So here it is, January 1, 2004, time to make my resolutions. I’ve always made New Year’s resolutions. In fact, I even make Valentine resolutions, Fourth of July resolutions. I make resolutions on planes when I’m leaving on a trip and then again when I’m returning from that trip. They’re mostly about dieting, exercise and budgets, and I never keep them anyway. Everything I resolve to do is always going to start tomorrow. I’m going to walk 3 miles a day. I’ll start first thing tomorrow. I’m going to write everyday, beginning tomorrow. Starting tomorrow I’m not watching anymore TV. Well, technically it is tomorrow because it’s about 2:00 am, but I have a rule that if I haven’t gone to bed yet, it’s not tomorrow. Since I’m starting that diet tomorrow, I’ll just have these cookies and ice cream to get them out of the way for tomorrow.
But there’s a very big difference in my resolution this year. I’m going to bache on October 16, 2004. If my calculations are correct, and since 2004 is a leap year, that will be in 289 days. I cannot make promises to start preparing for it tomorrow because I’m too skilled at letting 289 tomorrows drift through my fingers. I know there will be bache dinners and that Marc will be “hammering me”, a direct quote, but if I’m ever to do this, I need to trade tomorrow in for today. So here’s my one and one resolution for this year. I will do this work, and I will do it for 289 todays.
There’s some well of pain in me, or some well of fear in me, or some well of shame in me that I’ve spent my life covering up. After all these years in the work I’m still not sure what I’m hiding from, what I’m avoiding. It seems so clear every Friday morning when I have my phone sessions with Marc, but then I don’t keep hold of it. I tell people who are surprised that I do the work by phone that one of the benefits is that you don’t have to jump up and go drive home. You can linger with your thoughts, stay tuned in. There are sometimes in the work when that’s true, but when it’s resistance time, (and it’s often resistance time) I say goodbye, and although I have every intention of staying with the feelings, I’m closed up like a clam in seconds. I tell myself I’ll get to that homework tomorrow and then I’m right back into the life I’ve been sleep walking through for 59 years.
When I first started writing, I ended each piece with an upbeat, "I can see the light now, and all my trials soon be over" sentiment. A big turning point in my work came when Marc challenged me on one of those endings and showed me that each time I did that, I set myself up for a dance with the demon. I set myself up to fail over and over. I have danced plenty with that demon. I’ve let him have his way with me. I’ve let him convince me that if I let anyone get close to me, that if I let anyone love me, that I would disappear. There would be no me. Well, just maybe, it would be a good thing to lose that me whose let the demon run my life. That life based on fear and self loathing. Just maybe I won’t lose me, maybe I’d find me, the me who could feel the love of the Animus. I’ve so often despaired that I could never get to him. The Animus has so often been just in my head, an idea, a fact, with no feeling attached. Is this demon blocking out those feelings like a cloud blocking the sun? Is it just possible that now that I see what this demon is up to, that I can expel him? He wants me to feel only doubt, and fear and shame and when they get too hard, to feel nothing at all. I’ve spent way too much of my life already feeling nothing. I’m feeling pain and sadness right now. Could this pain be like a sunburn? Could I be getting the demon out of the way, exposing me to the full sunlight of the Animus? Could it be that the what I though was pain and worked all my life to avoid, is the love of the Animus flooding in and touching my finally unprotected heart? My tears right now tell me yes.
In my first dream of the New Year, I’m about to get married, but I don’t really know the groom. I have met him. He’s a friend of a friend. Although I don’t love him, in fact I barely know him, I feel compelled to go on with the wedding. I see many friends there, my mother’s there, and everyone’s looking pleased so that helps me to keep from running away. As I’m trying to get ready, I can’t find my makeup, or a mirror, I’m running around frantically, even going into a stranger's house and using her stuff, everything is going wrong. But I finally do get there. The Animus is my groom. I don’t fully know Him yet, but I know I will go on ahead with this marriage. I feel the same way about my bache. My historical self thinks, “Who are you kidding, you can’t get up there in front of all those people”, but like the bride, I’m compelled to do this. I’ll have plenty of diversions like I did in the dream, but I will show up.
So now, I was thinking I’d wrap this up by saying I had two resolutions. First to keep feelings these feelings, and then, to work hard preparing for the bache. But then again, one can’t happen without the other, so I guess it is just one resolution after all. See you all in 289 todays.
Happy New Year.