The Universe Provides

If you let it. Recently I have been paying more attention. Susun Weed and Dr. Northrup appeared to help me understand what was happening to me and this weekend my friend Bill came to visit. He has some issues similar to mine. Lack of satisfaction with his life, an inability to decide what to do, the feeling that he is behind somehow because he has not "accomplished" anything with his life. But his hole is much deeper than mine. His problems have been exacerbated by his second divorce which occurred three years ago. It caused him to retreat into his own head and he is only now thinking about coming out. Since his divorce he has turned to writing and has been trying to get published. So far he hasn't sold anything and this has been demoralizing.

I found as we walked around New York that I am feeling much more like myself. Like a Weeble I have bobbed back up. This morning we walked through the Heather Garden in Fort Tryon Park. The first crocuses of spring are up and I felt joy just to see them there, like hope rising out of the ground. But he seems to be incapable of this kind of feeling. Normally I love to show people New York City. They get excited by all the different things to see. And I get to see the city anew from someone else's perspective. This was not true this time. Though he commented on various things he seemed unmoved by the experience. I had trouble figuring out where to go and what to show him since he didn't have much interest in anything in particular. He did want to see Van Gogh's Starry Night but I think it was more to complete a set than to experience a work of art (he'd seen many other Van Gogh works at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam years ago but Starry Night was not there). I don't think he was affected by the painting. As I remember from college he was always self-absorbed but now he has truly closed himself off to world.

After three years he's finally hit bottom and is now trying to find his way out. This was really the purpose of this trip, to come and talk to someone new that he could trust. Apparently I fit the bill. We talked about his sense of failure and his dissatisfaction with his life. He's had much the same job history as myself. After the second divorce he moved back in with his parents (his ex-wife got the house) and started working with his dad who is a plumber. Now he has a place to live, few expenses, a good salary, and time to do his writing. But this is not enough. He doesn't have any sense of accomplishment and is envious of people who are successful. He seems to think that women in particular are successful and that they get things more easily. You can imagine what my response to that was.

I found myself talking about different kinds of success and about taking action, any kind of action, to break out of a self-destructive cycle. And discovered that I am really coming to believe it myself. Nothing like seeing your problems from the outside to gain perspective. Confidence is coming back, slowly, but it is coming back. I am coming out of the darkness. The deep despair is gone. It may well return at some point in the future but now I am better prepared. First time is usually hardest. And thank goodness. I really didn't like that person I'd become. It's good for you too, gentle reader, since you won't have to endure all that sadness.
My friend is on his way home now. I hope he starts moving. He's taken the first step. Now he must take another and another. Hard, cruel hard, but so very rewarding.