My mala beads arrived today. There are 21 beads and a turquoise stone. Why 21?

bead 1 — I believe that I am prepared to begin.

THE THREE GEMS:

bead 2 — I take refuge in the Buddha.
bead 3 — I take refuge in the Dharma.
bead 4 — I take refuge in the Sangha.

THE FOUR NOBEL TRUTHS:

bead 5 — I recognize that life means suffering.
bead 6 — I recognize that the origin of suffering is attachment.
bead 7 — I recognize that the cessation of suffering is attainable.
bead 8 — I recognize that to follow the path is to end suffering.

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH:

bead 9 – I shall practice Right View. bead 10 — I shall practice Right Intention.
bead 11 — I shall practice Right Speech.
bead 12 — I shall practice Right Action.
bead 13 — I shall practice Right Livelihood.
bead 14 — I shall practice Right Effort.
bead 15 — I shall practice Right Mindfulness.
bead 16 — I shall practice Right Concentration.

THE FIVE PRECEPTS:

bead 17 — As the Buddha avoided taking life, I shall avoid taking life.
bead 18 — As the Buddha avoided taking what is not freely given, I shall avoid taking what is not freely given. bead 19 — As the Buddha avoided using false speech, I shall avoid using false speech.
bead 20 — As the Buddha avoided physical misconduct, I shall avoid physical misconduct.
bead 21 — As the Buddha avoided recklessness from substances, I shall avoid recklessness from substances.

WRAPPING IT UP: anchor bead — Session is complete!

Chuck Noland: We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and… knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had… lost her. ‘cos I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So… I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I – , I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over *nothing*. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that’s what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I’m back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass… And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly. But I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

Divorce, lawyers, air travel, refinancing, getting an appraisal, buying a house, selling a house, hiring movers, separating utilities, splitting up debt, removing joint account holders, everything.

Well you should…
You better make sure you…
If I were you I would…
Don’t ever…

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Doesn’t anybody know how to fucking listen anymore?

When I hear a friend or acquaintance is getting divorced, you know what I do? I say, “Oh yeah? How are you with that?”

And that’s it. I sit and listen. If asked — IF AND ONLY IF — I might suggest a resource that could be available and potentially helpful.

I suggest it once and never bring it up again. And again, only if explicitly asked.

By now I’ve heard all of your anecdotes. I’ve heard multiple variations on them. I get it. I don’t need to be told:

How I should feel
What I should do
What would help
What to avoid
What to embrace
Or who I should call.

Let me tell you something about divorce. You have hours, countless, sleepless hours to sit and ponder everything from every possible angle.

You don’t get this far unless you’re pretty fucking confident you know what you’re doing.

I am resourceful. I have orchestrated and conducted this thing every day for half a year. You might assume from that I know what I’m doing and I know what I want and need.

There’s nothing in particular that sparked this little outrage. It’s just another facet of what I’ve learned.

I’ve learned who my friends aren’t. I’ve seen the full spectrum of human reaction to this news. I’ve been advised to reconcile. I’ve been warned of a myriad of things that never happened. And I’ve been told how I should or should not feel.

Lemme tell you something my therapist told me as I recounted the astoundingly inaccurate assessments of what should be going through my head and my heart right now.

YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE LIVING IN YOUR SKIN.

I am the only one living in my skin.

The things that matter to me don’t have to make sense to you.

Do not mistake my venting for an open invitation to fix me.

I am not your pet project.

And for fuck’s sake: Speak only when your words can bring more compassion than your silence.

It’s called listening. Give it a try. Nobody ever got in trouble by keeping their mouth shut.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the other people. The ones who don’t read this.

Compassion begets compassion. I’m not lucky this went as well as it has. I brought this. Because that’s who I am and that’s what I do.

Peace, love.
@ThatBuddha

Although SOMEONE, a loyal reader and true friend, helped me figure a thing out at work today that GREATLY improved my stress level. You know who you are. Kevin Flynn saved me on The Grid today.

Anyway, I got a text from my ex and Ruby had scratched her nose on the crate so leaving her in there while the movers… too much. So I worked from home up in my office with the dogs while all this happened.

And then I vacuumed where the furniture used to be and now I have a lot of space. Interesting.

And so here I am. It’s quiet. The girls are sleeping, exhausted from the hyperactivity of the day. And I was thinking about something my therapist said.

A divorce, or a big breakup, is right up there on the grief scale just south of a death in the family. Even if it’s for the best.

So I googled it and read a pretty insightful article with far too many grammatical errors.

Basically there’s a hurricane of emotions. Stress, sadness, relief, fear, excitement, panic. And that’s been true of the whole six month process.

Some heavy, heavy emotions and they don’t wait for a good time. They just show up. So there’s that.

Even if it’s for the best, even if this saves lives, it’s still significant and I have to respect that I’m gonna be all over the spectrum. It’s just gonna be like that for a while.

It seems like I’ve got the important stuff covered. I have a therapist. I’m not abusing drugs or alcohol or food. I’m still on the Nutrisystem and getting a little exercise.

I’m expressing myself. Whatever comes up whenever it comes up. And I’m reaching out. I’m gonna work on not isolating myself too much.

Also, I have my team of doctors and we’re gonna address the panic attacks and all that.

The only area that’s a problem is I should be avoiding work stress. Hopefully I can soon. Next week I will be on the other side of a big thing that’s all on me and has been stressing me out.

Most importantly, I’m accepting this as a process. I will grow and evolve from this and come out stronger for it.

Interestingly, my ex mentioned the movie “Cast Away” as her perfectly symbolic movie. Sure Tom Hanks is all aches and pains and out of shape and cutting himself on the coral. But that’s in the beginning.

Look at him at the end. After he’s back in Memphis. At the crossroads, drinking a bottle of water and looking at the road map laid out on the hood of his pickup.

He’s strong. He’s confident. He’s still and at peace and completely himself.

We do come out of these things stronger. But we have to be patient and kind with ourselves in the process.

So here’s me, doing that.

Peace, love
@ThatBuddha

Today is the first full day I’ve spent as a newly divorced forty-two year old man living in the same house except now it’s mine.

I woke up and took care of the dogs like I always did. I was glad they were here. I’m grateful for every morning I wake up with them. I drank coffee like I always do. Smoked some cigarettes and even worked from home for a couple hours.

I went grocery shopping for myself. It was so much less expensive. And since I’m six months sober and I only drink coffee and water, there is more room in the fridge for the nonfat Greek yogurt I now crave and devour like the Cherry Garcia I no longer eat.

It’s quiet. I was never a fan of having the TV on for background noise. The truth is it always bothered me. But I don’t want this to be about the things I don’t live with anymore.

This is about me.

I’m on a mission to find me.

I spent the first 20 years as a kid and a student. I spent the next 20 as a boyfriend and husband. And six months ago I worked up the courage to make some really fucking hard changes.

Changes that undoubtedly saved my life. I had been heading down a dark, dark path for a long time and with the help of my friends, my therapist, my parents, and my team of medical experts, I actually did change my life.

That’s quite a roster which should tell you something. Nobody does it alone. And if they do, they don’t have to.

You have to learn to ask for help. You have to be courageous enough to face the things you have come to fear the most and then talk about them. Say them out loud to the last people in the world you ever wanted to hurt. And then act on them and don’t cave.

I wouldn’t call it a mid-life crisis. I didn’t buy a Ferrari. And I certainly didn’t color my hair. I’m not hitting on young aerobics instructors. I’m not dating. None of the clichés apply here.

So I guess it’s official now. I have unstuck and unfucked myself. And this is now my life.

Mine.

Me.

I want to approach it as a blank slate. I want to keep making changes. Big ones. And I want to find out who I am.

It seems like I’ve spent my life being who others needed me to be. And for a long time I bit my tongue and resisted everything I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.

When does it get to be about me? Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? When do I get the chance to find out?

Years go by while you avoid those questions. Decades.

Because change is hard. I won’t lie to you. This could’ve been so much worse, but it was hard.

I’m healthy. I’m employed. I pay my taxes and I own a home.

What’s next?

Let’s find out.

Peace, love
@ThatBuddha

Something in the way you love me wont let me be

Whoa. Can you be more specific? Where’s this coming from?

I don’t want to be your prisoner so baby wont you set me free

You see a lock on that door? Well, okay but is it locked? No.

Stop playing with my heart
Finish what you start
When you make my love come down

When I what? What haven’t I finished? And to where did your love come down? And from where?

If you want me let me know
Baby let it show
Honey don’t you fool around

I’m right here!

Just try to understand, Ive given all I can,
Cause you got the best of me

That sounds like a cop out. This is your best? Really? With those lazily written contractions? I don’t HAVE the best of you, 80s Madonna.

Borderline feels like Im going to lose my mind
You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline

Oh so it’s redlining? Is that it? Well maybe you need a tune up, did you think about that?

Keep on pushing me baby
Don’t you know you drive me crazy
You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline

I’m not following you, 80s Madonna.

Something in your eyes is makin such a fool of me
When you hold me in your arms you love me till I just can’t see

Can’t see what? The dudes walking around over my shoulder? Is that what this is about?

But then you let me down, when I look around, baby you just can’t be found

Again, 80s Madonna, I’m right here.

Stop driving me away, I just wanna stay,
There’s something I just got to say

You wanna stay but you don’t. Yeah, I’m totally with you on that. Did you take your meds this morning?

Just try to understand, Ive given all I can,
Cause you got the best of me

I don’t think it’s me driving you away. I think it’s your self-limiting self talk, to be honest. I don’t wanna get all Dr. Phil here, but I will.

Look what your love has done to me
Come on baby set me free
You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline

Fine. Go.

You cause me so much pain, I think Im going insane
What does it take to make you see?

I see that you need help. That’s what I see. And now I feel like I’m being accused of something. Can we tone down the rhetoric here?

You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline

Yeah, we’ll maybe 80s Sean Penn won’t. Send me a postcard. Ugh.

1. Rocky

Stallone could’ve taken a big paycheck and let James Caan star in the movie that Stallone himself wrote, but he held out and he got what he wanted and won an Oscar.

2. Rocky II

I like this one because it’s raw, it’s a good sequel to the first one, picks up right where the last one left off, and it has the rematch with Apollo Creed.

3. Rocky III

To me this movie is all about recovering from trauma. It has the best fight scenes, the best emotional struggle for the character, and Mr. T.

4. Rocky Balboa

The last one, written and directed by Stallone, is a very very nice end to the series. Also very emotional with one of my all-time favorite speeches.

5. Rocky IV

Total jingoistic Cold War crap. Franchise disaster. Hugely successful, absolutely sickening.

6. Rocky V

Holy shit. I’ve only been able to get through this once. And hardly even that. Awful.

A good snow blower costs $1,500. Not counting oil, gas, maintenance, falling down while using it, and subsequent chiropractor bills.

A Man Called Tony will send one of his Crew if we get over 2″ of snow. $50 a visit. And he will bill me at the end of the year.

That’s 30 Tonys. Average 2-3 times a year when we actually get that much snow?

I’m looking at 10 years of Tony before I lose by not buying a snow blower. Not that a snow blower would ever last 10 years.

I win.

Please don’t check my math. I feel really good about this.

I saw him a couple weeks ago because my entire skull was a carnival of pain and I thought I was probably grinding my teeth a lot at night because anxiety and stress and there was sensitivity while eating or drinking something hot or cold or inhaling or exhaling.

So I picked Scooter out of my providers because I drive past his office four times a day. Everyone there is very young. The place is modern, state of the art, lots of fancy dental cameras and pictures on plasma screens in HD. And I got a text to confirm the appointment.

Right on, man. This is how businesses should be. Adapt or be left behind. Right?

Except I just spent two hours with the gang at Scooter’s and I feel like I left promising to buy a Lexus.

The first time I went to Scooter, because of the pain, they fitted me for a night guard. Which is what I wanted. I was working on the grinding hypothesis and Scooter seemed to agree. He gave me prescriptions for pain and a muscle relaxant and said come back in two weeks for the guard.

The next day half a molar dislodged from my mouth with I was eating a piece of ham. This was the Ham Miracle because all of the pain was instantly gone and my life belonged to me again. But there is this gap now and half a molar left (the outer half) and I needed to get it checked out.

Which brings us to this morning.

The hygienist got me in the chair and there was a plasma screen right in my face showing the Weather Channel. She was very concerned about the weather, since she lives an hour north of here. Just to have something to say, I remarked that seems a long commute and there surely must be a reason she would do it. She scoffed and said, “Yeah, a full time job. And I’m not going to Chicago.”

Whatever. I’m sure there are hygienists all over the greater Chicago area and the outlying suburbs, in nice places like Naperville and Downers Grove, where I grew up. And since she was already paying the property taxes to live there… but I didn’t see any need to pursue that and I also didn’t care because she kept watching the weather while shoving things in my mouth and taking x-rays and it was getting distracting.

About the time I was gonna start gagging, I said, “How many of these are we talking?”

“Eighteen. We need to have a full comprehensive set of x-rays or else, you know how they are. GOD. That was number twelve.”

Later, she did the cleaning and said I had nice teeth and afterwards sold me on a $26 oral cancer screening they recommend doing once a year. Now it’s done with a special flashlight and it’s easy so I said okay. Now I know I have no sign of oral cancer. She brought up Roger Ebert. That’s what sold me. That was kind of a low blow now that I think about it. Eddie Van Halen, too. And George Harrison.

So we got back to talking about The Tooth, and by the time Scooter came in, I think they had decided what to do with me.

I was uncomfortable, I was scared and tired and I looked worried. And she knew she got me with the cancer scare. And they had my night guard ready. I was hooked.

So the two of them joined forces and attacked me with a flurry of dental terminology and scary shit that might happen if I don’t do what they suggest.

And they suggest I have an oral surgeon drill a titanium rod into my jaw bone, let that sit for four months, then come back to Scooter so he can open it up and attach a robot tooth. Or a fake tooth or whatever.

Other options were casually dismissed and only briefly discussed. A bridge wouldn’t work for some reason, and there may not be enough tooth to build on for a crown. But by God something must be done and this is what I should do, because I’m a “young guy” and I have “great teeth” and this, if left untreated, might lead to something… else. Then I heard the thing that made me think I was in a Lexus dealership:

“Kaylee will come in and explain the financials.”

They even paged her with these little ear radios they all wear. It’s like being backstage at a fashion show.

I didn’t agree to anything. I will have a consultation with an oral surgeon and we’ll talk about my options. One of which is to do nothing.

The half of the tooth that’s left? I could stop by after work and yank it out in their parking lot and spit blood on the pavement and peel out. That’s crazy and badass, but it is an option.

And that’s why I’m so pissed off. Because they took advantage of me. They lured me in with the young staff and the fancy tech and suddenly I’m thinking I need to go thousands of dollars in debt or there’s gonna be great pain and infection.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. “Of course, dude. Don’t let them talk you into things you don’t wanna do. Be your own advocate, get a second opinion, this is just how life is.”

You’re right. But it sucks and I wasn’t in a good place to handle it today.

It made me wish for a dentist I could trust. Old timey. Someone who explains things clearly and it’s quiet and there’s no Kaylee and financials. Maybe less tech, but more human.

Eat a dick, Scooter. I’m gonna take another look at the list of providers.

Peace & love,
@ThatBuddha

So the good news is my faithful usage of my CPAP machine has eliminated any occurrence of sleep apnea. I dropped off my memory card and a physical therapist read my results.

The machine is working.

The problem is, now that I’ve lost thirty pounds, it might be working harder than it needs to.

I have enough air blowing up my nose at night for a man thirty pounds heavier. Maybe too much air. Because now it forces my mouth open while I sleep and I wake up five or six times with a really dry mouth and throat.

They are going to send my results to my pulminologist, but in the meantime? Chin strap!

That’s how I’ll be sleeping tonight. Nose mask wrapped around my head from front to back, chin strap from top to bottom.

And tomorrow I go to the dentist for a cleaning and they might have my custom-made night guard bite plate thing so I don’t grind my teeth. While my mouth is being held shut and air blows up my nose.

The hell with it. Just put me in the full Darth Vader mask and let’s be done with it.

Peace & love & stuff,
@ThatBuddha