So, a little reminder, this entry is the first part of my homework assignment to use snippets of my life/experiences (a biopsy) to start evaluating what happiness is and if it’s worth it. Specifically I was told to:

1. Figure out where my mind visits often, my memories/fantasies.
2. See the suffering. How long is the suffering versus happiness?
3. How do I repeat the cycle?

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Alana’s Special Vacation Time

After months of prep and planning, the day of Eric and my first vacation in years arrived — we were going camping in the Texas backwoods called Big Thicket. Just as we pull up to the campground, Eric got sick. I mean really sick. Entirely too sick to be sleeping in the woods, far away from bathrooms or electricity, so we had to turn around and drive home. I was so disappointed. So frustrated. Hell, I was downright angry! How could Eric just get sick like that on My Time, on my vacation? I earned this trip after all, I planned it and then he ruined it. Lets just say, this was not one of my finer moments as a loving supportive wife…

I had a seriously stupid wrong view: Because I had planned something, counted on it, expected it, earned it, wished for it, pretty pleased with sugar on top of it, I suddenly had control. I could shape a time, a trip in this case, to my will. It would be Alana’s Special Vacation Time. When the world, my husband’s body more specifically, did not abide by my time, my rules and my plan, well I was a super bitch.

The truth is this theme of ‘Alana Vacation Time’ is one of my my big fantasies (delusions), it is a place my mind visits often.  I have a ton of examples of it and, just like in the camping story, my time doesn’t always go according to my plan and I suffer (or worse, I cause suffering to others I love, like Eric). Here are a few more examples I jotted down in my homework (there were actually quite a few more, but you will get the idea):

• I went on Safari to Kenya, believing it would be a safe fun vacay, and I was attacked by a rhino. I felt safe the first 3 days of the trip. After the attack I was in pain and fear the next 10 days.
• I went traveling in Italy and got horrible food poisoning. Sure it was only one day, but it was the day I was looking forward to the most in the whole trip.
• I went to visit friends in Arizona. It was a 3 week trip and I got  and got super sick for 2 of those 3 weeks.
• I went for a semester abroad in Israel and I was so miserable and depressed for 7 months, all I wanted was to come home.
• I went to Yosemite, but stayed in a crappy hotel. We had fun all day, but I tossed and turned unable to sleep all night.
• Eric and I went to Mexico, but he was depressed the whole time so it was a terrible trip
• Eric and I went to Hawaii but fought the first 2 days of a 5 day trip
• I was having stomach problems from the food in China so I worried constantly for 12 days about being close enough to a bathroom in the event of an emergency.

You see, I’m not an idiot, I know life entails suffering, duhh it’s all around me, in my life, my day to day. But I believe that sometimes, if I ‘earn’ it, if I do all the right things, I  can carve out a time/space that is devoid of suffering. In my mind, I build a fence –suffering over there, in day-to-day life,  joy over here on vacations/My TIme. This wrong view, it’s a tool I use to keep going in life, to repeat the cycle of being born. I think, “if I can just make it over to that little space of refuge over there, in Big Thicket or Kenya or Italy or just the end of the workday curled up in front of my fireplace, I can chillax just a bit. Life is worth it for those suffering free moments.”

But, the evidence, if I pay attention to it, doesn’t lie. Even in my Vacay Time, I have plenty of suffering.  I have illness, depression, fights, pain, fear — it appears that I can’t control, that the fence I build in my mind does nothing to keep all the baddies out in real life. Since the truth isn’t at all what I want to hear (that I can’t avoid suffering, I can’t control), I ignore it. I forget the evidence. I selectively delete it from my memory (#3) and imagine (#4) the next happy trip I will plan. And then I suffer disappointment when My Time  is ruined again and again. I suffer the consequences of being cruel to the people around me during fits of frustration and anger. I suffer the work and planning of trying for the next repeat, redo trip that will be just perfect. I build a certain self, A Special Vacay Time Alana self, seeking to have  happiness and avoid pain. I fail so I forget….