You know what you have to do. You know.

I’m sitting here looking over goals. Wondering if they’re succinct and limited enough in scope to keep me alert and focused.

And this goal gives me some pause. I’m wondering whether this goal, in particular, is a goal.

I think it is. But, what is it I’m supposed to do?

Well, there’s the list of things to do. I guess I should review that with some frequency, but I think there’s something else going on with this goal; a kind of injunction to KNOW what I KNOW. And KEEP remembering to train my gaze on what’s true, because I know myself and I have a way of looking away.

Yesterday was the new moon. Months ago I started paying attention to the moon, saying PLEASE prayers to the universe at the new moon and THANK YOU prayers at the full moon. I’d read about this idea that at the new moon one should plant the seeds of ones desires in darkness and allowing them to germinate there in the field of potential, and then at the full moon comes the magic of energy and fruition and insight and so forth, which we acknowledge and celebrate in a spirit of gratitude.

It’s a nice rhythm. I like it. But, more recently I read about the idea of each lunar month having a “theme,” which begins with nascent thoughts and notions at the new moon, escalates through the big action phase of the full moon, and then wraps up and completes with learning and releasing and moving forward before the next new moon. That idea I loved even more. I am always very appreciative of ways of organizing life and finding focus, so that’s great.

EXCEPT! Well, at the new moon you’re meant to get quiet, meditate, listen in stillness for something – some twinkling new thing born in your heart and floating like a scent into your frontal cortex or something. So I did that yesterday. I did it to the nines! I sat out on the porch and sat and sat and listened and listened. And I got nothing.

What to ask for? What to long for? What to begin? I don’t know what to dream. Everything’s gone blank. I don’t know anymore. All of the “dreams” I used to harbor, now that I look at them, seem dishonest. A partner and children, success at some creative job, a nice tidy house. I don’t know if I REALLY WANT any of that. I mean, do I? Where did I get that idea anyway? So I sat there and waited for an idea and couldn’t think of a thing to ask for or to move toward.

Then I saw this goal just now and realized – OHHHH yeah. YOU KNOW. You KNOW!

This goal is about telling myself the truth. I’m so good at telling myself that I simply don’t know, and it keeps me in the dark. This goal is about taking the wall down again and again and again. As fast as my little mental farmers mend the wall again I have to work to leave not one stone on a stone. Keep pulling it down. Send the frozen-ground-swell under it.

Frost did a nice job thinking about this whole dynamic – this waltz between order and undoing.

I need to tell the truth. Telling the truth is HARD. Knowing the truth is hard. Peeling off the blinders again and again is hard.

Last month, something found my basil plant in the front yard and started eating most of it. I finally gave up and brought the poor thing inside, and it was a wreck, with at least ninety percent of the leaves were shredded up and wilting. I’d heard that basil will regrow if given the right conditions, so I cleaned it up, gave it some plant food and put it in a sunny spot inside. Much to my amazement, there are small new sets of leaves sprouting from numerous spots on the stem.

In the past two weeks, I’ve begun feeling the same way. Yes, there’s still a great deal of work ahead of me, but all sorts of new opportunities are sprouting from my dreams, and I am taking action. I am ready to consider this somewhat ambiguous goal completely and break it out into sub-goals as I find appropriate.

I find myself taking a few steps forward each day but also an occasional step back. Last night, I had three mixed cocktails during a board game with friends… while I know it was too much, I am glad that it was in the company of friends and I didn’t drink so much to have a hangover or any negative consequences. Yet, I recognize that the third drink definitely caused me to be sleepier and hungrier.

At the same time, so much good is sprouting out of my life. I am feeling inspired to decorate our apartment and just realized this morning that all of our windows have old fashioned curtain rod holders already attached. With my fiance’s help and encouragement, I am going to finish the caning for the fourth and last of my great grandmother’s dining room chairs, and my fiance glued in the pegs on three of the chairs yesterday – so they’re almost finished. Today, I’ll tie off the cane and decide if I’m going to singe it.

As of Friday, I’d already lost three pounds, but I have a feeling this will be fluctuate because of some decadent eating over the weekend.

Since returning from my vacation, I’ve had moments where I am completely in the now and I am amazed by how clear headed I am and the small blessings the present is providing to me in those moments. Yes, they’re just little coincidences, but I am very encouraged by going to work and feeling productive and valued, finding out I can ignore some random paperwork that is no longer applicable, and receiving notification of a library benefit for my alum that is happening in Minneapolis!

Tonight, I am going to continue to be inspired by the moment – it seems quite clear that will include eating a healthy, tasty dinner, exercising at the gym with my sweetie, and continuing to clean the apartment.

Both literally and figuratively, my business travel has taken me away to Tampa, Florida, and I have not begun exercising. Today, I did try to eat healthier by only eating half of my huge lunch and ordering a small appetizer and vegetable side for dinner at the steak house. There are so many pitfalls to avoid during travel… I’m just thanking the cosmos that I only travel once to twice a year.

When I get back into Minneapolis on Wednesday night, I’ll plan on easing back into life; work will be craziness Thursday & Friday and my co-worker is out sick with a double ear infection. On Thursday night, I’ll join my sweetie for a gym visit on Thursday and Friday night. He’ll appreciate that support and it’ll be good for me.

Over the last two months, I lost all focus due to a worrisome personal issue and being overwhelmed by my work. The issue has finally passed and I need to let it go now, but as I survey its aftermath, I see so much wreckage. Much like the four small tornados that hit Minneapolis this week, my worries rose up quickly and had unexpectedly powerful consequences:

Gained 10 pounds back
Lost all sight of an exercise regiment
Became addicted to fast food
Began using alcohol as a crutch to relax
Dropped almost all of my goals and projects

Yes, it’s a dismal sight… to see what I let my own worries, my own concerns temporarily destroy in my life, and yet in the last few days that voice has begun appearing. you know what you have to do. you know.

This morning, I am going to start off my day well with a morning walk. Then, I’m going to make a semi-healthy homemade breakfast for me and my partner. Oddly, I don’t see lists as a part of my life right now. My work is too list-bound for me to borrow that technique anymore, so my marching orders will be in narrative for now.

In setting the tone this next week, I will not eat any fast food. I will also stop buying junk food during work hours.

This goal title is taken from Jane, an amazing force on 43 Things who is also recently dormant, but in the last few months created this goal and a set of marching orders that came to her. I will leave it at that, because her words are far more powerful and moving than I can convey in this moment … so if you are curious, seek them out and perhaps, like me they will wake you up too (eventually).

After an anxious all-nighter of watching movies and TV, I heard some cheerful bird pipe up at the blue mist rising behind the trees. So I set the laptop on the floor, pulled the blankets over me, rearranged the pillows and tried to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep. I felt fearful and sad. Then I followed this one thought, You know what you need to do, until I found where it led. I wrote down all these instructions and then I went to sleep.

Here are the instructions, transcribed (with all the repetitiveness left in; obviously some part of me knows those things need emphasis). So, now this is an official goal – find focus in this list. Make some radical changes. It’s time to stop wasting time, set aside my ego, stop defying internal and external authorities, and start obeying god. He oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade.

You know what you need to do. Let the knowledge bubble up to the surface. Don’t resist it. Don’t block it.
Discipline, health. That’s it. You need those two things to give you a stable foundation. And money. Which requires discipline, and health.

• You need to start making your own way.
• You need to write your paper for submission to conferences.
• You need to cut out the drinking and start exercising, every day, every morning. Your brain needs to be healthier. You need your brain to be healthier.
• You need to “apply and see what happens” (like Kali said)... to McDowell, PhD programs, the conference in Denmark, whatever it is. You need to throw things out into the world, throw them out there, regardless of the odds, or of what you expect. Without regard for your ego. Without fearing for your ego. YOU are not your ego. Your ego, so far, has only kept the REAL YOU from participating in your life. Stop protecting it! It’s not real. It is a ghost of you, with long black arms enfolding you.
• You need to become a woman who enjoys her life and travels, has lovers, makes brilliant friends, has interesting things to talk about. You need to be able to find the pleasure in your life that is separate from whether or not you ever do marry or have children.
• You need to stop reading recipes so obsessively and start reading about things of interest OUT THERE, in the world: WIRED, Inc., Economist, Harper’s, Atlantic, UTNE. You need to ENGAGE.
• You need to prepare for the reality of work. You need to prepare for the fact of a real job. Graduate school is a dubious shelter. And it won’t last.

• You need to get in great shape – baby-having shape – stronger, fitter, healthier, without lazy dependency on food and alcohol, and you need to get disciplined enough to have a successful career, in case you have a family on your own… which you might.
  I don’t know if I’m ready. NO, I know I am NOT ready!

• But, time and your body will not wait for you to be ready. Your priority needs to be on GETTING READY.

• Have a wonderful time. Work hard. Travel. Become a success.
• You will meet plenty of men, and if you are a success and have some money, you can fix your teeth and with a strong fit body you will look youthful for a while yet, you only need to be brilliant ENOUGH and hard working and dedicated ENOUGH to have ONE extroverted year, one great year in your career. One bright and sparkling year that puts you in an environment where you can meet people. You CAN do it. You can be strong and go out there and do some good work. Exercise will help your brain and give you the energy for it. Exercise has to come first.
• You need to quit worrying about finding a man. You need to get on with your own life. Just do what you need to do.
• You can get in FANTASTIC SHAPE, and STAY in fantastic shape. Your body can look great and does when you treat yourself well; give your body what it NEEDS to be healthy.
• You don’t need to be afraid of lost opportunities. You are okay. You can get a PhD at 40 if you want. People have children on their own. They get PhD’s. People manage. You can manage.

PRIORITIES:

• Put your house in ORDER.

Get ready to have a baby. What would that take?

• Make your room into an adult woman’s room, a clean, grown-up, adult room. Get rid of all the clutter, all the garbage of your past! All the old clothes. All the old makeup. THROW IT ALL AWAY. Make a decisive break with the past. Let go of your old self and find out who you are NOW. A mother cannot have a room like this. You are 35. You need to make space in your life for a child. This clutter has to go.
• Get rid of the books you will never read.
• Work toward getting YOUNGER THIS YEAR. Exercise, become an exerciser. An hour every day, rain or shine. Be a runner. Join a running club. Change your perception of your athletic abilities. Measure yourself against ONLY yourself. You need to become athletic, disciplined, consistent.
• Do the work for school and career: READ. Make reading deadlines.
• Forget online dating. It’s bullshit and it’s a way of soothing yourself and telling yourself you can meet someone, but it wastes the days away and these are not the men you want to meet.
• You are meant to meet a man like Jean Paul, at a conference, where he will see you give your talk and approach you to say… you’re a DARE DEVIL. Those men aren’t online.
• Become the mother and the wife – behave like an adult, a reliable woman – and the family will come.
• Build an environment that works WITH you instead of AGAINST you! Create an environment that NOURISHES and SUPPORTS you, that is conducive to success.
• You can adopt if you have to, but you won’t have to. You are fertile and youthful. You will have children with a wonderful man. Stop looking for the man and become the woman.
• Don’t WASTE TIME! It’s your most precious commodity. The rest of this year – 6 months – this is a commodity. Don’t engage in futile emotional drains, like fights or guilt, self-doubts, fears, depression. Don’t engage. Stay focused on YOUR PATH.
• Do BEGIN EACH DAY and END EACH DAY, with gratitude, prayers, love for others, sincere appreciation for what you have. You need to attract love from a place of wholeness and happiness. Everyone knows that.
• Read obsessively, EDUCATE YOURSELF. Make a PLAN.
• Make a plan for the syllabus in HF and Prototyping, and a plan for tackling the paper for Roland, a great mentor, before mid-semester. Let him help you get out into the world.

ASK YOURSELF, WHAT DO I NEED TO DO, TO BECOME, in order to be READY to have a family?

• Have more fun first. Be in the world. Don’t feel deprived of it. YOU MUST FIND A WAY to engage with and enjoy your life. PLEASE. Think of Italy. Think of the bright spot that one trip forms on the gray time-line of memory. You need more pleasure. You need more life. More people. TRY. FORCE FORCE FORCE. Make an effort.
• Be fit and organized and be a regular confident exerciser. Be FREE of ADDICTIONS to food and alcohol. You KNOW this, it is in your bones. You know what you need to do. You must stop drinking and you must get the reigns on your food. Your addictions are robbing you of your life.
• Have a good source of income. Study. Study. Study. LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN. Become confident in what you have to offer. Give presentations and talks. Get consulting work. Intern someplace good – if you can work in a think tank, you can get your own business from there.
• A clean home and managed routine (FLYlady)
• Friends, female friends. Friends. Friends.
• Be able to go without drinking for the rest of the year while you get into the best shape of your life. Not just with diet, but with consistent exercise.Do this for your BRAIN – the machine of your IDENTITY, your MOTIVATION, your TALENTS and GIFTS. It’s delicate. Stop fucking around and take CARE of it.

You are FIGHTING for your LIFE! Do you understand that?
Your LIFE.
YOUR life!

THIS IS IT. It’s who you are. It’s what you’ll remember. It’s what you stand to lose. Everything. The whole shebang. Your existence. Right NOW. You’re in it. This is it. Ready or not here it comes.

This life, the person you are, is what you have to work with. So accept it, be grateful and get to work.

You need to grab the potential for a happy life. GRAB IT!! Do NOT let your moment pass. You are in a critical phase of your life right now. The next six months are critical months. Grow now. The opportunity is now. You have to GROW.

would like me to consider him a coach, not just a pharmacologist.

And would like for me to stop drinking, start going to bed and waking up at regular intervals, keep a healthy diet, and exercise 60 minutes a day.

Right. Riiiiighht.

I tell myself that all of these are good ideas and I think, yes, I’ll do those things. Well, all but the one about the drinking. Forget that.

I proceed to do nothing differently. I stay up really late every night, drinking cocktails and eating refined carbs, browsing the internet and tweaking my online persona.

I wake up past noon, and I do not exercise. In truth I barely move. I mostly shift from one angle of repose to another.

Change is hard.

Then, Oddly, I find some part of my brain saying to me quite insistently the other morning (after a night of not sleeping) “you know what you need to do.” “You know.” “You know.” “you know.”

But I did not know. Still, I felt something funny, listening to the words go around in my head. I tried to clear everything out and just listen to those words. “You know what you need to do.”

It was as if there were tumblers and pins, somewhere giving way. I kept rattling this skeleton key, “You know,” “You know.” And feeling the funny ticking and giving in my bones. “You know what you have to do.”

And then suddenly it gave and a compartment opened and out poured a list of instructions. I reached for my notebook and hoisted myself up on my pillows and wrote it all down.

So. I guess the thing of it is – yes. I know. But I don’t want to know. I don’t like these instructions. I don’t know if I can pull any of this off. I like bed. I like sleep. I like food. I like booze. I like comfort.

Nonetheless, I am glad to have some instructions and I’ll write them all up here pretty soon. Directives I found buried in some brain closet. Behind a door which says, You Know.

I feel like Alice in Wonderland, sometimes. Life is perplexing.

even my new therapist (maybe, we’ll see if I can tolerate him for a second session) says I’m “floating through life” and said he’s heard that this is typical of my generation, but never met anyone who was actually living this way. INFANTILE – was the judgment about me that he seemed to be making, that was the subtext, I think. Irresponsible. Infantile. Pathetic.