Epic dream last night. The myth is rearranging itself. I cannot remember anything but the end. I cause something to shatter and the glass disks, like contact lenses rip through the air. Two slip into the queen’s eyes and sever them. One eye, blueish, pops out onto the grass. The other is mostly severed, but hangs on by a thread. And though I’d done this intentionally, it wasn’t rathful, and I felt her pain and loss.

I approached and talked with her, and she asked me to pick up the blue eye on the ground and place it in a jar. Then we decided to pull out the green eye (her right) and also put it in the jar.

It was at this point that I realized that the characters in the internal unconscious kingdom were changing. I felt the dream for what it was, and woke up.

Ultimate hurts so good…

Getting that ‘get organized’ feeling, only now I can see the (a?) fork in the choice to motivate along these lines. I’m not getting organized to feel accomplishment, achievement, worthiness, etc.., but to lower the hurdles to future action.

There are usually flashes of “I can’t”, “I don’t want to”, etc.. Typical resistances. Today, though I still feel a little off from yesterday (sore, sick, weary, lost), I also feel potential. Its sort of like hope, but a little more concrete. I sense that where I follow the softening, warm, human impulses, I may get traction rather than excuses for defenses.

…….

About the frisbee chick that I talked with. She did say one hurtful thing that has stayed with me because it hit a sore spot; But it was odd, and I instantly knew it was a reflection of her reaction-formation to connecting with me, rather than something she said with any conviction. As we talked, another chiquita asked when I graduated highschool. “1988”. “Whoa, but you look so young! You’re really old!…..Lets see, that makes you …. 37?” “Yep…. its an advantage of being immature…you also tend to look younger than you are…”.

“Yeah, I did X and Y and Z after majoring in X and Y and Z. Then I did A, B, C… And my work now is o.k., but I really still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up…”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“What, because I’m never going to grow up? I don’t know about that…(mutter mutter)”.

(Blush, gather backpack). (more conversation, then everyone goes home, but blusher goes first).

I think… I think that Blusher just blurted that out sans conscious control. She finds herself attracted to me, excited to talk in a relaxed way about semi-shared experiences (highschool) but defends heavily with a set of rigid rules about what people should be like. I’d noted this earlier when discussing the academic weakness of our highschool and how she’d had to transfer out to have any more classes to take.

The ‘immature’ bit was too tempting for the inner rule-maker not to take the bait.

But I’ll admit that even knowing this at the time didn’t prevent the sting. I’d also been enjoying myself and knew that this would be ‘conversation over’ unless we could get past the rule-maker and embarrassment therein.

It stings because I am immature in some ways. And even though I’ve freely chosen a course away from the mainstream, a lot of those choices were because I felt I couldn’t possibly succeed in life within the mainstream. Too much inner rebeliousness, too claustraphobic. And though now, older, I’m almost proud of how I’ve resisted joining the herd, I secretly know that subjectively I felt insecure and not a little jealous of those who could play the conform-compete-network game so naturally and with so little inner resistance.

Those long lonely years of pre-teen and teenage angst are unresolved to some degree. And when I’m called on it, even by someone’s reaction-formation, it sometimes stings.

I can’t explain it, but I can enjoy it, nurture it, sense it. There is some shift happening within, and a day like today amplifies and concretizes some new inner base. Or maybe its just a first step in a long series of steps. I don’t have any metaphors really, because it is just raw feeling. Language is always post-facto to feeling, never encapsulating it, only pointing the way.

Played a fun few games of Ultimate this afternoon. I have the cuts and bruises to remember the day. Maybe I’ll take a picture. Kinda gross. Our field is terrible.

Got to talking with one of the female players after the game and it turns out we went to the same high school, though at different times. It was so great to just feel comfortable telling the truth about my life, my experience, and to share a connection in reminiscing about old teachers we both remember fondly.

The feeling was there all day though. Just a relaxed friendliness. An appreciation of the new players we had out today, and an enjoyment of the ad hoc team banter.

Whatever has held me asleep for years is loosening its grasp. There are moments of sunshine and aliveness now that are hard to deny, hard to forget in favor of some re-collapse of spirit and awareness in the face of anxieties and old habits.

Thats it really. I want to live before I die. I think I will. I think I’ll just go ahead and live.

I’m afraid of my emotions. Wait, paradox…..

Diffusing irrationality, neuroses, means that in some manner one learns to be objective about their subjective experience.

A kid is given a ‘time out’ of 10 minutes after ‘acting out’. He sits on the stairs and broods.

Or, having learned to objectify from healthy others, he really takes the time out to reflect and see himself and his behavior in context. Is the request for a time out a power play by the parent, guardian, or teacher? Or is it true that he can gain some insight into his own reactions, and that the request was benevolent?

It just occurs to me that one’s emotional life is actually very simple, while we’re able to step outside our subjective experience and at the same time both accept our full experience and also see it in context.

As I began to write this, I had thoughts flash through my mind that “I’m too tired”, or “It doesn’t matter, skip writing”. I believe that a part of me is quite attached to a certain mode of being and doesn’t want to see the truth, while another is growing stronger and asserting itself almost against my will.

I’ve had several experiences in the last few weeks of social risk-taking, of spontaneous ease, of reflective insight, and of deep perception into the lives of others. This part of me is awake, and growing. I’m glad I like it, because this change seems of its own accord.