Day of 2007 - 11

Another fine Bloomsday.

I woke up awash in emotion. Actually, I woke up maybe 90 minutes too early. I laid in bed the entire time, wondering if I was going to get back to sleep. The alarm went off, and I hit snooze twice. For the third ring, I decided I just needed to sleep, so back to sleep I went. It did not damage my morning too much.

I had an anxiety dream. I don't remember all the details too much (setting: shopping mall somewhere on the Pacific coast), but a huge theme was Alexa. Tremendous emotion about her - regret, jealousy and something beyond both of those things. This feeling remained with me until I eventually went to work and got distracted by all the 10,000 things happening there.

I wish I could explain the feeling head on, but I'll just need to take jabs at it: like I said, jealousy and regret; a feeling of richness and fullness, combined with an immense sadness. Thoughts entered my head: why did I get it wrong, what have I done, why did I leave this, it was something beautiful. But somehow these thoughts are incomplete; I am not entirely alienated from what I'm pining for, this is something involving Alexa but not necessarily limited to her.

And this is what I meant, a few weeks ago, when I talked about the fire and the rose being one - this feeling is very full and very rich, but to interpret it as meaning - I regret leaving Alexa - would be simplistic. I also stand by decision in many ways. I can't just throw one perspective to the side of the road. I had my reasons, and they still exist. So I wonder - why am I feeling this now, why can't I feel this at the same time as my frustration, as feeling trapped and get a full, multidimensional picture? Why must my perspective of the situation alternate between good, bad, good, bad - why can't I emerge with a total picture?

The feeling I had this morning was very deep and very powerful. The feeling of needing to escape - it seems like a lower feeling. What this leads me to believe is that the reason I left Alexa is not because there was nothing there, but that I was paradoxically incapable of accessing what was there while I was there. I wish I could have, and I can look back with super x-ray 20/20 hindsight as much as I want, but I could only work with what I had at the time. I have what I have to work with now, because now is now.

To touch briefly on 2007 - all the drama of the Shelter of last Thursday and Friday - I think we worked some things out pretty well today. Things are more or less back to normal between Sarah and me - whatever that means. I had an interesting experience at the Staff Meeting we had: I was trying to observe the full range of the problem - the core issue being that St. Elizabeth takes on too much responsibility for Santa Fe's homeless - a group that the entire city should take responsibility for. It is glaringly true for me that the most immediate, practical next step is to begin uniting Santa Fe as a community, so that there is the proper soil from which creative and effective solutions can grow. When I think about it, however, I am, at first, overwhelmed at the enormity of the task - but there is something else going on, a reluctance to do anything, a resistance to getting up and doing something. There is still something lacking - what is it? What am I waiting for? Either I need to figure out what it is, or I need to change myself so that I am not constantly needing extra "somethings" in order to get done what needs to get done.

This is really puzzling. Why can't I just do? There is something lacking in the ground, in the air - or in my relationship to the ground, the air. Am I blind, or are the lights turned off? Where does the environment end and my own functionality begin?

Questions, questions.

I will leave with one last note. OkCupid is getting more and more interesting for me. I'm learning more about how to use it effectively, what I want to get out of it. It's certainly a step up from the craigslist dating I did 4 or so years ago. It brings with it a lot of overwhelming feelings - all the strange, quick judgments you have to make on people. I think I am generally too formal in my dealings with people for OkCupid to be 100% comfortable, but I am learning how to change that, how to balance caution with boldness. Specifics to follow at a much later date.

Good night.