2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 70

I told Matt about Dolores. Feeling a big lump in my throat as I admitted this, "I think I'm jealous. But I feel like I have no reason to be. I don't like feeling this way about myself. I don't want to feel threatened by other women. I didn't used to be like this," I said, sobbing now.

"I need to go to London."

"I can't go to London with you," Matt replied, "I've asked my boss about relocating to the European office. There are no openings. What am I going to do in London? Do you realize how ridiculously expensive London is? What kind of job am I gonna find there? I don't want to be making eight bucks an hour bussing tables."

"I understand."

After a long silence and he said, "I don't believe in long distance."

I've heard this before and I don't blame him. It's so much easier to find someone else to go to dinners, movies, parties with. Why subject yourself to the suffering of absence and solitude when you're young and good-looking, while single people are hanging around bars/dating websites, looking beautiful and merely a click away?

"I don't believe in long distance either," I said.

That was when we both began to cry. We cried for a long long time, until we both became exhausted. By then, neither of us could fall asleep anymore. We got up from bed, and numbly went about cleaning up the apartment.

After a few hours, when we've both calmed down, Matt said,

"I don't see why two people have to break up when they clearly don't want to." I agreed.

***

Around that time, I received an email from my friend Josephine. She rarely wrote lengthy, personal emails, but something happened to her that was so extraordinary, she felt compelled to share the story with six of her closest friends.

Josephine wrote that she met a most impressive figure while holidaying on a remote Indonesian island off the coast of Flores and Komodo National Park. The owner of this island somehow really provoked her fascination. There was something about his aura that was so remarkable, that she literally had to write home about him. For one thing, he was completely bald (not that hair has to do with anything). He was in his forties. Could kayak and pilot a plane. He dressed the way Australian surfers dress for the beach – tank top, flip flops and hard abs. He greeted my friend in a manner that was far too friendly which led her to believe he was gay. So what was it about this guy? What made Josephine so moved every time she saw his face – a face so drenched with happiness and compassion?

Josephine finally asked him what was his key to happiness. He said he's been practicing Vipassana meditation for the past ten years and that has really helped him find inner peace. So right away, Josephine signed up for a 10-day introductory Vipassana course in Yangon, Myanmar. After which, she summed up her experiences and sent it to me.

I'd been curious about meditation ever since I'd read Eat Pray Love two years ago, and had tried to practice it with the help of YouTube videos. But I always thought I must be doing something wrong, because there must be more to meditation than just sitting against a wall and watching your breath.

Thankfully, now there's a course to provide instruction. During this moment of confusion in my life, maybe meditation would help me reach clarity, or at the very least, find inner peace.

Vipassana is a pali word native to India. It means insight into the true nature of reality. Since the practice first became popular in Burma, I thought their meditation centers were limited to Asia. But it turns out, Vipassana meditation centers can be found all around the world. I discovered one of them practically living in my backyard – just two hours north of Vancouver. But when I hopped on their website, the retreat calendar was fully booked until March. (I had no idea sitting in the woods in silence was such a popular sport.) So I put myself on the long waitlist for the next course in mid-January. With my visa expiring, and my life on hold indefinitely, I felt such a burning sense of urgency to find an answer. I couldn't bear to wait until March. I needed an answer.