Now, I try my best to be a good Buddhist when I can. I try not to worship material things too much but that usually fails as soon as I catch sight of PetCo or a sale on Kat Von D eyeliner at Sephora. I try not to harm living things except for cockroaches who have no souls and whacking the kids in not readily visible areas. I try to be compassionate to most people, well the people that I feel deserve compassion anyway which is really a limited number of people given my propensity to get easily irritated for the most inane reason. Honestly, if you breath in a manner that is off kilter around me, I will seriously question continuing my relationship with you. Seriously....
I expected this year to be a great year since it is Tiger year and I am one of the striped clan (along with my Daddy and the twins). My Mom caught the feng shui bug from my BFF G.B. so there are books all about each of us at her house. It turns out that I am one kind of tiger (water tiger which is ironic since I hate swimming and drink soda more than water but I do like to shower a lot) and my kids and dad are another kind (earth tiger since they don't like to bathe but they do like to swim). We are all supposed to have good years but will deal with illness so my Mom is paranoid that Dad will have yet another trip to Queens to have a balloon placed in one of his arteries somewhere to draino the plate lunch goo out and that I will be in the hospital bed right behind him for a McD's french fry lube removal.
I was planning to have a very good year since this is my year. Nothing would bring me down, I would let out a mighty roar and conquer anything in my path. However, what I have learned in these few weeks in 2010 is that this year is going to be a battle - not so much against things directly in front of me but from hidden, unseen evil things that exist in their own dark universe.
I knew when I started at my job that I would spend a lot of evenings and weekends going to funerals. That's just inevitable when your youngest members are in their late 80s. I felt I could handle since it would be maybe one funeral a month for someone who had been sick for a while. I could prepare mentally and emotionally to say goodbye as freedom from illness or suffering was a gift from Buddha. However, the beloved ones who have passed since January have done so unexpectedly. I really thought I was okay but the reality is that I was numb from shock and once that wore off, like the shots at the Dentist when you have a root canal, the pain was intense and totally debilitating. I find myself crying whenever I think about any of the people I have had to say goodbye to this year so far - my Clubhouse buddy MM, the legendary EH, and so on.
To compound this, so many of the good people I know are dealing with very difficult situations. Unexplained illness, financial problems, overwhelming stress. All of these folks are some of the most genuine and kind people you could ever have the good fortune to meet. Each of them has brought so much to my life and the lives of my family that I feel I can never pay them back or even explain to them how much they mean to me. It makes me question the wisdom of the universe and the powers that let us be. Maybe I need to read the book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" again because I really cannot comprehend why these wonderfully kind folks are suffering from bad times.
What really has me questioning my beliefs and considering actually waking up early on Sunday and going to temple is how good things are happening to the bad people that I have had the misfortune of knowing. While really deserving hard working people are being laid off, these black souls are finding great new jobs or being rewarded for their incompetence. It is so frustrating to see that someone who is undeserving of any of the blessings of the world is rolling in the dough while those who are truly wonderful are being screwed out of what they earned with blood, sweat and tears. As much as I do not want to waste any of my valuable free time over these terrible creatures, I cannot stop the anger I feel over the injustice being suffered by good people while bad people continue on their merry way with nary a bump in the road.
My friend BT tells me that I have to believe that eventually the bachi will kick in and bite these demonic dementors in the okole, that you cannot send out such negativity into the world without it boomeranging back at you. In my heart, I know he is right and I believe this too but in my head, I am starting to wonder if Oscar the Grouch has the right perspective - that the only way bad people will get theirs is if good people make sure punishment is handed out. Bad people continue being bad because they can - nobody does anything to stop them, there are no consequences and it is simply much more lucrative to play for the darkside.
I used to think that these bad people have no idea they are bad. That they steal or cheat because they truly need to money or had some kind of screwed up childhood that requires they feed their empty souls with wads of cash. That they treat others like crap because that is how they view themselves. That they make up lies about their lives because the reality of their existence is too tragic to face. That they make up lies about others because they envy the happiness, joy and self-satisfaction that these others possess. That there is some itty bitty, teeny tiny speck of humanity buried deep within the dank, stinky, mucky interior called their soul.
But now, I really believe that they were just born that way. Kind of like Rosemary's Baby. They were conceived one night when their Mom with the bad haircut drank some funky tea, put a stinky charm around her neck and did the nasty with the Devil. Either that or they were formed from those icky coils of dirt that come out from worms burrowing deep into the ground - you know, those hard yucky brown intestine looking things.
My only consolation is that all it takes is a little bit of sunshine to crush those freakin' dirt curls.....
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