So. My blog–and I–have joyed out lately. Not to mention Jewed out, compassioned out, and otherwise jumped for happy. And the lesson for me in all of that? That I don’t need to apologize for one sickeningly lovely moment of what, as it turns out, is the time of my life.
Yearning for the return of bygone glory days in a universe that’s ever-changing is a great way to lose forward momentum. Yet, I can’t help but ponder the first day of the last decade as I resolve myself to go a bit more gently into this one.
Buddhist dharma (and the teachings of every other religion I can think of) would suggest we all have an intrinsic nature of being beyond the mundane world we take for granted as reality. But as the price for coming to hang out on Earth for awhile, we forget our ineffable–or if you will, Divine–natures. We spend our lives never recognizing the true sum of what we are.
If only our friends and lovers could roll out the same patience we ADDers have to unfurl for them. Talk slower? Write things down? What do you mean we said that already? So what? We’re just trying to make a point! You understand us, don’t you? You are aware our behavior is due to uncommon neurological pathways in our brains and not because we don’t ‘try hard enough,’ right? Didn’t you know all of this came with the territory when you signed on to have an ADDer in your life?
Traditional Judeo-Christian perspectives center around the idea of an external, omnipotent God, clearly separated from man and everyday life, at whose mercy we exist. And that’s why it’s so hard trying to explain my Buddhism to most of my friends.
This entry marks the (belated) third anniversary of CHICAGO CARLESS. As is obvious, year four is getting started with a lot of changes. The most obvious are the totally re-designed layout and features of the blog. But they’re only reflections of the most important change of all: my renewed outlook on my life and the world around me. Something had to give. After 37 years, what ultimately gave was me.
Though here I go yet again, breaking up is still hard to do.
Last night during the 2008 Studs Terkel Awards at the Chicago Cultural Center, one of the winners, Sylvia Rivera, the general manager of bilingual public radio station Radio Arte, shared this comment from the stage: ‘You write the story of your life. You create your own legend.’ In two sentences, Rivera described my dilemma.
I am in love. Suddenly, astonishingly, sickeningly so. Know that first and the rest of this post goes down a lot easier for the less romantically inclined among you.
A little more than a year ago, when I wondered where my writing–and my life–would take me, I couldn’t have guessed what the following twelve months would have in store. Today, I return to Chicago Carless from a self-imposed month-long hiatus awed by the changes 365 days can bring.