(Written in February 2010)
\nI\u2019ve noticed the last couple of days that when I\u2019m with people I\u2019m fine, when I\u2019m alone I have odd fragmentary feelings or memories and they are all filled with a kind of dull pain, perhaps the sense that I\u2019ve wasted my life.\u00a0 I suspect that they are flashbacks to times when I was a child and the life ahead of me looked pretty empty.\u00a0 I remember that feeling from evenings in Maine when Mom & Dad were out and I\u2019d fed the kids & put them to bed, and then I felt lonely and hopeless.\u00a0 I called it \u201cthat twilight feeling.\u201d Now I recognize it as depression.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel like I had any gifts or talents that other people might want, or that could become a life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
I guess part of the sense that I have \u201cwasted my life\u201d may be because I have so few good memories.\u00a0 I imagine that if I\u2019d had a fulfilling life that I would have a storehouse of good memories.\u00a0 I suppose it\u2019s because many old memories are darkened by depression, happy moments from my relationship with Dana got undercut by the divorce.\u00a0 I think that there have certainly been good dance programs \u2014 some of them are in my resource book.\u00a0 I think of teaching Issos to about 70 people at Circle Dance Camp, and leading the long line at Findhorn.\u00a0 Maybe I should really make an effort to remember some good things.<\/p>\n
The session with Caryn was very low key.\u00a0\u00a0 I told her about my feeling that my life had been wasted because I didn\u2019t have a storehouse of good memories.\u00a0 She asked \u201cWhat would the Buddha say?\u201d and I laughed.\u00a0 He\u2019d say right now is all that matters.<\/p>\n
A few days ago I started doing Martha Beck\u2019s idea of writing your life backwards. (Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight<\/em>)\u00a0 Mine starts like this: \u201cBecause I was destined to build a Temple for Dance, and conduct its ceremonies, celebrate the wheel of the year and the diversity of human creativity \u2014 I was traumatized in infancy.\u00a0 Because I was traumatized, I did not trust my alcoholic parents\u2019 narrow social world.\u00a0 I needed something deeper and truer.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 As I went on to describe the parts of my life that led me to building Neskaya, I realized that I have LOTS of good memories!\u00a0 How delightful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Written in February 2010) I\u2019ve noticed the last couple of days that when I\u2019m with people I\u2019m fine, when I\u2019m alone I have odd fragmentary feelings or memories and they are all filled with a kind of dull pain, perhaps … Continue reading