In the first 3 minutes of the story, my mind was saying, “duh lady, of course you got assaulted.”  I wanted to sympathize, to be that compassionate Alana, but in my mind, I  immediately go to excuses — the reasons why this would never happen to me. I’m different. I wouldn’t put myself in that kind of a position. She is stupid, and I am better than that.

But here is the thing, in college I went to plenty of parties, I did drugs, I got into strangers’ cars, and hooked-up with tons of random people. If I am being honest with myself, I put myself in equally as compromising and dangerous a position as that woman in the story many times over. I am lucky I was never raped.

More stories came on NPR… bombings in Yemen, and I’m thinking, “not my problem I’m not Yemeni.” An Alzheimer’s disease story, and I’m thinking, ” I’m young, I’m safe from that being my problem (though ironically my grandpa passed from it, so it has touched my life).” Immigrants being torn from their families at the border, and I’m thinking,  “I’m a US citizen, I’m safe.”  In each case, when I hear about misfortune my thoughts immediately go to all the reasons I’m different, safer, better. My mind is literally doing extreme gymnastics just to prove my different-ness, only its all going on in the background, subconsciously…that excuse, that justification, jumping to mind as automatically as breath moves into my lungs.

 The truth is, there are plenty of  differences between me and the people I hear about on the news: differences in age, health, location, nationality; there is no end to the details that differ. But the bigger picture is one of sameness — like them,  I’m a person, with desires, who is subject to karma and change and decay and loss. And in the end, isn’t that what I really care about? Isn’t that what I spend my whole life trying to fight (vitamins and gym) to ignore ( travel and TV) to disprove ( picking up skills and doing a ‘good job’ at work, in my community and at home)?

Ohhh and then there is the cost of selling myself this lie…there is the labor of accessorizing, the money spent on cars and furniture that make me special, the pain spent on beauty and workouts to make/preserve my fit and beautiful body, the time digging for the right outfit, building and maintaining the right skills and relationships. The disappointment when I fail, not thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough, not a perfect partner or child or sibling or employee. Not special enough to be exempt from failure and decay.

But wait, there is more! There is the pain of hate and judgment of what doesn’t fit my little narrow criteria of acceptable. Because I’m special, of course, my rules need to govern. My normal needs to be ABSOLUTE normal.  And my heart literally explodes with rage on a NY street because NYers can’t act like my normal SFers.

In fact, when I think about it, almost all the pain in my life is really about being constantly disappointed when the truth of my sameness, my not-specialness comes crashing in. I was so shocked that I couldn’t thrive in NY. But look at an orchid flower, it is so dependent on its environment to thrive or die. Su-fucking-prise Alana, your no different than an environment-dependent little flower. With each wrinkle, sag, cellulite, I feel like such a failure I couldn’t prevent it or fix it…how exactly is it a personal failure that I’m subject to the same rules of  aging and decay as everything else in this world? When my ex and I split up I cried and cried and cried. But breakups happen everyday, illnesses, deaths, losses. Somehow it’s a gut punch, it feels different, when it’s me and mine, but its the same, cessation and suffering that everyone faces at one point or another.

Still, I build, build, build my little life, my precise environment, my careful standards -like a beaver that spends most of their lives building and protecting that nest, eating, sleeping,  procreating, and building…it seems like such a pathetic life when it is a beaver’s. But look at me crafting the body, acquiring/maintaining the clothes/house/stuff, building the skills and education, feeding the relationships. Sure, it looks a little more complicated than the beaver, but is it really? So much toil. Worse than a beaver really, the beaver needs a nest to survive. Do I need fine furniture and clothes? I labor to refine, to curate, to have precisely what I want in all cases in my life, down to the fucking detail. And so there is insane work and compromise and cost to me and to Eric to have the place and life I want. There is wailing and gnashing of teeth when I’m not getting the particular nest I want.

And here’s the kicker: If all this shit worked, I think it would be worth it. But it doesn’t. Not really. Even if I avoided rape, being an immigrant, devastating disease, it’s just a matter of time. My grandfather had a fine life, was a good guy, but then he got Alzheimer’s. My Dad, same story, but it was cancer that killed him. I have friends who were in love, then divorced, who were doing great at their jobs but got layed-off, who were rich and hit financial struggles.

And me, I had a life that was happy (mostly anyway) in SF and I lost it. Actually, I left it, it was my fault, my decision. How do I think I can avoid misfortunes of chance (like illness and layoffs) when I cheerfully skip towards misfortunes that I had some choice in, like this move?

This specialness lie I build like a beaver’s nest with such care and precision, with so much work and cost, it is the reason I hurt. At the end of the day, when the work is paused (never done really) and I ache from the labor, it was me who caused the pain, the suffering. I choose this. I do it to me. There is no outside force compelling me. And this I suppose is the only good news. The pain is on me, but the solution is with me too. I can stop. I want to stop. Right now it feels like inertia is carrying me on, its too fast. But I’m applying the break. I am trying to stop letting the lie be on autopilot. I dedicate this blog to my practice. To the ability to take the wheel. To stop.