What if

I've been kind of weepy this morning. I realize that what really scares me is the idea that things might go downhill from Hampton...and these four years have not exactly been a joyride for me to begin with. I'm plagued with all these questions that some part of me accepts are irrational--but I have them anyway. Like:

What if my overall success at Hampton is indicative of how successful I'll be in life? What if the pattern I've fallen into here...having stellar grades/extracurricular activities/hobbies and interests but sucky intimate interpersonal relationships...is the pattern I'm just stuck in? In terms of trying to form intimate relationships while I've been here, I've felt so misunderstood, so unattractive, so out of place...and my only consolation has been the idea that when I leave this place, I'll finally find somewhere/someone(s) that gets me, where I can bloom to my fullest potential without being viewed as alien or odd. Here, I get the distinct sense that I'm unrecognized, unwanted, uncared for...that people generally see me as a nice, smart but undatable weird girl...and I'm just so tired of feeling this way. Sometimes it makes me angry, sometimes it makes me weepy, most times I try to be numb to it and meditate and focus on the idea that something better is coming, if I could just make it to May 11th...

But what if I'll always be out of place wherever I am...what if people in general always view me as an oddity...what if shit doesn't change? In fact, what if I encountered my best chances of "finding something" while I was here? What if it just gets harder, as hard as it's been here?

That's so depressing. I try not to believe it. I try to believe that I can construct a meaningful life for myself by focusing my intention and taking appropriate action, and that things will work themselves out, and that everything has a reason and purpose, yadda yadda. But it's hard. And today, as I begin the first of the last couple of days before graduation, as I'm closer to the "promised land"...it feels especially hard to believe.

(Sidebar: I feel like I know how enslaved people felt when 1865 rolled around. Half-joking. Only half. And not in a disrespectful, trivializing way. Hampton does feel like a friggin plantation.)

Maybe it's so hard to believe because on some level, it's comforting to latch onto what you know best, even if what you know best is destructive to your soul. As much as I've gone back and forth between hating and strongly disliking this place (Hampton) over the years...it has grudgingly become my home, my comfort zone...so even if there's something better waiting for me down the road, right now something in me is so scared of change that I'm holding onto the toxic idea that this is all there is. I'm scared to let go of Hampton and Hampton ways, as bourgeois and unbased in reality as they are. Even though I know it's not all there is...I know, know know that things come in their own time, and that the only thing I can be sure of is a long succession of change and new experiences.

I'm tryna fade Hampton out into the background, and let what needs to die, die, to paraphrase Clarissa Pinkola Estes again. I'm tryna illuminate/give birth to what's coming ahead, tryna focus on and prepare for the next phase of existence. Trying, trying, trying. Hoping, hoping, hoping.

I'm focusing on the Hindu goddess Kali, the dark mother:

The name Kali derives from the Sanskrit root word Kal meaning time. Nothing escapes from time. Her Tibetan Buddhism counterpart is named Kala, a male figure. Of the Hindu goddesses, Goddess Kali Ma is the most misunderstood. The Encyclopedia Britannica is very mistaken in this quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love."

It is partially accurate to say the Goddess Kali Ma is a goddess of death. However, She brings the death of the ego as the delusional self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the sriptures is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated exclusively with the process of human dying like Yama the Hindu god of death. Both Goddess Kali Ma and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. The purpose is not to glorify death but to overcome the I-am-the-body idea. The cremation grounds reinforce the idea that the body is a temporary. Kali and Shiva are said to dwell in these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Kali and Shiva give liberation by dissolving the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the ever-existing I AM and not the impermanent body. This is emphasized by the scene in the cremation grounds.

Out of all the Devi forms, Kali is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva. They are the destroyers of unreality. When the ego sees Mother Kali it trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. An individual who is attached to his/her ego will not be able to receive the vision of Mother Kali and She will appear in a fear invoking or "wrathful" form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children. More.