faith and belief

I am thinking about belief and faith these days. One amazing thing about working somewhere like the post office is the time available to think. True, it isn't actual thinking, its more a type of wandering softcore musing, but the quantity, if lack of intensity has its charms.
Anyway, I'm thinking of belief. I feel like I've been handed a really big win with numero uno supremo bf coming back into my life. So thats good. But lately I've felt deeply the actual real loss of the two big men of my high school days. Gregg and Paul.
It really took the door closing on a continuing friendship with Paul for me to understand that the same thing had occurred with Gregg. The horrible and extremely sad thing for me is that I totally get that it is nothing personal about me. At least nothing bad. It is just that as a woman, I am incompatible with their lives as married men. This realization hit me so hard I immediately did what I do best. I whined. Loudly and much to another mutual friend, that I almost never see. Surprisingly, it made me feel much better. So I did it again this time to my super special go to guy, Bob.
Bob was my first love interest after my marriage broke up. We had our fling and have remained friends. At first this was beneficial to me because Bob is a PhD Psychologist. I felt so crazy. It was good to have a recognized authority to lean on. Now I feel like I am just lucky to have a good friend who loves me and supports me. For now, anyway, until he remarries. Then I will likely lose him too.
Then to whom shall I whine? Anyway...

Asking for a bit of sympathy to work out my sense of profound loss from el bf magnifico, I set out to figure out why I felt like someone died. Of course any self examination of lose promotes an equal examination of belief. I am still super sad and confused as to why we women forbid our men to stay friends with girls after those men commit, but I did it too. Or tried to. Liam has way too much sense to let me dictate policy. I'm pleased to say that now, years later, I'm glad he has a friend in the girl that initially made me so insecure. But it took me a long time to get here.

So belief. I believe in god. Sort of. A god like something anyway. I'm not proud of the fact. I used to pray (to who?) that oblivion was what awaited good girls like me. So that sort of contradicts belief in god period, but as someone smarter than me said, "Its a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." Or something better but similar.

I'm a lazy buddhist. I think those guys have it right. Sort of. Church of Jamie right. Which is to say that the way I think of buddhism and actual practice of buddhism are very different. Some of the teachings have really gone to my heart. As an example, the essential nature of a good death, free of suffering (as much as possible) and especially free of attachment. The fact that this has become an actual belief for me astounds me. I really think that it is essential. That is the part that freaks me out. When did this thought become true for me? How can it even be true? It fits my personal criteria as a belief. I have noticed that people don't bother to believe in mystical properties like gravity or time. Those things are now so obvious to so many that they are taken for granted and the very idea that someone could apply belief or faith to them is absurd.

But my concept of approaching death has taken on this mystical, "I'm right" absolutism. I am confident when I think of dying, maybe of change at all, that the right way to do it is calmly with those you love and yearn for far from your sight and hearing. I'm glad that I mentioned this to Liam (did you know that Liam is the sexy nom de plume of my super dooper bf? He selected it because it is preposterious and extravagent. Just one more reason I love him.) He said that if I died first, he'd talk me thru it. I know he meant it because we were on our way to a strip club, so why would he lie? Oh the adventures we have!

So the thing that really sticks to me right now as I type distracted by the child that sits next to me and wants my attention is that when it comes to belief, I tend to cling (buddhism alert) to things that help me approach and understand loss of control and loss period. Maybe its the ego death thing that the Zen folk are always going on about. I have much more to say about this, but I think I am good for now. I will get back to this later, for now I have other things to do.