-I received a call today, informing me about my departure. I am leaving on the 23rd at ten in the morning. I am leaving. It hit me. Leaving. We’re not talking about some short trip, a vacation, or anything near a visit. I am leaving for twelve months, a year of my life. Yes I have hopes of the things I’d like to accomplish in this time, but at the moment all that hid itself in the recesses of my mind and all I could think about was the unknown. It’s not an unexpected journey, but one that strikes me with much that is unknown and that is the frightening part. I started envisioning myself surrounded by unfamiliars and being unable to communicate with my surroundings. I could feel the wave of suffering that I would thus be forced to endure. This is where it snowballs. I have a tendency to recall the past and catastrophize my life as if it were/is an indefatigable tirade of disillusion and heart ache. Smash cut, flashback to my moments of weakness, of which there have been many, almost in each day I’ve been a witness to, in some way. There’s this wave of emotion that envelops me and carries me on the journey of my existence. Yes there have been moments when I feel a swift wind take hold of me and I fly off into some fancy, some spirit of life that is not by far the predominant disposition of my consciouness, but there is always a sudden crash that brings me to the surface of the permeating sullenness of my awareness. These are by far the moments that leave the greatest impression on me and these are indeed the moments to which my mind hastens when my dreams recoil. And there I was with this new found knowledge, the awareness of the moment of my departure and the resounding question, would this new suffering bring me any closer to enlightenment and if not, would it least make me stronger, and if so how. Returning to the drudgery of my past and the suffering that I have thus far endured, what have I wrought of the tears that have fallen and the shattered pieces of my emotional center? It has always been said that what does not kill you, makes you stronger. Define stronger, please. If strength is simply measured by the awareness that suffering has passed and new suffering is surmountable, then I am strong. However, if strength is defined by a happiness attained only after the pregnable winds have been challenged then I may very well have failed; as I have already said, there are these shifts in emotion but they are short lived, if they were in fact the result of some victory then their stay would surely be lengthened, least til the next challenge. So I wonder what will be new found from this new journey, this voyage into the unknown and the suffering it will bring, which may very well simply be the suffering of uncovering the veil that obscures us all from ourselves. What a frightening moment that will be, to see myself as I truly am in all my frailty.
Thus I look forward with trepidation, to this journey, if it doesn’t kill me…
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