Settled,

 

Things seem to have permanently settled, as I no longer worry about anything. I am no longer upset about anything or feel sad about anything. The new me doesn’t seem to have any emotional upheavals anymore and it is kind of strange, that someone like me, who has had such a turbulent life, at long last, came upon this peaceful, clear, enjoyable experience.

 

I am amazed to feel so satisfied and accomplished, as I don’t do any of the negative things anymore, I used to do. So much of my old behavior has simply stopped and it doesn’t even look like, I am going to replace it with other behavior. Whenever an old behavior stops, this is a beautiful non-event. All of a sudden, there is space, where, before, I was doing something. On the whole, I do less and less and this means, I live a spacious life. I have so often done something totally different from what I am doing today, but at this point, there is nothing else I want to do then what I currently do.

 

I am already doing what I want to do and there isn’t any self-defeating behavior that still needs to be stopped. This is peculiar, as it just seems yesterday, that I felt so overwhelmed by traumatic behaviors and couldn’t even begin to imagine how to stop these behaviors, let alone, be without them. Yet, they have disappeared and I do not even remember anymore what it all was about.

 

What was is no longer important to me and only what is happening now keeps me busy. What is happening to me these days is not very much and I like it that way. I have made a cup of tea and wait until it has cooled off enough to drink it. I smell the Camille and look forward to filling myself with this warm fluid. I have just taken a shower and after I have drank my tea and have finished this writing, I will go to sleep. I also look forward to going to sleep. The warm tea will make me fall asleep quickly. When, after another sentence, I stop my writing, I feel still and complete.

 

I am grateful to my wife Bonnie, who reads her book in bed, while I am doing this writing. She is retired and still getting used to not working anymore and looking for something she wants to do. Buddy, our cat, sits in the bedroom. I see him down the hall. He looks at me, as I drink a sip of my tea. I create this world. This afternoon, when I drove home from work, I saw a rainbow. I like to sit a while longer in this chair and doze off a little. This writing pleases me, as there is nothing in particular I try to address.

 

To me, nothing is something and I find it fascinating to write or speak about nothing. Everything comes out of nothing and returns to nothing. Whenever something happens, it only seems as if something was going on, but upon further verbal inspection, expression, and exploration, it turned out to be nothing, as it, often even unnoticeably, dissolved. I am reminded of the family-gathering, for the spreading of the ashes of my dear father-in- law on the ocean water, near San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge. I was in awe with his death as with his life. I was at his death-bed. One moment, he was still there and, next, he was gone forever. That moment, changed my life. Something in me had died as well.

 

I realized, I no longer wanted to pursue the PhD in Psychology. Although I had successfully completed all the course work, advanced to candidacy, was accruing my clinical hours, and writing on my dissertation about attachment and unresolved loss, I could no longer tolerate the enormous stress. Bonnie’s father had been such an incredible inspiration, to believe in myself. I studied for many years to become a psychologist, but I was so glad that I didn’t become one. Instead, I used my master’s degree to teach at Butte College. It was a great honor and pleasure to teach Psychology, but it was also very demanding, especially, when the on-line teaching became so important, due to the Covid epidemic.

 

When I gave up teaching in 2021, I felt so relieved. Soon afterwards, I also gave up on teaching people about Embodied Language (EL). With that, came an end to my involvement in the field of psychology. I find it still stunning, that after all these years, I have left all the problems of other people behind me. And, with that, also came an end to the problems I myself was having. I once wrote a small poem. It goes like this:

 

                                     I erase

                      to put new words in place

                      this is how I make my case

 

This writing is almost coming to its end, as the page has filled up with my writing about many things, which came and went. This space is now full of grace. It makes me touch my face. This nothingness is my home-base.