Dreams and reconciliation

 I should probably say – my mind isn’t entirely present… and I am listening to an old recording of Ram Dass.

 

Should I start with Saturday night? Or last night?

Saturday… well, Saturday I woke up with the beginnings of a migraine, but tried to reduce the pain with some caffeine and headache meds… I went to Spyhouse and spent about 45 minutes but couldn’t concentrate after awhile and my irritation at the sounds, and people near me… I had to get out.

I took more headache meds when I got home.

I met up with Rachel for a walk, and it was nice.

I met up will Illy, we walked and it was nice.

Pete sent a text that he had his third child.

I can’t remember if I wrote that night or what… but I don’t remember being very productive Saturday night. But I was in my dreams

I only remember two concrete ones.

In the first one, I was walking around the middle school. I was a student, even though I was 41 years old. I was an adult trying to make up a credit or whatever the little situation was. I had to reenroll, and take the full amount of classes, and pretend like I cared, and go through all the motions of stupid assignments and being a student again. And that was the thing that was frustrating to me. I was the student, and each adult I interacted with didn’t recognize my experience, my age, my wisdom, my strengths… I was a pesky student to them and they were dismissive. I caught these glances of irritation with me. And I was irritated right back, but couldn’t do anything about it… they had the power.  And then for some reason I was in this gym class, but staring out into the jungle. And it was dark in the jungle, and light in the gym… and in the darkness I saw movement, and before anyone else knew that there was something attacking us, and I ran for the light of the gym, but knowing I would not make it, turned around to grab the jaguar and hold his teeth and claws away from me. Hold him down… and realized, hes not so big. And another was coming slowly behind… and the gym teacher yelled out something about me finding them, and in his casualness I knew they were his pets. Dangerous pets, but used to humans.  And the fear passed… but what else could I do.

 

In the second dream, we lived in this house that was like a hoarder’s house. It was awful and gross, and the landlord was highly controlling and wouldn’t allow us to make changes. I was dealing with this. I was dealing with all these mucky stacks of stuff, and wanting to leave, but not quite prepared to. I knew Rachel wanted to, and I knew she was relying on me leaving too. But when she came to me with her bags packed, ready to go, I had to tell her no. I am not ready, I will carry on with the commitment I made. And she was hurt, felt rejected, and even more, angry at me for not pulling myself away from the chaos. As she left, I was staring at the messy stacks and questioning myself. Wondering why I do it. Feeling super guilty about betraying and letting my friend down, but justifying it to myself. Justifying that my path was different.

 

I had to drag myself out of bed, but I made it to church. It was a good service, and I cried, and felt my mind racing with creative thoughts… and then on the way out the door I saw S and J the two women I once tried to help conceive. And rather than say hi, I froze in place. I realized I had all this fear/drama/grief/trauma/guilt/shame… and I didn’t know what to say.

And when I got home from church I took a nap… and when I woke up I wrote to them, to tell them what happened, and that I’d been struggling with the way I ended things over a decade ago… and that I was happy to see them at church, but wasn’t sure if they could forgive me. And S wrote me later in the night and said, you have it all wrong. Im sorry you’ve been holding on to this for so long alone, and it wasn’t your fault, and it was all ok…

And I cried my eyes out.

She wrote me again today. And I haven’t yet responded… but I will.

After crying my eyes out about holding onto all this guilt and shame for so long… I took stock in the other major regrets I’ve been holding onto. I googled Chris multiple times, trying to find out if he is ok. I didn’t get answers.

I felt drained last night, but struggled to sleep. My mind was determined to keep slogging through things, but it didn’t feel helpful. The heat had made my apartment too warm… I tossed and turned all night.

At some point last night, I had a dream that I met up with Chris. We were on some sort of reservation land or museum or something… it was not an environment either of us were comfortable with, but we began talking, and he was angry with me, but more so with feeling helpless and lost… and I was just another person in a list that had turned their backs when what he needed was a hug. I understood, and tried to apologize, but I also stood my ground. I didn’t want to subvert my experience to his… it was more like how I had done stuff with S and J, I wanted to say this was my experience, and I am sick of it… so I am telling you about it, accept it or not… and they were welcoming.

The dream was harsher with Chris… but I didn’t feel bad. It felt like my mind was doing the processing it needed to do. Maybe it was connecting in the ether… maybe its all connected.

I woke up today thinking that I would feel better. I thought I would feel relieved as I had last night, but instead I spent most of the day feeling anxious, and worrying I had done something wrong, wronged someone, hurt them, and would be in trouble soon. I had to take some breaks to center myself. I had to take some times to remind myself that I am not responsible for other people’s behaviors or choices…

The day turned out just fine. It was full of super heavy topics, and I still feel drained. But it was good.
Tomorrow will also be super busy.

I took Wednesday morning off… not sure why, but I did. Thursday and Friday will be average days.   This weekend is Easter.

 

I dunno… I am trying to do some stuff right now to be grounded, connected to spirit, grateful etc… and I dunno. Maybe this is the time when I feel a little disconnected.