Free fall

As I explore my new life in the underworld, I am realizing that I am being forced to take the ultimate master's class in letting go of attachment.

Three months ago I would've said I'm pretty good at not getting too attached.  I keep an even keel at work (mostly), I deal with the ups and downs of the opera company with (relative) equanimity, I am a parent who (usually) does not blow up at my kids, and I am a spouse who (for the most part) does not require a lot of high maintenance.  I mean, I'm not perfect, but I'm a stage manager for god's sake.  No matter what happens, the show goes on, and I usually just problem solve things back into place when weird stuff happens, without letting my own drama get in the way too much.

So I would've told you that I don't really sweat the small stuff that much.  And the small stuff would have been defined as usual workplace things (petty quarrels, minor irritations), the travails of booking a Gilbert and Sullivan opera company, communication issues about who was supposed to take the dog out on a walk... that sort of thing.

But we're in a whole new ballgame here in terms of stuff to get rattled by.  They say don't sweat the small stuff... but, really, sweating the big stuff doesn't work so well either.  Not that I'm doing really well on not sweating anything at the moment.

For starters: I've had to determine how attached I am to my body.  Not only did I have to lose my attachment to an outward chunk of it, I've had to lose attachment to a whole bunch of other things.  My right arm is now always going to be compromised because of all the lymph nodes they took out.  This will affect everything from where I have my blood pressure taken to needing to carry sunscreen with me everywhere.  Any insult to that arm could cause temporary to permanent swelling, so now I baby it and will have to continue to baby it, forever.  I am going to (literally) lose my attachment to my hair.  I am needing to lose my assumption that it is my right to feel good at any give point in time.  It's not my right.  It's not a given.  I need to get over that.

I have an attachment to being a fundamentally healthy person.  I am rock solid, in general.  I don't get sick too often, I've had only one relatively interesting episode that's landed me in the hospital, I am the person who is the patient advocate, not the patient herself.  Ever.  I've had to let that go.  I'm now a person who has the major illness.  I'm now the person who has to watch out for herself.  I'm now the person with dietary restrictions and a list of medications and a Yes answer in that long checklist of possible illnesses that I always used to blow through mindlessly.  I have had to rethink that attachment.  I also don't want to get attached to being a sick person.  I just can't attach any more, one way or another.

I have an attachment to plans.  I was very much hoping and planning to go to New York for Roger's birthday this year.  Nope.  I have hopes and plans to see people when they are in town.  Nope, not on a day when I'm not feeling well.  From long term to short term, I have attachment to knowing what's going to happen next.  And I can't do that any more.  My attachment to planning, and its illusion of control, has had to become severed.  Things change faster than I can anticipate them these days.  I can't tell you what I'll be like come dinner time, let alone what day we can grab coffee next week.

Going deeper.  I have an attachment to a sense of safety and security.  Living in my body these days is like living in a major metropolis after a 9.0 earthquake.  Everything is going haywire and, at the psychologically core level, everything is profoundly freaked out.  The things I used to take for granted -- mainly that I have a fundamentally intuitive dialog with my body going on, and that I can tell when it's sick or diseased -- have been completely invalidated.  Three months ago I would've told you with absolute certainty... absolute certainty... that my body was healthy.  There would not have been a doubt in my mind.  And yet... that certainty was incorrect.  The laws of gravity have been upended, the world turned upside down, the buildings have fallen down.  And it could happen again at any moment, because I don't know what's going on in my body.  Security and safety?  Out the window... or at least in terms of being attached to them.  I have no idea what's going to happen next.  And thinking I do just causes more suffering.

The depth charge goes as far down as my brain and psyche can take it.  There is no more ability to attach to anything, including my very life, without understanding that that attachment means nothing and only causes suffering.  As fast as I cling to anything, that thing is whipped away and I am left holding empty air.  As fast as I rely on a statistic, I hear a countervailing metric.  As fast as I tell myself that I'm OK, I understand deeply that I don't know that to be true.  As much as I'd like to believe that life is knowable, something else comes out of left field.

It's a free for all for the old amygdala... with my fight or flight on overdrive 24/7.  I'm in a constant feeling of threat.  To a large extent, I really am fighting for my life here.  I really am  in the ring with forces coming at me.  It's not my imagination, at least not totally.

AND... yet... it is.  Every bit of attachment is based on some kind of habitual sense that is now having to be rethought.  No more habits.  No more assumptions.  No more hopes.  I have to dial everything back to the absolute minimum.  Moment to moment, breath to breath -- that's all I have here.  I can't attach to anything in my free fall out of the bay door.  I can't anticipate a safe landing. I can't tell myself the parachute will absolutely open.  I can't assume a benign universe that will for sure make it all right.  It's a long slow descent without any expectations or assumptions... because expectations and assumptions are all guaranteed to change at this point, leaving me with nothing but the present moment, once again.

I can't even attach to the hope that one day I'll learn this lesson. But when I do, it's possible I will be able to breathe a little easier.  It's possible.  I don't know if I can even expect that.