In the bardo

I read something today that suggests I’m in the bardo, a place between phases of life, a waiting place.

It’s scary. It’s full of unknown. 

And I don’t know how to live with the unknown.

I am losing so much right now — my most of my music making, my ability earn a living, my physical vitality, and really a strong sense of myself. I don’t know who the fuck I AM right now, and it’s terrifying.

I’m living in this void while the world around me continues to move along with the functions and rituals I used to look forward to with delight. Today, they feel empty and pointless. I am SO filled with sadness and loneliness and disorientation that all I want to do is sleep or cry, with moments of functionality (like cleaning house or doing laundry) in between.

I know that I’m not being a great partner to my Sweetie right now, and I’m sure it’s no fun for her while she is working so hard to support us both. 

I’ve tried going back to things that I used to enjoy greatly, like bicycle-oriented socializing, but they don’t fill me nearly as deeply now. I know that physical activity has s good for my moods, but I cannot do it consistently when my hands hurt so much and so often. I don’t understand what is going on and I don’t know how to deal with it.

I’m in the bardo, a place where, according to Wikipedia:

“ Metaphorically, bardo can be used to describe times when the usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, during a period of illness or during a meditation retreat. Such times can prove fruitful for spiritual progress because external constraints diminish. However, they can also present challenges because our less skillful impulses may come to the foreground, just as in the sidpa bardo.”

I feel like I went into the bardo during the Covid lockdown, fighting like hell on the way down, and have only recently sunk all the way into it. I can’t fight anymore, but I don’t know how to be still. I don’t know how to be still and receive whatever I’m meant to receive and all can do is flail.

How much of this is waiting for the new meds to take effect? How much of this is the unmasked ADHD? How much is depression which isn’t responding to whatever drugs I’m on? How much of this is autoimmune illnesses overlapping and compounding each other? I keep thinking that if I knew the sources of all this, the intersections and everything, I could pick one thing and start there. But all I keep coming up with is sadness, depression and occasionally wishing I could just die already. Because living like this, sick and slow and unable to physically work my shit out because everything hurts, unable to work it out through music because I can’t fucking play instruments without hurting, and honestly I don't know what my life is FOR right now. And I don’t know how much longer I can live this way.