In yoga yesterday Georgina was talking about acceptance, and how only through acceptance and forgiveness can we find peace.

She must have seen the tears on my cheeks in the beginning meditation. Hold on, hold on, I'll tell you why.

We were sitting with eyes closed having a meditation moment and she was talking about how when people ask us how we're doing, we always respond, Fine, Good etc. It's never really truthful and wouldn't it be great if we all responded to that question truthfully (I would like to add here that it would also be great if people asked that question only when they actually cared to hear the answer).

Then she said find your answer in one word, how you're feeling. And be that thing. Of course, I found sad/lonely. Or something along those lines, I didn't just pick a word. But I found a feeling that just lies under the surface all the time, and I realized that as I go about my day I skim the surface of how things are for me on the inside. And if I peel back a layer, if I let down the wall/guard, I become flooded with pain and sadness.

It's like a frozen lake. The surface is what you see, it's hard, concrete. It seems real. Under the ice is running water, liquid and deep. If you break the ice the water flows out. If you melt the ice, it becomes part of the water underneath, so no matter what you do, you can't escape the water, you can only cover it up temporarily.

So when I let down my guard in meditation, the tears came. That's unavoidable.

Anyway, the discussion of acceptance. There are things you cannot change in life. Namely, how other people feel, what they're going to do. But you can change what you do. Sartre (who stole from Heidegger) said we have a choice. We can choose our emotions, we can choose our reactions. There's no such thing as reactionary emotions.

I would love to believe he's right. I would like very much to choose how I feel. Turn it on and off like a light switch. Then it would become so much easier to accept those things I can't change.

The gaffer does not want to be with me. That is something I cannot change, no matter how wonderful I am. And so, I have to accept that. I need to choose to accept that, instead of choosing to feel rejected and horrible and sad.

In the last three years, the failures have piled up:
Chris, Trevor, Jackrabbit, Cameron, the Director, the Gaffer. Am I forgetting any? Probably. What a list. That's a lot for three years. That's a lot of frustration, and a lot of superficial relationships that I thought could have been more.

And how many have I truly accepted and forgiven and moved on from? I still hold resentment toward all of them, and though I've let go of wanting to be with them, I have not let go of my damage.

Gotta just accept it. That's that.