From the Beginning

There might have been things I missed, but don't be unkind
It don't mean I'm blind
Perhaps there's a thing or two I think of lying in bed
I shouldn't have said

But, there it is

You see, it's all clear
You were meant to be here from the beginning

Maybe I might have changed and not been so cruel
Not been such a fool
Whatever was done is done - I just can't recall
It doesn't matter at all

You see, it's all clear
You were meant to be here from the beginning

Emerson, Lake, & Palmer

Restless as hell today, unaccountably so. Been down for a day and half, in pain. Still down, to all extents and purposes, but I felt it inappropriate to stay home anymore. The compromise was to come in late today. I could have used another day on the couch, doing nothing, but responsibility is far more important to me. Accountability.

The Captain has a chance at a new, better job on campus, and the suspense is killing us. He needs and deserves this job; I need him to get this job. Things will be better for us, in so many ways, if he gets this job. Of course, there are no guarantees that he'll get the job, despite being the ideal candidate. But if he gets the job, we'll be that much closer to the life we've wanted for so long. Perhaps that's the source of the restlessness: the suspense, the desire to run away, just in case things don't play out how we want them to.

I seem to dream more, now that I use the sleep protocol I'm currently using to promote sleep, versus pills. I don't know how I feel about this dreaming more. The dreams seem more full of people I know or am related to than dreams in years past, and I certainly don't know how I feel about that, other than lonely - it makes me miss those people.

I've gotten rusty in the language of pain. I've gotten rusty in the language of the Road. I feel so far from Home. I feel like there is no secular salvation for me.

But this will all pass, it always does, in the face of an annihilating mania that burns off the bullshit and leaves behind the best things, the good things - even those things which others might not consider good. I've still a lot to learn...

Understand: these fires never stop...

I will hear: the promise of my Orpheus sing...

I begin to wonder...

I begin to wonder if I ever really knew myself. I always thought I did, and was proud of the degree of self-awareness I achieved before adulthood. I was and am still grateful that I'd awakened to wisdom before becoming an adult and that I was able to avoid mistakes and come to realizations that I have since become aware that most folks do not arrive at until they are middle-aged.

But in the last few years, I've come to doubt my self-awareness. I've come to doubt my self-knowledge. I have never doubted my wisdom; perhaps that is prideful, but lacking in common sense as I do, wisdom is my main recourse in most things, and has seldom led me wrong.

The husband and I had a terrible fight last night, terrible indeed. It's perhaps the worst we've ever had, in fact. And lately - in the last six months - we've fought A LOT. I wanted to attribute it to the on-going stress he was under while in school and his dissatisfaction with his current job, and then on top of that, Lu's death. But last night I realized it wasn't any of that at all, and I confronted him on so many things I'd just let go. I wish I'd realized sooner, and I wish it hadn't gone down like it did. But there's no sense in regret, and I have hope that things will improve. Things can only get better from here. We both realize that there are things we both need to work on about ourselves.

So the question is, since I've been out of practice so long (since I assumed I'd achieved remarkable self-awareness and wouldn't have to work on it for a while): how does one go about learning (re-learning?) about one's self? How does one reacquaint the self with the Self?

I know it won't be easy, and it shouldn't be. But right now, I'm at a loss as to how to start.