Locked in a Glass Room

Spirituality. Fuck. It's tough. More laborious than shoveling concrete and more mentally exhausting than try to understand biophysics.

I am 20 years old, a time when I should be out partying, getting wasted, or getting a boyfriend. Yet here I am in the mountain in an ashram taking out trash and washing toilet seats. To say I feel a little odd being here would be an understatement. I don't feel like I should be here and at the same time I feel like I need to be here.

To say my time here is all smiley and divine would be a lie. I cry a lot. Sometime just during yoga, or eating. It's quite pathetic really. I'm battling my ego, my doubts about being in this hippy dippy place, and my aversions to God, all to see if maybe I have some kind of kind of hope or soul in me.

I can't really describe my constant need to be better, or at least to be different. I am never happy with the way I am or my bad habits, I am always looking for that next new diet plan or that new type of exercise or new talent to make me feel like I'm proud of myself or that I've achieved becoming a more whole person.

The people at this place seem joyous and are always focused. It's enviable and its hard to not compare yourself.

My experience with spirituality is akin to being locked in a glass room with nothing to break out the walls with but my fists. I see the smiling people outside, all laughing and talking with one another and I go through the stages. Jealousy. I want to be out there with them. I see the sun and how happy they seem and I want to get where they are. So I start pounding on the windows. But then I realize the glass is double paned. So I get angry. Why the hell put me in a room with a view if I can't even experience it? I start blaming whoever put me here and fume that I have to struggle so hard while everyone else is outside playing in the sun. Then I start pounding some more. My fists begin to bleed. They're sore and hurting but I am so close to desperation now because I feel the big doubt coming on. The one that says "You've worked so hard with no pay off and you still think you're going to make it out?"

That doubt comes like a smoke fire that starts in the room, and the heavy smoke is filling the small space for air, for faith. So I pound with what little strength I have left. Still nothing. And so I don't lose my dignity I start even telling myself that the smoke is just incense. That I'm really at the better place and those damn hippies can have their fields. I cry because even when I tell myself that, I still know I don't believe it.

I am in a hugely different place than what I usually go for. Me, Christina West, analytical thinker, master doubter, in a spiritual commune trying to learn how to meditate. I am still in that glass room and I don't even see the cracks yet. So why do I still try? Why do I still refuse to give up?

One line. "To even want to know God, takes extremely good karma"
I do not want to struggle anymore. I want some sunlight. I want some guidance. I just want to feel like I believe in something, even if it's just believing in myself again.