All I wanna do is have some fun...

I'm on spring break from school right now. It doesn't look the way I want it to look: money is very tight, and I am stuck in my college town, which is cold and gray right now. I had planned an overnight trip to go see my family and friends on the other side of the mountains, but the pass is not really safe for travel today, so I had to postpone the trip. So here I am, in my apartment, with hubby.

I'm trying to make the best of it, though, even though I have this vague sense of dissatisfaction and almost panic that my spring break is slipping by and I'm not "having fun". Which is funny, because I am beginning to realize that I've either forgotten how to have fun or never really knew in the first place. My sickness has manifested as constant business (something I'm sure other coaddicts can relate to). I am always doing something, and I'm never satisfied. But when I stop to think, "What would I really, really like to do right now?" I have no answer.

I can have fun; I had fun on my vacations. I have fun when I enjoy an evening with friends. I have done fun things, for sure. But here I am with several days left of a rare break in my schedule, and I have a hard time thinking of fun things to do that don't cost money. That is kind of sad.

I've been doing some crafts that I haven't done in a long time, and reading. I do enjoy those things. While doing my crafts, I've been listening to more recovery podcasts: the SA/S-Anon conference, and some talks by Kevin Griffin. They fill me with ideas to journal and blog about. I'm trying to fill my brain up with positive messages about recovery, and it seems to be working. I still really wish I could be on a beach in Mexico, but that is one of those things that I have to accept that I cannot change. I'm here, with my kitty and my hubby, and we are pretty lucky to have each other.

I guess I am experiencing dukkha. This is the Buddhist concept that is often translated as "suffering" but can also be thought of as unrest or dissatisfaction or uneasiness. That is exactly what I am feeling. It has nothing to do with the externals of my life, the money, the addictions, the uncertainty about the future. It is really separate from that and it exists even if those things were solved; that is the nature of dukkha and the nature of longing or desire. It can't be satisfied. How do we overcome the desire for things that we don't have, or the desire for things to be different, perhaps even in ways we don't understand? The prescription given by the Buddha is the Eightfold Path. How to implement that is beyond my understanding at this point of my life, but we are told that we all have the potential to gain this enlightenment.

One thing that I've been practicing that does help is being present in the moment. This is talked about a lot in recovery circles, for good reason: addicts and codies both have developed ways of escaping from the moment. Usually this escape mechanism developed because there was a time when the moment wasn't safe; it develops as a coping mechanism. But eventually the thing that we developed to protect ourselves becomes harmful itself, and we learn to avoid the moment completely, just in case it might be painful or unsafe. Almost always, it seems that the pain we are spending our lives avoiding exists either in the past or the future, not right now. This is helpful for me to remember. I am afraid that we won't be able to pay our bills, for example. But right now, we have a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, heat to keep us warm, clothes on our backs. We have each other, and we have a community of support. The moment is pretty good right now, even if the future is uncertain.

To remember how to be in the moment, I try to concentrate on what I feel right now, physically and emotionally. I feel any sensations in my body, anything I am touching or leaning on, the ambient temperature. I also check my emotions, because I will almost always ignore them unless I force myself to pay attention. What I have discovered in the past few days is my emotions are rarely what I initially thought they were. Yesterday I thought I was happy and calm, but as I checked into myself a little more closely, I realized that I was actually feeling a bit edgy and uneasy, and was doing things to try to make myself happy and calm. Happy and calm were what I WANTED to be then, not what I actually was. Becoming aware of how I actually felt helped me to calm down, ironically. So being in the moment is something I am learning how to do, and it does help with this sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction.