Breaking Point

Well.  It was bound to happen sooner or later, and I guess it is better that it happened sooner rather than later, aggressively smacking any delusions I may have had right out of me.

Today was the day the full reality of what I'm doing, who I am, where I am, where I come from, and how all of those things are banging against each came into sharp focus.  After a *minor meltdown* (anyone who knows me knows that I can, at times, be dramatic, so this is basically one of those melodramatic moments), I guess I started to realize that I am going to have a tough year.

Formative, life giving, beautiful, unforgettable, yes of course.

But it's going to kick my ass.  I knew it coming in.  Signing up for this program was partly the result of a realization that I was too comfortable with myself and my environment, with my spiritual journey, with my questioning and seeking.  It was time for a change of scenery, and in a fashion typical of my sensibilities, I decided to pack and move half way across the country, with people I've never met, on a vey small budget to live ... in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

A person from South Dakota told me that where I was going wasn't quite the end of the world, but that I could see it from there.

At the time, didn't know what he meant.  Now, I most certainly do.

Picture it.  Just picture it with me.

I am a New York boy through and through.  Movement is my comfort zone, chaos is my quiet, in the midst of swarms and swarms of people I can find myself, locate myself.  I have more energy than anyone I know.  If my legs aren't shaking, my fingers are tapping; if I'm not tapping, I'm humming or singing; my whole body is always in some kind of motion.  My mind is the same way, constantly spinning, darting between ideas, concepts, experiences, questions, trying to make sense of everything at the same time.  I know my parents, family, and friends from home are smiling to themselves, cause they know it's true.  I've been this way for as long as anyone can remember.  My mom said the thing she remembers most from when I was a kid was that I was always in motion, a blur shooting around the house.  Everything vibrated around me.

I don't like being still.  I don't like absolute quiet.  Slow is generally not a speed I know.  Solitude scares the crap out of me.

I normally judge my own quiet relative to the whirling chaos of the city around me.  I can feel pretty laid back and slow compared to the general neuroticism of NYC.

Out here?  In South Dakota?  On the Rosebud Reservation among the Lakota people?

I'm nothing short of an alien.

Everyone speaks softly, deliberately.  Slowly.  [I'm flying my way through sentences, seemingly always the loudest one in the room].  Everyone drives, on miles of open road. at exactly the speed limit, seemingly taking their time and enjoying the ride.  [I am going 100mph just to try and match the frenzied state of my inner self].  There is no city.  Rapid City, which I flew into, reminded me of the suburbs of Long Island I grew up in, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the Bronx and NYC where I have lived for the last four years.  Going 40 minutes to Valentine, Nebraska today (where our nearest grocery store also is), nothing was open.  I mean nothing.  There was legitimately nothing to do.

I lost it.  My head was scream "WHAT THE &*%# IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??"  Who in their right mind would ever want to live in a place like this??  Sure it's beautiful.  It's absolutely amazing, some of the most incredible landscape I have ever seen.

I know what's really going on here.  There isn't anything wrong with the people here, or even the place.  It's my own perception.  This isn't some kind of corny, pithy saying with a message along the lines of "99% of your experience is your attitude!"

It's something else.  It's a realization that what I see around my is a reflection of my own inner landscape.  The endless horizon of the Dakota's is frightening to me, the same way the endless questions of who I am, of what is true, of what I'm here for, continue to come and continue to scare me.  The quiet that is so unnerving is a reflection of my own internal chaos, the discomfort and unease I feel at the prospect of my own soul quieting and resting.  I don't know how to be in the presence of myself without feeling thoroughly disturbed.  Solitude, standing on these plains and looking out for mils and miles without being able to see any other life but myself, assaults my psyche which is so used to bumping into people at every turn.

What I read in the landscape and people around me is really what I think and feel about my own inner landscape.  I came out with the intention of learning how to "be," rather than simply "do."  For my whole life I have been able to involve myself, and involve myself, and involve myself, to the point where activity has become necessary to my survival, to who I am.  My identity is movement.

This isn't bad at all, as a matter of fact, it is one of my strengths, one of the things that people often appreciate about me.

But this is more for myself.  Coming out here was intentional.  It was meant to be a journey of spirit, one that pushed my own boundaries and limits, one that forced me to come face to face with something I fear the most:

 being alone with myself, and what I will find there.