There is no English word that will render all the meanings of the Pali dukkha. "Ill" serves the purpose pretty well, so to a certain extent do the terms "suffering" and "anguish." There remains a deeper, more general meaning, given by Evola as "a state of agitation, of restlessness or commotion rather than suffering...it is the antithesis of unshakable calm."
--Dr. Elizabeth Ashby

I’ve been noticeably crabby for the last few days. Dhukka is the word that keeps coming to my mind as I endlessly and solipsistically examine myself. I have a vague irritation and unease about pretty much everything.

That unease is the key. In some Eastern Religion survey class I was in long ago, dhukka was defined, literally, as ‘dis-ease’. That’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling of late.

There are lots of reasons: the change in seasons, having to drop my graduate school class owing to time constraints, money concerns. One of the weirder ones, though, involves (what else?) a girl from my past.

In high school, I became close friends with this punk-rockish girl. As is typical for me, we became incredibly platonically tight. One time, when we had been hanging out after school, I dropped her off at her house and there was an uncomfortable pause after our goodbyes that she broke by saying “I’m not sure what to do now.” I knew she meant she wasn’t sure if we should smooch. To quote Ray Davies, I’d never kissed a woman before, but I was pretty sure it would be a bad idea to insert smooching into this, whatever it was. I knew she had a lot of bad things in her past, and I really didn’t want to add myself to them.

So there was no goodbye smooch, and we carried on, talking on the phone constantly and hanging out in the library before first period.

One morning, she greeted me by saying “I’ve been talking to my therapist, and she says I’ve been leading you on and that I’d better tell you that.”

My head spun. Did this mean we weren’t friends, that all our closeness was a sham? I got up from the table and walked away, never to speak in-depth with her again.

Now, twenty-plus years later, it dawned on me that she didn’t mean that weren’t friends – just that she was afraid I was in it for the potential of fooling around with her someday.

No, I’d like to say to her now. That wasn’t it at all! From my side, I was totally happy being a pal, and I thought you were dismissing that, and now I realize that’s probably exactly what you were looking for.

Sorry, Ang.