day 1: meditation

OK, maybe if I try to do an actual day by day project it'll encourage me to get serious about blogging (but probably not). Regardless, I'll try it anyway! The other day I found myself in India, meditating in front of a 1500 year old Buddha statue with two of my classmates. The moment was serene, unbelievable, and overall, the best connection I've ever made with meditation in general. It inspired me to begin my journey of meditation, and so here we are, ready to (try to) journal every day for 365 days about my mediative experiences.
Today meditation found me on the floor of my dorm in front of my roommates mirror. I sat in the darkness with no sound, deciding to start on my breath. My arms felt relaxed, but I found it hard to relax the tension in my forehead. Luckily I could find relaxation in my shoulders, bringing them down from my ears to a relaxed position. There were times when I was able to focus well on my breathing, but my thoughts found me easily, distracting me without me even noticing I was thinking about something else other than my breath. My thoughts are abundant and unrelenting, causing me to day dream about things I don't ever care about. In the end, I had only meditated about 5 minutes and got up feeling slightly refreshed and slightly unnerved and annoyed at my mindless thought chatter. In a book I'm reading, A Million Thoughts, the author mentions that this will happen often when beginning to meditate. He refers to the mind as a busy highway. It's all about getting to the beauty of the quiet, secluded dirt road. Of course, I'm not there yet, but I hope soon I will.
As of now, I find myself sitting here thinking if I'll be able to know the difference between a cleared, relaxed mind and not feeling anything, which is something I fear. When you spend most of your life thinking and talking all the time, it begins to feel uncomfortable to try and clear your thoughts and observe more of the world around you. I know my time will come, though. Practice makes perfect and I am the owner of my mind; my mind does not own me... or does it!? hahaha, just kidding.
artfully yours