, in the hallowed halls of academia you see frazzled, rumpled, wrinkled, obviously brilliant people who suffer from severe social arrested development.  They’ve chosen their path and I commend them.  They’ve chosen analysis.  On the other hand, there are the apparently blissful people thrilled to not analyze a single blessed thing, who hop through life just taking it as it comes. I commend them, too.  They’ve chosen a simpler but not unfulfilling path.

Ultimately, I have to figure this out or I risk becoming “that friend” that’s held at arm’s length because of apparent uncontrollable neurosis which is time consuming and, frankly, annoying on both sides.  And while I have a lot of answers to a lot of things, I am at a loss here.

How do I keep my analytical edge without turning it toward personal relationships? Any suggestions are welcome.  I won’t even analyze ‘em…I’ll just jump in and blindly try at this point.