What am I doing here?

Today I sat down to write to my third cousin, Maeve Murray of Galway, Ireland. Over a month ago, I made contact with her after a two-year hiatus, and promised to write again soon. Not surprisingly, that didn't exactly happen. Finally today, knowing I should go rest instead, I just sat down and typed. What came out seemed a pretty good report on where I am right now, and it inspired me to do another long-delayed task: starting a blog.

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There is a lot of good stuff to report, but invariably when I sit down to write I'm in some sort of exhausted state.

Two years ago when I moved into a zen center, I only knew that I wanted to have a less-painful mind. And I had a sense that there was something more there; the poetry of certain writings seemed to be talking about something that was "true" in ways that conventional language couldn't touch.

Now there is much more understanding of existing as abody and mind in daily life. Which includes being tired, sensing that I'mteetering on the edge of getting sick, and deciding that I'll just take this time to do something important.

The bigthing for me lately is that I am considering re-entering "lay" life and joining the outside world about five months from now. It feels like I'll belosing a lot, and I want to make sure I participate fully in the life here upuntil I leave. I also hope I'll be gaining a lot: cooking my own meals; trying to have a career; enough time to read and study, and time to learn and grow in arelationship. Just deciding what to do when I leave, and how to attempt to enter the worldas an aspiring grown-up, is quite a challenge.

Until now, I've either hidden away in graduate school or cobbled together a freelance livelihood. In some ways, being "self-unemployed" is a very adult thing-- it's certainly independent. But I think I was doing it because I was reflexively afraid ofthe social aspects of a workplace. I used to think the problem was the otherpeople; now I'm seeing that it's my own anxious mind. It might very well turnout that I am still unable to function in such a situation, but I'd like toknow.