Experiencing the social alienation of the retreat I’d attended a month ago has made me more uncomfortable in my own skin, thus causing me to lose some of the focus on self that I’d acquired since the beginning of the year.

This of course doesn’t bode well for my efforts to right my own ship in terms of self-awareness and practicing mindfulness. In me, anxiety tends to collect itself in a concentrated point in the middle of my face (bridge of my nose), sometimes causing a sharp headache. The anxiety masks fear, which in turn probably covers profound sadness. Having spent my entire life avoiding my own internal turmoil, it is all too easy to turn away from what’s going on inside, and that’s how I (or anyone else would) regress.

Consequences

But the consequences are profound. It feels like I’m entering the worst period of my life… savings are being depleted as my job search continues and my relationships are becoming more frayed. On top of that I’m aging, and life doesn’t get any easier because it cuts fewer breaks to the old. We tend to pay more dearly for our mistakes because others’ tolerance lessens to a greater extent. I’m not sure why this is, but it might be because when you’re younger, you’re just more attractive and thus people feel more easy around you. It’s also harder to make good friends the older you are (unless you’re rich and lead a jet setting life, which I definitely don’t). Whatever the case, in old age the specters of poverty and loneliness start approaching your door and even if you don’t directly experience them, you’re definitely aware of their menace and fear their approach in a way you never did in your twenties and thirties.

Inside of me, my awareness of all this translates into a kind of pain that continues to build up, unless I’m able to find some outlet for it. Just sitting down to start writing this blog again is excruciatingly difficult. It might also be because this is not a project about success. It’s not about inspiring others or myself, and there are no stories here to emulate. It’s about trying to steer a sinking ship that doesn’t want to follow my course until it eventually meets its demise. How inspiring is that?