Like a Zombie and Like a Kid

Today I was a zombie.  I notice when I don't get enough sleep and have a heavy workload I tend to get a little mentally down.  I wouldn't call it depressed, but I would  call it a bit forlorn.  In some ways forlorn is a heavier word.  The dictionary describes it as desolate or dreary, or even hopeless.  I've never really been hopeless, I'm actually a rather hopeful and optimistic person.  I think I'm more like a little kid who gets down when he doesn't get his cookie or something.  It only lasts a few hours or half a day, though, and then I quickly bounce back.  Sleep is very important.  I ask myself why I have allowed myself to take on a ridiculous schedule for some future award?  I have to get out of this habit, otherwise it will be perpetual and I will always be a slave to over-working.  You can't do it all in one day, anyway.  It's better to work at a comfortable pace and gradually build up momentum in your life.  That way, you can actually enjoy it on the way.  What a novel concept.

I stayed up to about 4 a.m. last night (this morning) studying for the Geology test.  This was the price I had to pay for not looking over the notes every other day for 15 minutes to a half-hour.  That's all it would have took.  Instead, I let the anxiety build until it hit critical mass and I had to cram for hours on end.  After about the first hour or two, I started forgetting everything I had crammed in prior, so it kind of an act of futility.  I decided to study more in school and skipped my first three classes.  After one period of studying, I couldn't take it anymore and walked to my car to rest for about an hour-and-a-half.  After that, I felt better, but not that much better.  I then trudged on toward the prasadam table and had some spaghetti.  Kana was sitting on the bench eating and Nitai Diniz (Sri Bhakti's son) was there also.  Glani and Kelly showed up a few minutes later in their nursing-student blue outfits.  I told Glani that I studied for an hour and then slept for an hour.  Nitai smiled and said that's the best way to do it.

I was also irritable today (what is this, true confessions?).  Generally, I'm not an irritable person, really.  The Geology test was hard and then we went to the Florida Museum of Natural History for the Geology Lab.  It was hot in the building and we had to write on our lab sheets answers to various questions in the dark (we were in simulated caves).  It was easy enough, but I was getting dizzy from being too hot and too tired.  A couple of the kids there have taken a liking to me and I'm developing a bit of a rapport with them. One of the kids had followed me to my car at Santa Fe and was very talkative.  He told me his name but I forgot it.  I'm terrible with names.  Later, we both walked from the Hilton on 34th Street to the museum and then back to our cars when it was all over.  The kid is probably around 18 or 19 and I talk to him like he's my age, although I'm 44.  Sometimes it feels weird but mostly it feels normal.  Mentally speaking, by my estimation, I'm really only in my early twenties.  I mean, I have matured but I just don't identify with being old, although my body certainly doesn't feel like it used to.  I still have a lot of energy but I really suffer when I lack sleep.

I enjoy having friends of all ages.  I might prefer the association of younger people more because their thinking isn't so jaded by past ugly experiences.  When I'm walking in school I almost see myself as one of them (the teenagers and kids in their early twenties).  We are all spirit souls after all and therefore are all really the same age.  But when I occasionally look in the mirror, I get a little taken aback.  "I'm walking around in this thing?" I say to myself.  "What a joke."  I think I look okay for my age but I'm a;lso fat (besides being middle-aged) and I can't stand being it.  If I took off enough weight, I'm sure I would look and feel at least ten years younger.  I am Virgo rising vargottama (virgo rising in both the birth chart and the navamsa) which generally lends itself to very good longevity.  Standard astrological texts say that people born under that influence can live past 100.  I know Bob Hope was one such person with that configuration.  The question is do I hate being fat enough to make a long term commitment to getting it off?  I have trimmed down to 237 from about 248 over the last 30 days, so I'm making some progress.  The problem is I'm impatient.  I have to remember that slow and steady wins the race, or loses the weight, as the case may be.

I also think I may be going through some kind of subtle mid-life crisis.  I haven't really put my finger on it but I feel like half my life is gone and I haven't done as much as I wanted to by now. The other thing is, I want to be young, I don't want to grow old.  I'm like a kid who wants every day to be fun.  I am responsible but I don't want to take on so much of a burden that it cripples my happy-spirit.  At the same time, I'm also grateful for the knowledge that I'm not my body and realize the real answer is to pursue the practical realization of that.  But I want both.  I want to gradually realize who I am beyond this body and find a nice cruising altitude to have a good time in this world on my way.  This is certainly not nrvrti-marga, or the path of strict renunciation  but I like to look at renunciation in the sense of yukta-vairagya, or dovetailing all aspects of my life in the service of the Supreme.  Such a process can spiritualize what on the surface may appear as run of the mill mundane pursuits and desires.  I must admit,  I have too strong of a Venus in my astrological chart to approach it any other way at this time of my life.