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The other day,
my business was falling apart, and fast. I had to borrow money from two friends to pay my mortgage (I paid ’em back). We’re 30K in credit card debt, nearly, despite paying it off best I can each month. We’ve had to move, so I’m without my friends, support network, but have the added bonus of missing my home sweet home, and getting to pay two mortgages. One of ’em in a new (old) house that needs 100K of work and 10 years to get it done. Spending half my time in my hometown, yay, but then I’m without my baby and wife and doggie. We have 1,000 things we need to spend money on, that I’ve pushed off. Lots of pricey-in-the-future deferred maintenance. On top of that, I’m babying by day (a joy, I’m finally a new father) but working in the gaps and mostly at night, so I’m sleep-deprived.
…I got so stressed out…
by my neighbors in Boulder challenging my right to rent my house, half-time minus one day,
…that I nearly had a heart-thing, the tightness in my chest was overwhelming, and it still hurts or aches a week later.
So I meditated. I biked. I called friends who know more than I do about how to have a responsible rental that doesn’t involve noise or trash mess. I breathed. I processed with friends at the Trident Cafe, and at Naropa over organic vegan lunch via dear Lama.
It was all a helpful reminder that, when we’re stressed, we’re putting ourselves up against the unknown. Instead of welcoming it, sitting with it, breathing with it, surfing with it, we’re fighting the fear. That’s understandable. In this case, I’m trying to serve my family and my community and my neighbors and my world, and it feels like I’m failing on every front, including in my relationship sometimes.
But here’s the truth:
We have no idea.
Particularly when we view ourselves as solid, as me vs. the world.
If we fear impermanence, we’re done for (we’re done for either way).
If we smile into fear, if we smile as we cry, our life may be rainbow—sunshine and rain, joy and pain. That’s life, at its best, which isn’t living our best life, but living our life right here, fully.
PS: from my mom, “Always go forward into openness, like the rising sun. Haiku: ‘The mind before a thought/ is like a calm lake/ then an osprey dives in for a fish!'”
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