Not Me

A few nights ago I had the distinct opportunity to have a dream in which I was not me. I do not mean that I was someone else. I was me, I identified myself and recognized my soul. I respopnded to my name and Knew that David was my husband an that I had two kids. So what I mean when I say not me, is that I acted and was treated in a manner that is not conducive to my personality. I am inately shy and to deal with that in a group setting I tend to don a personality that is a bit sardonic and sarcastic. Or i am the perfect host and mother. I (like most people) hide who I really am behind various masks so that I don't have to deal with myself. In my dream I was nice and was adored and treated nicely by people. Don't get me wrong I am not a bad person I am just not the type to be adored. I prefer to match make and fix things. The only one who has ever adored me is my husband. I did just shoot the question over my shoulder 'Hey hun, do you adore me?' Which is why I feel confident saying that. Though perhaps putting him on the spot like that, there was really only one answer he would give. David is very good at the 'does this make me look fat?' part of our marriage. He always knows the right answer and how to make me belive it. Back to my dream.
In this dream we are in a classroom and people are lipsyncing in groups and we rate them and give them feedback on their lipsyncing. The room is set up oddly with and stage that is only about 2 shallow steps up from the rest of the class and we are fanned out in front of them. The is a small room to the side where people can go to buy food. Frozen burritos. While Groups are lip syncing people are flirting with me and telling me how nice i am. In my dream I am peaceful and happy. I am always smiling. It is like someone gave me a drug or something. While in my dream it seems okay, I woke up feeling uncomfortable with it. The Me in my dream seemed not to care and was unaffected by the world around her. After the groups are done lipsyncing I go to buy a snack and the teacher selling them tells me that the woman before me forgot her change and gives it to me. I have no idea why, I don't know the woman and don't expect to see her. I take the change thinking I will keep it and at the same time wondering why the woman gave it to me. As I walk out the girl before me, a big black woman, catches up to me and wants her change. The change is divided by recipts so I just give her the one on top and walk to my car. As I go I dig in my backpack nonchalantly looking for my keys, I end up sitting on top of my bag as I dig in my bag trying to feel for my keys. I stop by a stand that has all sorts of hawaiian stuff and look around. I ask if the woman has sunglasses and she tells me that she has 2 million in sunglasses if I can find a place to put them. I start looking over the displays not really wanting to help her but wanting a pair of sunglasses and then I am aware of being awake.
Dreams are such odd things. The only part of this that I can without a doubt tell you what it is about is the sunglasses. The kids recently ruined my expensive fossil sunglasses and the sun has been bothering me. I was upset because my mother bought them for me in pasadena when a migrain was bothering me and they were a delightful luxury for me to have sunglasses from Macy's. I usually get sunglasses from target so a brand name and a cute look were...well i reallyliked them. I took care of them and kept them in the case and always put them up. but the kids got to them and scratched them beyond repair. I was upset that they had broken so mething that was mine, that my mother had bought me from Macy's in Pasadna. It was all kind of hurtful. I had mentioned it to David and we talked about it. The rest of it I have no idea. While the me in this dream is peaceful she seems selfish. Keeping the change and not wanting to find the person, not wanting to help the vendor display stuff, and not returning the love to the people who adored her...me...us. I am uncomfortable with the way i..we ..oy...behave in this dream. It is very out of character for me. I love being praised but only when i do something worth it. I like people to say they liked a meal I cooked or that the party I planned was wonderful. I like it when people feel comfortable and sit and chat. I also llike it when I do something that attracts people to me, or if I look good and people coment on it. Praise for Praise sake seems lost on me. Perhaps that is why i am not quite as balanced as I should be. Should I learn to just except love and praise just because? Bleh even the thought makes me annoyed.
Sweet Dreams,
Bec

Old Lovers

A tumble, and when i use the word tumble i mean very harsh fall, from a bike coupled with pain pills and followed by a high fever and toncillitis, will give you the most amazing dreams. None of which you will remember when you wake up and the pain pills fade and the fog clears from your brain. You wake up feeling slightly rested and annoyed because you can only chase the tails of those rich vivid dreams. Though perhaps the fact that you can't recall those dreams is a blessing. maybe a part of the pain comes our in your dreams. Maybe deviant dreams fill your brain so your body can heal. Maybe there is some portion of your body that has to expel such vile cirumstances and the only place to do that is your dreams.
I fell off my bike banged my face all to hell, sprained my knee, scraped up most exposed surfaces, and got a nasty knot on my forehead. The EMTs came cleaned me up and made me promise to go to the hospital. Once there my body was subjected to alot of testing and xrays and left in a leg immobilizer and with crutches. There is something so violent about this process of being hurt that it last over several days. Not all your bruises rise to the surface until 3 days later and parts of your body hurt that weren't even dragged accross the street behind your bike. It is terrifying that it takes three days for your body to finally say,' this is all that is hurt, take inventory and fix it now.' and then months upon months to heal. while for the most part i walk without crutches my knee will still twing every now and then. I fear my neck will never be quite the same and I kissed all my high heels goodnight for at least a few months until Crocs stop feeling wonderful.

Red Shirts

Red Shirts. It's written on my white board in my bedroom next to my computer. It's written in red. Besides a magnetic calendar and a dry erase marker it is the only thing that has been on my white board in awhile. It was from a dream a few weeks ago in which my husband has died and moved on and I am still trying to mend the rift between us.
Now that I look back on it, in my dream I thought David was avoiding talking to me about it because he was still mad. But maybe he had already accepted the reality of the situation and wasn't able to tell me. It wasn't until I woke up that I realized that he was dead in my dream. He was wearing a red shirt and all the people in red shirts were dead. I chased david through a forest and a city trying to make good with him. I finally end up in a jazz bar that is painted all white and has white shirts hanging from clothes lines (which I am fairly certain is because I have become a bit obsessive about line drying my laundry.) There is no one in the first room of the restaruant and I look through a door into another room and David is sitting at a table, kind of a bi level booth, talking with other guys, who i don't know. There are Twinkle lights strewn throughout for lighting even though it is sunny near David. The room seems to go from light near the booth to darker with more aritificial lighting near the stage. I am so relived to find him, but for some reason I don't go right to him. I sneak in and listen to the conversation he is having. I can't remeber the words he spoke but I know that they woke me up.
The dream started in a forest though. I am in a tent with my mother, who is naked (i have no idea why. the only thing I can think of is that I am worried about her weight,) and my children. My mother is in a sleeping bag on the ground and my children are...i don't know. I see david getting closer and closer, more from his prespective than mine, he is with another person in a red shirt and a person who was very much like our friend S, but just different enough that i didn't know him. I think he was a hold over from whatever my previous dream was. He is dressed in brown cargo like pants and a t-shirt. Looking back on it it was a little odd that David was hiking through the forest as he isn't really a fan of hiking. David comes into the tent and I think I try to use our children to get him to talk to me. I feel like I spend a long time apologizing and trying to figure out what is wrong then in my persistant way i follow him trying to get him to hold me or forgive me or something. I just keep trying to make it right and David just shakes his head has a worried look and keeps evading me.
Three weeks ago and I still remeber that much about the dream. I don't think I could tell you the story of the tragic queen very much other than the bit about the wolves but this dream i still remeber with a decent amount of detail. I have been stalked by the idea of the red shirts. That's why i wrote it on my white board to stay with me. There is something about it that is nagging at me. Like something just benethe the surface that I need to figure out. Even Freud said 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.' maybe i am making a mountain out of a mole hill. Maybe it stuck with me because I was wearing the tshirt from my son's preschool. (I looked good in it to. not too skinny but definately delusional about the state of my thighs.) It's a red shirt. Was i dead to? or just visiting? am I worried that I have done something to David that will go beyond our life together? Both David and joe have commented about the whiteboard. Joe even laughed and said why do you still have it up there. I think it might have been the only time when people listened when I didn't want them too, because both of them remebered what it was a reference to.
Death is a very scary thing. Well maybe not. It is perhaps a very unresolved thing. You don't know if it will happen to someone you love. i am less afraid of dying than losing the people i love. If I am dead, oh well, I won't know. But if i lost David...I sometimes think my world would crumble. I am not going to get sappy here because it is 2 am and even I wouldn't buy it was my real feeling with that little amount of sleep. But my world would be harder. David has life insurance but it couldn't replace or in any way help me. It couldn't take the kids when I was having a bad day. I wouldn't hold me when i dream. It couldn't do Rekki to soothe my head and put me to sleep. All it would do is pay the bills, and I don't really care about the bills. We talk about life insurance and how it will be there to make it easier for the other person. i don't think it would do that. He will just be gone someday, and will miss something, and that is very scary to me. Who knows what that something is but I am pretty sure I will be in that moment and thinking 'i wish David could see this.'
Red shirts. RED SHIRTS. No I have no idea what I need to know about them but I know it is just beneth the surface. Perhaps that David will except the way things are and I just have to keep changing the world. He was so sad in my dream. Even thinking about it is rough.
God damn red shirts.