I had a migraine this weekend, only the second time I've had a migraine in my life. Not pleasant. I don't know how people who get them regularly deal with it. I would have killed myself a long time ago. Hahaha. No really, it makes me feel weak.

Interesting point is that a lot of brain images and visuals that came up during migraine pain were not that different than general ones that come up. Migraine is being sick. So am I sick in general? Hahaha. No really, am I?

I don't know why I would get migraines. Not everyone gets them, I know, and I think people get them for specific reasons. I wonder if mine are stress related, but I wonder what that stress would be. I don't think it is the general monastic consideration, since that has been ongoing and not a particular source of huge stress yet. Yet.

It may have been connected to the fact that I got another guest put in my room at the monastery for two weeks. Coincidence that I get a guest and, boom, migraine hits after a full night of not being able to sleep? Really, I'm thinking that the no-privacy aspect of the monastic community here will be one of my biggest obstacles to ordaining.

Am I really ready to live with people who don't close the door when they pee, and find peeing a convenient time to fart as well? Things I don't need to hear. Close the damn bathroom door! (practicing equanimity and letting go of ego, practicing equanimity and letting go of ego). Or as one monk mentioned, living with someone who cuts his toenails on the carpet and says he'll vacuum it up later, but you know he won't. I almost asked who it was, but I knew he wouldn't name names.

Or maybe the migraine was related to the glaring realization that my happiness is a very lonely thing. How many times have I heard people say that they want me to do what makes me happy, knowing that it is their way of creating a distance?

I want you to do what makes you happy, with no regard to them, because my happiness has nothing to do with them or being close to them. It's their way of letting me know they're cutting me loose.

People who want you close don't tell you to do whatever makes you happy without indicating that they want themselves somewhere in your plans. This is not self-pity, I recognize this as my karma, the effect of some cause that I need to work out, a problem.