I can sympathize with the need to get out, get away, do something different, the feeling that unless you take that job right now and move away from here, you're wasting yourself, stagnating. I can sympathize. There's a restlessness cropping up in me as well, but I'm afraid it won't be satisfied by anything outside myself. Rather than moving my body and then asking, in a parody of the Verizon commercial, "Can I hear me now?", I think I'll stay put. Instead of examining various solutions to apply to the restless feelings, I'll examine the feelings themselves.
And yet, I still need a distraction, I think. There are things I don't want to examine too closely, probably because I already know what I'll find. Friendship is troubling. Friends sometimes leave, and I can't replace them like I can the money that leaves my wallet. One dollar bill is like another, but one friend is unique, irreplaceable. The effort involved in finding someone else to share what I've shared with you just makes me tired, makes me irritated. It's not worth the trouble. I can't replace you and I won't try. So I'll pout and just have no friends because a dear one is leaving? No, but I can feel a chapter closing and another one opening for both of us. I'll work on acceptance. It's a good lesson and another chance to depend on my zen practice for support.
What a lesson! Change is inevitable and acceptance is difficult. I'm grateful for the chance to learn that all over again, grateful but pissed at having to be grateful. I think I'd rather be secure in my ignorance than knowledgeable, but like the story goes, I don't think I can fool myself very well anymore. So since I have a hard time fooling myself, I need that distraction. It's time to look outside myself a bit and take a risk or two, hence the return to martial arts practice and the renewed vigor of my zen studies.
While I doubt that you'll find whatever it is you're looking for out there, I still hope you find something that contents you. Our friendship makes me content, and there are few things that ever did, ever do or ever will, I think. In the end, though, you're leaving, I'm staying, and I think the friendship meant more to me than it did to you. I'm satisfied with the status quo. You aren't. That basic inequality is not negotiable, at least under current circumstances. I suspect you'll come to a new equilibrium where we stay in touch, just not as close. That'll be the status quo that makes you content and leaves me wanting more. Things will still be unequal, but the balance will tip the other way.
I'm reminded of Eliot's "That is not what I meant at all." I'm just persisting in my delusion, but from your side, what I feel is not what you meant at all. Acceptance is hard, but I can wave goodbye even when I don't want to.
DB
_/\_
