zenjones

My good friend is staying at my house for a couple days. Early this morning, we were supposed to go meet another friend for coffee. But I was no longer in the mood, so I went into his room, where he was sort of still asleep, and said, “I don’t want to go get coffee this morning.”

He started to sit up and stretch and he made a really loud noise. I said, “Shhhh!” just sort of automatically.

He said, “You are so weird.”

I said, “What?”

He said, “You and your husband are so weird. I talked to your next door neighbor and she said she wished you would make more noise so they could feel more comfortable making noise.”

I was speechless. At first, it hurt really bad. My best friend calling me weird! I had no idea!

Even just remembering this makes my arms and shoulders feel all heavy.

I left the room and went and sat on my bed. I watched the volcanic eruption: anger, blaming, justifying, striking back, resentment. I felt myself armoring up with tension.

So I started with blaming, and as I became aware of it, I cut it. And then justifying. Cut. And then anger. Cut.

Then there was a little analyzing, which was nice. I find it a refuge. That hurt lead immediately to fear: I had no control. I thought I knew how my friend felt about me, but he thought I was weird. And then the anger.

Oh, and the disconnection. That’s what I wanted more than anything–to just disconnect. I wanted to tell him to get the f* out of my house and leave me alone. Oh, it went on and on. But every once in a while, I could cut it, I could recognize that I was doing it.

Which doesn’t mean I didn’t take some lovely time out for revenge fantasies.

And so I am incredibly grateful to my practice. Because I didn’t say or do any of those things. I noticed. And I recognized that it was just me.

And I got on my bike and went for a ride, and even in the midst of all my turmoil, it was a beautiful morning in the wine country, and the angry moments shrunk down. And by the time I got back home with the groceries, I could concentrate on trying to stay connected. Even as my friend hovered around me, obviously sorry for what he’d said, and scared that I would be mad.

But the big deal for me is that I felt the hurt and fear first. For me, anger follows so quickly on those feelings that I never get to experience that hurt. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was real.