Retail therapy

By now you might notice a pattern: the whining tends to coincide with either full moon or my period approaching. This month I’m particularly lucky: it’s both at the same time! So you’re in for another whiny post, I’m afraid.

I MISS TONY! Every bit of him including his annoying little habits (like not closing the fridge door properly). But most of all, I miss him making me laugh. He’s so good at that. He manages to make me laugh without even trying. Sometimes just watching him puts a smile on my face.

I even miss him spoiling my shopping experiences. Him being just one step behind me and whispering things like “horrible” or “you can’t afford it” in my ear when I’m looking at clothes. The memory alone doesn’t work: I succumbed to some retail therapy at lunchtime today, despite the fact that I couldn’t afford it and despite the fact that I could almost hear his voice in my ear. It’s just not the real thing and that thought made me want to buy that skirt even more.

So here I am, whiny and Tony-less in my new skirt (which of course makes all the difference).

Beneficial frustration

I have been off work for 5 days now and not being busy for most of the day has made Tony’s absence only more obvious. So I miss him a lot and am daydreaming about him a lot. I also miss Germany quite a lot although I hardly ever felt home sick before in all the 8 years I have been living in England.

Having travelled a lot on my own for extended periods of time, I know these sentiments well and I am wary of them. I have done this kind of idealising before and it has always been quite a disappointment when reality finally met the ideal I had conjured up in my head. A friend of mine explained this phenomenon quite nicely to me one day. She said: “You see, Yeshe (she insists on calling me by my Buddhist name), when we are not happy or don’t feel safe in the present, we tend to look for happiness or safety in the past or in the future.”

This is very true (she’s a very wise woman).

Thinking about her words I am wondering what it is that makes the present so uncomfortable. It is obviously not simply the fact that Tony isn’t here but the effect that this is having, the way I respond to it.

The main effect is that I have a lot of time to observe, think and analyse and because I’m spending a lot of time on my own, the object of all this analysis tends to be me. It’s like being on some sort of retreat myself and like any retreat, while being incredibly useful, it is hard work and often uncomfortable because you are confronted with some home truths you’d rather avoid looking at.

I won’t go into any detail regarding the truths that are staring me in the face, mainly because they relate to Buddhist concepts and ideas and I don’t want to give people wrong ideas about Buddhism by sharing my limited understanding of it. But I read something yesterday in Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s book “Not for happiness” which I would like to share as it cheered me up and might be useful to other people too:

“Practising dharma is necessarily a frustrating business. What practitioners, especially beginners, often fail to realise is that frustrations are the signposts of our success. An exasperating lack of concentration, devotion or inspiration might be just what you need to make the extra effort to tune into your practice fully. Alternatively, of course, it may topple you in the other direction and stop you practising altogether – a temptation you must resist at all costs. Always remember, though, that frustration with your spiritual path is often an indication that you are becoming a genuine dharma practitioner.” 

J

Loneliness

Okay. While yesterday’s post was more of a warm-up to get back into it and a playful post that didn’t even scratch the surface of how I feel inside, I will lay myself bare with this one (well, not quite).

First of all, I’d like to say that naturally, my thoughts and feelings change all the time. I have days when I really miss Tony and days when I’m absolutely fine. 

When I do miss him, I miss his physical presence, cuddles, kisses and all the rest but I also miss someone to talk to about what’s going on inside of me, the heart stuff. I realise how much I depend on Tony because he’s the only one I really open up to about the deep stuff. I think there are two reasons for that. One is, that when you’re in a relationship, your partner automatically becomes your first point of call and other friends move in the background a bit. The other one, however, has a lot to do with the fact that we share the same spiritual path. For me, a lot of the deep stuff has to do with being on this path and with how to apply this path in everyday life. Someone who is not a Buddhist practitioner often doesn’t even understand my problem to start with and even other Buddhist practitioners can sometimes have a very different understanding and therefore don't quite get me either.

With Tony however, I feel like we know where each other are coming from. It wasn’t always like this, don’t get me wrong, we spent a lot of time at the beginning of our relationship arguing like mad because it seemed like we spoke in different languages or about totally different things. Over the years we managed to find a shared language and I really feel like I cannot talk to anyone about the Dharma like I can with Tony. With a lot of other fellow practitioners, I still meet this problem of feeling like we are talking about different things or using different languages.

So I do feel quite lonely at the moment and I did during my retreat. A lot of new insights, thoughts and observations are emerging that I find hard to implement or hard to digest. Like always on this path, everything is turned upside down and although I know that this is a good sign it is not necessarily a pleasant experience.

Luckily, Tony decided not to be quite as strict with the whole “no contact” thing and every now and then he drops me a text message or gives me a call.

A couple of weeks ago he called me in the evening when I was just pouring my heart out onto a white sheet of paper and he noticed straight away in my tone of voice that I wasn’t okay. So I started sobbing down the phone about the internal battle I was fighting and he got me. He just got me. He totally understood what I was going through and he was able to help me make sense of it and ultimately move on.

Sometimes all you need is for someone to get where you’re coming from and in my case the person who does that is Tony.

Murders and mysteries

It’s been a while. Sorry about that. I was first on retreat myself for almost 3 weeks and then really busy with work. I am very happy to say that I shall start a new job on 24^th September.

Today I was off work - the first day of a nice, long bank holiday weekend - and after pottering about the house a bit I strolled into town to do a little shopping. That was surprisingly exciting as I walked into the filming of a new episode of “Lewis” outside Rumsey’s.  This is now the second place I lived in England, where they film murder mysteries. (At the other place they filmed an episode of "Midsummer murders".)

As I walk back home and just turn into the cul-de-sac end of the street we live in, I wave at the old couple across the road. I never really speak to them but I say hello when they are out and about, which they are quite a lot as they like to set up camp outside their front door on two chairs when the sun is shining. (This fact should have really given me enough information not to be surprised at what happened next).

“When is he coming back then?” he shouts across to me. How the hell does he know, I wonder, but I reply politely “At the end of October” feeling a bit uncomfortable about having to shout the fact that I’m husbandless in our home for another two months across the road for everyone to hear. “Blimey” he goes. “Where is he?” And I hear the words “Spain” and “Sierra Nevada” and “heat wave” leave my mouth while I try to fumble my door keys out of my handbag. I start walking towards the door of our house to stop being forced to broadcast even more intimate details of my life to the rest of the village and quickly go inside.

Once inside, I’m wondering if, at this end of the village, I’m providing the entertainment rather than a murder mystery film crew.  

Who else might know?

The front door and security issue bullies its way back into my mind and without hesitation I decide that it’s going to be locked from now on.

Call me paranoid but I don’t fancy playing the lead role in a real murder mystery just to up the entertainment factor for my neighbours.