What now?

Saturday, August 12th. 2017

I've never been able to float in the water laying on my back. I blame my heavy legs, they always start submerging first and then my whole body follows. 

I haven't felt the need to write for a while. I certainly didn't feel like writing today, yet here I am, after an incredibly crazy day. Filled with more emotions than I thought I could handle. Intense love and joy followed by extreme self-doubt and self-deprecation, bursts of energy followed by resistance, laziness and tiredness, extreme satisfaction, great comraderie, and short but intense bursts of self loathe. How can a human experience all these feeling in less than a day? 

I wonder how it all happened. How did I end up in this situation? Letting my emotions get the best of me and control my whole being to the point that I wanted to stop thinking. Thinking was unbearable, it pained my whole being. Thinking about my insecurities, my weaknesses, my feelings of never being charming enough, smart enough, good enough. Most of these feelings are happening as I'm walking through Seattle's night streets, and I begin to recognize the gaze in homeless people's face. They too are pained by their thoughts, too loud to shut them down. Too big to be disregarded. Only silenced by drowning them in alcohol, drugs, and vices. 

What you resist persists.

In the mist of all the negative thoughts in my mind that statement pops into my mind. I read it months ago in the book Conversations with God. But I'm not fighting them, I'm just trying to ignore them... With all my mental strength. I want to surrender, I want them to go away.

What you don't want you will experience the most. 

Another statement I heard in a song. These frases are my lifesavers, they are keeping me afloat. Even if I can't use them at the moment they help me stay hopeful, they keep my head above water.

The worse part is that all of this is happening while I'm trying to talk to Her. In my mind she is everything I wish I could be; always living in the present, unscathed by negativity and pessimism. Lighting up everyone and everything with her presence. At the same time I know she's human. We all are, even if we don't choose to live like so.

Now I'm in the International District, sitting in Hing Hay park, it's 12am and I've walked from Pike Place to Bell Town and ended up here. 

And I realize I AM really tired. I am tired of being my biggest obstacle, of always hindering my advancements, about feeling how I'm moving backwards instead of forwards. I am tired of doubting my every action, of thinking about what other people might be thinking of me. I am tired to feel the need to please every person I meet. And most of all, I am tired of starting over and over again. Tired of starting and stopping, stopping and starting. If I'm not hired by *** by the end of October, at least I will take all the advice and learning from everyone I met there.

At the end of all these thoughts I realize; how can I expect others to love me if I haven't learned to love myself? It doesn't make sense, that only places a huge burden on the other, having to love themselves and me at the same time. I thought I had passed this stage of my life already, but it mgith just be a life long process. I'll go back to what worked. I'll go back to exercise, to kung fu. It is what grounds me, what motivates me, what strengthens me. And I have to be strong.

So to stay afloat in water what I do is kick, kicking is what keeps me afloat. It's funny how it directly relates to kung fu and martial arts. I pray that you find what keeps you afloat, I pray that you are sufficiently self-aware to recognize it, and I pray that you never let it go.

Peace be unto you and me. 

Miguel Nigenda