Struggling with Not Struggling: July 6th, 2005
09/28/2005 12:14 a.m.

I'm struggling with the fact that I am not struggling. I am finding it difficult to admit this defeat as a tactical retreat. I didn't go to work today, and at 3 p.m., after having told a close friend that I was going to go clean my house, and then work on some poem drafts, I instead went upstairs and went to bed for two and a half hours. In these hours I dreamt as always, lucid and disturbing, not in the violent sense, but in the sense that I might as well have not slept. One of the things I dreamt was that I had gotten extremely drunk and had to pull my car over to the side of the road. When I looked down I realized that my keys weren't even in the ignition. "How the hell was I just driving a moment ago?" I asked myself. Meanwhile, there was a policewoman behind me. I got out of my car and realized that this 'drunken' state was more like a state of 'blindness,' more specifically, a physical kind of blindness. I could hardly see, in fact, it was not so much that I could hardly see as the fact that I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was struggling so hard to keep them open, knowing that this policewoman will now know for sure that I am drunk and arrest me. I struggled so hard, closing my eyes for just a moment in complete beauty and comfort, and from that point then having more strength to open them a bit wide, but after a few seconds they became weak again and began to close against my will. Despite this, when I opened the back door of the car, I found the keys lying there so clearly, so clearly! I was baffled at how they could have gotten there, completely forgetting (until this very moment) that I saw them clearly in that moment. The policewoman was now in front of me, and of course, I could not see her face or body that well, it was only evident that she was wearing the blue uniform and blue hat. She spoke with me about my being drunk, I told her I was just sleepy, so sleepy (in my mind I thought, "she's never going to buy this Rula,") and she did not buy it. She told me she would not be arresting me, that I seemed sincere that I was sorry and she could see how badly I was feeling, but she asked me to imagine in my mind how it would be if she did arrest me. She asked me to think of my father, "what would he think? What would he feel in seeing you regress like this?" I told her, "he would feel pain and I would be the cause."

I woke up not long thereafter when my husband arrived from work at around 5:30 p.m. I woke up feeling quite strange, physically as though I was a bit 'out of my body,' but only slightly. I was also sad but not in a 'crying way', and on top of this very irritated and frustrated. My husband was kind, he hugged me and asked me if I was ok, and why I was feeling so bad. I could not answer when I had no clear reason. I mumbled something about not being able to sleep, about dreaming and not being able to wake up. In any case, the next ½ hour was so interesting as I see it here and now, and as too I saw it then when I looked at myself from a distance, looking from outside to inside. The interesting part is two-fold. First, I felt an extreme anger, an extreme frustration. Within one half hour I could have screamed at the top of my lungs, or I could have thrown plates around the house. I felt the strong urge to throw and hit and to admit defeat. I had not felt this frustrated and angry for a long time. Interestingly, I was also watching myself getting angry, feeling frustrated, and watched myself closely as I pictured myself throwing and breaking a dish, as I pictured myself screaming "GO TO HELL EVERYONE." I saw myself so clearly, as lately I have been seeing myself so clearly every hour of every day it seems. I did laugh, I remember clearly my intending self laughing in those seeing moments.

I have gone from never remembering to 'look' to never forgetting to 'look'. Still, this remembering had a purpose, HAS a purpose, and the purpose is to grow, the purpose is to see that "I" am not I, and then to DO something about this fact. It has been painful seeing my numerous "I's" so clearly almost on a minute to minute basis at times (most of the time as the I's are reacting or just a moment after having reacted,) and yet letting them win, letting them defeat my Intending self in that moment, SEEING myself letting them defeat ME. Yes, this is the struggle of not struggling. It is the struggle of seeing but not doing, the struggle of being aware of not being aware, and of not doing anything that I know will give me quality impressions and thus, energies to 'get out' of this 'stuck up' mode I seem to be in.

The good news is that I am not alone, for though I have not been 'clear' about many things, the one thing I have always been clear about is that I am not doing what I intend. I have always known 'what's right' even as I was justifying not doing it. Always, but I never before knew what LOVE truly was, not truly. Now there is a difference in me. There is something compelling me to treat defeat as a tactical retreat. Something which compelled me to get angry with my lethargic and frustrated self and to DO something that I KNOW would help me. Something which compelled me to clean the kitchen, and to clean the living room, and then just now sit down and write about my struggle. It's clear what that 'something' is to me. It's clear that I could never BE when I was only a half of an I all along. It's clear to me that I am a whole, and as such, cannot fail. It's an impossibility to fail, there is no going back, there is no dream to go back to. I am struggling with not struggling, and I am doing it with presence, with LOVE.