Fasten Your Seatbelts

In the last year I’ve done so much new age spiritual reading and meditating that I ought to be levitating at this point. I’ve reconnected with nature, learned the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, and spent hours trying to become a Spirit Junkie. I’ve opened myself to love, light, and miracles. I’ve let go of fear, anger, and attachment. I’ve accepted my life as it is while focusing my attention on my intentions. I didn’t do all this in a shallow way, I believed it. It made sense to me. Or as we like to say at the ashram: it resonated with me.

How then to explain where I am now? AA parlance is probably best. I’ve fallen off the wagon. More precisely, I’ve fallen off the wagon, ripped its wheels off and set the entire thing on fire. All that’s left is a smoldering pile of ash that perfectly matches my mind.

Before I go any further let me put your mind at ease. We’ve not been foreclosed on, I’m not having an MS attack, no one I love has died, I haven’t lost all my savings.

What has happened is that for the first time in a long time I wanted something. I thought I was following the rules of all the new philosophies I’d studied because I was very open and flexible about this desire. I wanted to go to Italy this spring. An elderly relative died last year and left my brothers and me a nice little bit of money. Nothing life changing but a true gift- they had lived a long and happy life and this amount would allow me to let go of my self imposed frugality etc. and for once do something really amazing. That plus the over 300,000 award miles J accrued over a decade of traveling to 3 weeks out of the month to every little shithole town in America. As for the timing- if I don’t have a job by this time next year I can’t vouch for my sanity. That’s how this would happen.

Apparently, I’m the only person in the entire world who didn’t know that you cannot plan a trip using award miles without booking said flights ONE YEAR in advance. The simpering pseudo-nice Southern woman at Delta just kept saying, “You cahn’t possibly think y’all can travel to Europe during Spring Break. Do y’all know how many Americans have money and go to Europe for Spring Break?” When I said, no I didn’t know because everyone I knew was unemployed or worried about losing their job she merely said, “Well, every flight we have to India, Asia, Africa, and Europe is booked for the next 9 months.” She continued in this vein while pretending to look up flights for me, tsk-tsking the entire time until finally announcing, “Well, I’ve done my best but this could take hours so you’ll just need to see if you can find the flights to get you to the east coast then call us back.” Ahhh, Delta, bastion of customer service. No wonder everyone hates your MFing asses.

So, here I am. I have filled my gullet with compromise and acceptance since my father died followed by my being laid off by a company that relocated me to a city with heinous unemployment rates and very little industry because they HAD to have me here to do my job. I’ve accepted that the odds of working in my field again are slim after 14 months of unemployment and at my age. Then I accepted that even working anywhere in the corporate world with these circumstances is highly unlikely. And still I present a relatively serene upbeat face to friends, family, email pals, and blog buddies alike.

Until now. I’m angry and worse I feel broken. I feel lied to- as if I followed the rules but still can’t win the game, not even once. It’s a goddamn vacation- NOT the lottery (which I did not win when it was at $320 million but I was OK with that). Is it really about being a stoic and simply putting in your time until you die? Don’t wish for anything and don’t believe things could be better, only that they could get worse? Is wanting really a bad thing?

 
F*&^ I’m angry. I miss angry Alanis. Of course, she’s a Buddhist now so I’d have to go all Fight Club on her ass. I'm out until I regain my composure or burst a blood vessel.