a strange state

I just got home from my Arete completion party. If you don't know what Arete is, go here: http://www.aretecenter.com. I'm not going to go into it all that much.

The important piece is how lonely I feel amidst a group of people who not only love me, but also see me for my true self. I wish I could figure out why that is. What am I looking for to be fulfilled? What is yearning to fill this emptyness inside? Don't get me wrong, my experience of the loneliness is also this wonderful thing. There has been a moment somewhere along the line -- a change in how I relate to my emotions -- and it seems like it should have been a dramatic, memorable moment for the impact it has had on my life, but I can't seem to pinpoint any one point in particular. Arete has something to do with it, but this experience was present, to some extent, before that.

The change is the near total acceptance of my emotional state. It sucks that I feel lonely and sad right now. It sucks that I have tears dripping down my cheeks, but I am so totally okay with it. There's no resistance, no fight against what is. I'm sad right now and that's all there is to it ... it's a beautiful thing.

I could analyze the whole night/week/month and tell you one hundred and one reasons why I feel sad and lonely. But (a) that's all bullshit stories and (b) it doesn't really matter, does it?

I feel courageous. That's a funny looking word when you type it out. There's a fine line between courageous and stupid. I don't think you ever really know which is which, but you go with your instinct. Perhpas they're the same thing. I can think of a dozen times when I overheard someone say, "That took a lot of courage" when they really were saying, "That was the dumbest thing I ever saw anyone do ... you're such an idiot!"

I'm in such a strange state (I'm not referring to California which is, indeed, a strange state). For the past few months I've had such uneven emotions. Vary rarely are they extreme, but often I'll fluctuate between high and low in a manner of minutes, stay there for a few hours and then flip again. I like it. I feel acutely aware of my state. I feel like I am accepting and allowing whatever emotions come my way without resistance or judgement. I feel whole and yet incomplete. It's a strange state.