The Anti-Buddhist

I haven’t posted in a while and here’s the nutshell nutjob version of why.

Since my last entry (remember that wildly optimistic post? about they joys and pleasures of Gorgeoushood?) I spent a couple of weeks in the dangerously blissed out La La Land called Happiness. I visited that wonderful one who labeled me gorgeous in the first place and celebrated turning 42 in gorgeous Charleston, SC.

Then I came home and hit the proverbial skids. I realized that no matter how good things are in South Carolina, I’m plum not ready (emotionally) to move there. I figured out that means I need to find another place to live because it is now late spring in South Texas and the drafty little in-law apartment I rent has become reminiscent of a palapa hut on a beach in Mexico – which in turn means I have a big can of Raid in a holster as my sidearm and there are roach motels in every corner of a paltry 300 square feet. Wherever sunlight peeks through the many, many gaps to the great outdoors I have stuffed rags and poison-soaked paper towels. I leave my least favorite shoes lying around to be used as mallets.

This is the long way of also mentioning that my Buddhist practice has fallen by the wayside.

Every time I kill a cockroach I think “Karma, Baby… see if this doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass.” And I’m left wondering, is this a self-fulfilling prophecy or a statement of fact? Surely all the death and destruction I’m causing (plus the inhalation of all those toxic fumes) has clouded my view.

It’s not only that I have been slaying bugs like they are not now and never have been (and never WILL be) my brothers and sisters. I can’t sleep. I have not been meditating. I have not been reading my books. I have not been accepting things being the way they are. I have grown attached to outcomes. I have in fact been imagining a world where my ex-husband has stopped being angry with me for not allowing him to boss me around until the end of time. I’ve perhaps foolishly indulged in a fantasy where he’s stopped letting that anger rule his decisions; where that anger no longer makes it impossible for former mutual friends to be nice to me; where he’s actually paid me the money he owes me.

I want to be patient and to give him all the time he needs to heal; I want to still believe he’s honorable and will take care of this debt as soon as he is able. But he’s already taken a whole lot longer than I ever expected him to take to pay me and I’m starting to think he might be enjoying his self-righteous rage just a little too much. Every day that passes another mean little thought seeps into my mind like a pesticide.

I don’t want this divorce to ruin the things that are good about him. I want him to do the right thing so we can finish our business and get on with our lives (and also so I might put a down payment on something and move out of Roachland).

Perhaps my karma for all the dead insects is that I have lost my patience. I mean COMPLETELY lost patience with everyone and everything all around me all the time. It’s like one day I held this thin little grip on it and could even get from Point A to Point B in my car without screaming at any other drivers. And then when I looked away for one second, it slipped through my fingers and vanished from my life.

How tragic is it that I’m so angry at my ex for clinging to his anger that I’ve become angry at the world all around? Today it’s the former mutual friends who shut me out. I was getting ready to pay my tab at a restaurant when I noticed a former neighbor and friend at the front of the line. Just as I raised my hand to say hello, he looked right at me and quickly averted his eyes. It was obvious he wanted to avoid having to greet me.

It pushed me over the edge. I was ready to scream, “Hey! I didn’t divorce you, you stupid jerk! But maybe I should have!”

Instead of screaming, I wrote this down.

And stomped on one more bug.