Once More Into The Breach

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."  Henry V,  Wm. Shakespeare

Once more, Emily Jane did it - her Christmas present to me was, again, the just-right book to read at just this moment.  (I've come to anticipate her Christmas present with the same sense of gee-whiz excitement as I once regarded the extra-large box  I knew contained a doll - she's been so freakishly on the mark.)  This year, it was Hand Wash Cold - care instructions for an ordinary life.  It's the book I try  to read after going to bed, try to get in a few pages before Sky makes his presence known, nestling down on my chest, at which point I close the book & turn off the light.  

It's been a good way to read this particular book, which is written in a relaxed style but which I've enjoyed experiencing in small bites instead of long sessions.  Never fails to amaze me how much the few paragraphs I manage to get in resound with a recent experience.

Last night, the paragraph that shouted out to me concerns her thoughts on realizing she did NOT want to end a misery by ending her life...  Later, I could have said this was the moment I save my own life.  At the time, it felt more like I'd outed myself from a high-stakes game of masquerade.  I didn't want to die.  I didn't want to play sad anymore.  I wanted to live live live live live.  Who was I no longer fooling?  ~  The answer was, I was no longer fooling myself.  

That's as far as I got before the soft hum of Sky's purring, the warmth of his fur (and not being able to turn the pages) had me setting aside the book & turning off the light.  And they were just the right words to send me tumbling into sleep.

My answer to the question in my previous posting, the question about what gives me a sense of freedom was not what I would have expected.  It came from nowhere, from a place beyond my conscious, which I all too often have disguised into something different from what's real.  But what IS real?  Ah, my question for 37 years.  Never, not in a million zillion years, would I have guessed that my reality is my greatest sense of freedom comes from having an awareness of the well planned, the structured, the - horrors! - predictable.  Avante garde moi?  Predictable??  

Oh, yes, please!  

Answering the question about what liberates outed me from my own high-stakes game of masquerade.  Since I've gotten no further than the end of page 22, I don't know what the author's next thought is, but mine is an echo of I don't want to die.  I don't want to play sad anymore.  

For going on 37 years, my primary goal in life has been to find what is real for me. The image I've had for those 37 years - an image that came to me sitting at the cozy table in Susie & Dorothy's apartment, a cup of hot tea in front of me & priceless friendship all around me - was of a swan skimming along the surface of a pond, but longing to dive dive dive all the way to the bottom, to the very floor of the pond, then back up again again.  Pretty cool imagery & spot on in its meaning to me, although I could never describe it in words.  But I did draw it.

For those 37 years, it's been one striving for new awareness, for fresh perspective after another.  It's been a battle at times.  And it's felt like I get through one struggle only to find another awaiting me.  Constant "once more into the breach" moments.  

Now, it turns out that what liberates me - what's always liberated me - is the well planned, the structured, the predictable.  Didn't see that coming.  A simple question and relatively brief (for me) answer & I was outed from a lifelong masquerade of being a quirky person thriving on the spontaneous, the unprompted & unplanned.  A simple question answered & I am no longer fooling myself.  

Rats!

I have only myself to "blame" for these new battles (because they will be plural) to be fought & won.  I'm the one who talked about needing to put internal structures in place.  But come on - well planned, structured, predictable?  Predictable???  Wasn't I the one who'd rather die than be predictable?  

Oh, wait - I realized I don't want to die.  

So, once more into the breach, dear friends, as I sally forth, girded with armor forged over almost 4 decades, to forge a life with internal structures, structures providing the very framework for my 3rd act, even if it takes leaving all the bodies of my former selves strewed in front of the battlements of my (gasp!) goal.