Eight years ago I officially signed off from Precious Metal. It was bittersweet to put it lightly. I didn’t really want to Walk away, I was really enjoying what the online sangha at the time was building. The universe had its own plan though and I walked away.

Here I am after nearly a decade and the landscape of the online sangha has changed dramatically. I can’t seem to find many of my old pals, but that’s ok; it’s all impermanent right? I’m about to get wordy so those that have hung on and want to play catch up here it goes; I will try to be as brief as possible.

2012 was a big year relationship wise. My wife and I were having some issues. After I had Moved out and a short separation, we wanted to give what we had built one more valiant effort. I moved back in and we started planning a move across country. We decided Nashville would be a great place. A friend of mine lived there and was a supervisor at the company I already worked for, so a transfer would be extremely easy.

Long story short, things went fairly well for our relationship. We did move back home pretty quick though as Nashville was not what we had hoped, at least as far as schooling for our kids went. After moving back home, we were able to buy a new house. We never thought in a million years that would be possible; Cape Cod is terribly expensive. My job stability really Helped us out, plus we had both been working on our credit. Things started to go back to how they were though and we grew more and more apart.

In 2018 we decided it was time that we go our separate ways, for good this time. We would of course still be intrinsically linked since we had our two boys to raise. There is no remorse on either side and our separation is amicable. To be honest, and I think she’d agree, we are very good at co-parenting and we get along very well now.

After moving into a condo, it took some time to get used to being alone half of the week. I also didn’t have my dogs since there was no yard and my landlord didn’t allow them. On occasion I did have them come over for a night here and there, and that was nice. Lots of my nights were spent contemplating what I was doing. I’m in my mid-forties now and to be honest, I got a bit down on myself. That was where meditation and my experience with the Dharma helped me. I especially worked through what I knew about impermanence and was able to rationalize what had happened.

A year and a half later, I moved out of the the condo. I was extraordinarily lucky to find a rental that was in the neighborhood my kids lived in. Not only were they are 30 second walk from my house but, the yard was fenced and the landlord already knew my dogs. She had met them many times during walks in the neighborhood. She was excited to know I would be back with them and agreed to let me have them at the rental; no more lonely nights.

It has now been about 4 months in the new place, things are settling in. I’m finding more and more that my life is turning back toward practice and that makes me happy. Though it’s been nearly 15 years that I’ve meandered this path, it feels like I’m back at square one and I appreciate the chance to come back to the beginning.

It’s with this for ward movement that I set the intention to practice with the best of my ability, to do it not only for me but for the benefit of all sentient beings and to be open to anything and everything. Thanks for listening!

Yes, the title of this entry is a play on Pema Chodron’s, “When Things Fall Apart.” Figured it was kind of fitting!