Are You Ready for The New Year?

I have never been as aware of my thought processes during the holiday season as I have been this year.  I have often ignored much of my life where blatant or obvious emotion was concerned because I probably was not  strong enough to face whatever my thoughts were at the time. This I believe is probably the source of the holiday blues phenomenon.

I can identify with Lewis Carroll's character Scrooge more now, than ever in my life.
When I was little, I just thought he was a mean man who was getting what he deserved, being scared to death by three ghosts. Then, I grew up to be a lot like him.

I believe that there is a little bit of Scrooge in every adult.
In that, we are all frightened by our ghosts of Christmases-past, present and future at some point or another.  And most of us have a lot more to deal with than three. (Trust me on this, I'm speaking from experience). Add to that,  the ghosts of Thanksgivings and New Years to the mix, and you have a ghostly party that would drive the most sane appearing of us absolutely beserk.

After what I've been through this past year, my ghosts have been boogeyin' in my face this whole holiday season.  Actually, they've followed me around, the entire year.  Some of them I've shooed away, some of them I've made friends with, and still others wait in the wings for me to recognize or notice them.

I'm not sure what events will present themselves to me this year. But, I know that come what may, if I'm courageous enough to look my ghosts in the eye, I'll get through it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Illusion of Christmas

It seems like we go through our loves creating illusions...society as a matter of fact supports this while we ignore many of the painful truths that exist today.  I guess this is a way of coping. But, eventually the realities of life are distined to bite us all in the butt, if we choose to close our eyes to them and ignore them for too long. Harmful reality.

Harmless, illusions exist.  But many people don't make a distinction between harmful and harmless. 

One of the most common illusions during Christmas that of Santa Claus.  Many people state that they don't tell their children that Santa Claus brings their gifts...after all why should he get all of the credit if he's not real? One of the most difficult things about growing up in this country today, I think, is that children are forced to face reality way too early.

With a country at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, global warming and a messed up economy...why should our children be saddled today, with the burdens that adults who claim to be grounded in reality created?  I know that I bought my sons things for Christmas and  if thinking that a fat guy in a red and white suit magically worked his way to our rooftop with a bunch of reindeer and rudolph leading the bunch, and that he shimmied down the chimney with his gifts makes him happy...I can delay the truth for a while.

Children deserve the luxury of their fanasies...

Being Sad

I'm not sure I like blogging.

My daughter told me not to put too much of myself on the internet because of the ways people view stuff like this.  I don't really care how people view things. Just because someone else thinks that this is not a good thing to do doesn't mean that it's not.  I'm sad a lot.  I don't like being sad.  And with the statistics regarding depression in this country, I bet a lot of other people are sad but don't say anything and are afraid to talk about it.  (Look at Michael Jackson...and Rush Limbaugh). Blogging my feelings has been very therapeutic and I'm just really getting into doing this.

We, live in gravely dysfunctional society. With dysfunction often comes distortion of the truth.  We don't particularly like the truth.  I don't think my sadness comes from depression sometimes as much as it comes from coming to terms with the way this society runs things.  And I can probably be happy regardless of what is... orhappens around me. But I ruminate about stuff alot.  Maybe I look too closely at the state of things or identify too much with other people's troubles.

We live lies everyday and go on with our daily lives ignoring it.  Or, behaving like it's the truth or...we don't even attempt to distinguish between what is true and what is not.

When I saw Obama make his Pulitzer speech this morning I was a little dismayed. He must feel like a real hypocrite.  I mean how do you win a Pulitzer peace prize and justify tanking up a war all at the same time?
As much as I love Barack Obama, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes or Michelle's for that matter, right now. or Malea's and Sasha's.  It must be hard as hell being the first black president in a country as racist as this one. And the thing is, many people get mad if you say that the country is racist.

Our country was built on racism...and people get an attitude if you say it out loud.  Some people would say that I'm un-American for saying that.  It's not an opinion though.  I'm going by what I see.  Especially in the way that Barack Obama is treated as president.  It's sad that the best and the brightest in this country appear to be the most closed-minded. The moral majority...Republicans.

What exactly is American anyway?

That's enough to make anybody sad if you really think about it.

My House

My house is a mess.  Not only my spiritual and emotional house, but my physical house.  I don't know why I feel the need to explain my madness to the world.  I am beginning to realize that the basis of this blog is guilt.  Just like everything else that I do in my life.  I don't owe the world and explanation for my madness.  It's not the world's business.  I don't owe the world anything.

It has taken me up until now to figure that out.  Does the world explain to me why it is in such a mess? No.
I just have to live in it.

I keep apologizing for being me, when I am a gift to the world.  

Now, that's really insane.

Self-Compassion

At times, I'm going throughout my day and a feeling of abject sadness comes over me out of the blue...no pun intended. I've always mistaken this feeling for grief of something past, maybe a lack of love or compassion for myself.

But, while journaling the other day I decided to look up the exact meaning of compassion in the dictionary.  It is defined as: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. After thinking about it for a few minutes,  I realized, that I do have compassion for myself and I have the desire to alleviate my distress.  But the sadness comes attached to a helplessness as to how to do this for myself and perpetuates, this paroxysmal depression and misery. It is a state of mind that feels impossible to correct.  It is equivalent to "the faith without works is dead" phrase that I hear church people quote from the bible all of the time. Can you make that connection?

Then I looked up the word empathy (1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it 2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner). This chilled me through and through. Then, after thinking about this, I realized that I have a tendency to transfer all of my compassion for myself to other people by overempathizing with them.  That's why it's so difficult for me to take care of myself.  What a revealing, but painful breakthrough.

Where do I go from here?

How Do You Choose?

At 51, I kknow that I have choices. I can if I want...I don't have to...Maybe I'll.  How do you choose what is good and right for you?  I know that if you choose what is good and right for you, then, what is good and right for others will come about at your behest. That's a huge guarantee, but I still have trouble choosing what is good and right for me. For one, because I still have a warped sense of entitlement, and two, I just feel guilty when I go to try to choose what is good for me and exclude the opinions of other people, including my children? Then, is it good for me, if I don't consider the people who are not capable of making their own decisison?  Everything, that I have done or decided to do was based on how it would effect my ability to care for my children.  It's basically just been me, them and God. And so, what do I do?

I have been hearing the phrase "your still young"... since I was 20. Okay, so when do you get old and when is it too late, to live your dream life?  Probably when you're dead...

I guess that's when it's too late, when you're dead. 

So, I will continue to try to choose what is good and right.  For me first, and hope that it will benefit others.

This issue came to me this morning because, I visited someone with cancer yesterday.  The person was so distraught.  Questions about her life came to the fore, that the person had never thought to ask herself. She discovered early signs of the cancer because she was taking care of her disabled son.  She, felt so guilty because she had not gone to the doctor earlier... But she was taking care of her son.  I talked to her for a long time, until the tears came...

I hugged and consoled her.  But, I wanted to know more about her cancer.  What type of treatment she was getting, what type of cells her tumor consisted of  and how they might react to the cancer and radiation she was getting, so that I could better help her with her symptom management.  I felt so helpless, despite my ability to give her comfort and support...

So, I thought maybe I should go back to school so I can help other people too.  I enjoy nursing and oncology is my specialty.  And I'd like to learn more about cancer.

I have decided to write.  Can I do both? Or am I trying to accomplish too much? Will I neglect my son in the process? What will I add to the world if I go to school? What will I take away? Am I trying to escape something?

Probably.

Monster Under The Bed

I hate my anxiety. It greets me some mornings in my first second of consciousness.  I awaken in a fetal position. I often feel as though someone is standing over my bed watching me.  I've felt like this since April when I went into an outpatient program.  At some point I separated from myself -- it's my angst and I came face to face with the monster under the bed.  The anxieity had become so severe, that I asked my doctor for some medication to help with the incapacitating anxiety that I feel on those days.  They are fewer than they used to be...but I'd like for there to be none.  I don't like taking it but it helps, when I find it difficult to function. or when the emotion is so strong that is unbearable, it helps.
 I know that it is a feeling coming from within, but with this last episode of depression, (the one back in April, I often felt as though I had separated into two people. The anxiety often feels like another person is standing over me when I awaken.  If I can't get a handle on it immediately, I feel disheveled and incomplete for the rest of my day. Like I'm  canvassing the world, with a security blanket that has huge holes in it.

 Frankly, I think that that the anxiety is the monster under the bed, that has escaped and it wants to get to know me.

Anxiety is like the bouncer at a club who causes your knees to knock and teeth to chatter when he looks at you.

It catches you off guard, dilates your pupil and makes you perceive everything as a threat.  You become the cat skulking  the living room for a piece of thread. It frustrates you making your friends and enemies indistiguishable.

What a frightening world to live in.

Impossible Dreams

About 30 years ago, I worked in ICU as a licensed practical nurse. I enjoyed working there, but my main desire aspiration was to become a writer.  I had no idea how to do this.  I remember repositioning a patient with an RN back then, whose name was Diane.  We were talking and I happened to mention my dream, and Diane said to me, " You can't do that"? "Why not?", I asked. "That's only for rich white people..." she answered. 

I was stunned. And angry... for years.

...But, I actually believed what she said.  And did not wholeheartedly try to pursue a writing career. I decided that I would try to go into medicine. But, sabotaged that aspiration also, by getting married and pregnant and bending under the thumb of a husband who was controlling, ambitious, competitive and also aspired to go into medicine.

When I look back then, I can't believe how naive and easily discouraged I was.  I could look back and talk about how prejudiced Diane was, but it really wouldn't matter.  I don't think that she was as prejudiced as she was ignorant of many things, (she had made other racial comments that left my mouth hanging open).  I believe that she really believed what she said, I could say that's too bad. But what's really too bad is that I didn't have enough love for myself to ignore her.

She wasn't the only one who made that statement.  I'd heard it and read it.  I had been in therapy for a few years prior to meeting Diane and  "the others".  And my therapist discouraged my pursuing a career in writing.  I also, allowed my husband to squish my desire to write. What's more important, it really seemed surreal to me.  I didn't know exactly what a writer did, and I had no direction as far as my purpose or genre.

Much of my writing then was narrowly limited to angry rants about my family and how my mother treated me or how I felt about my grandmother... Or situations in my family.  And I was afraid at that time of criticism from my mother, as she would get hold of my journals and express outrage at my points of view about certain things. 

In spite of all the adverse events in my life, and negative points of view and opinions coming from every direction that I turned, I could not extinguish the desire to write.  I tried to squish it, burn it, sit on it, chew it, run over it, throw it in front of speeding trucks and trains, give it to someone else, tear it to shreds, but it remains, now even stronger than it did when I was younger. And it has nothing to do with fortune or fame.  It lingers and is as much a part of me as the beat of my heart.

The desire to write is a vital part of me, like my kidneys or liver.  If you can be born with a dream, writing came through the birth canal with me, like having a twin.

When I would not write it rattled it's chains relentlessly like an angry ghost, and kept me awake at night. I have no choice but to honor it. It won't allow me to ignore it.

I've discovered that writing is a dream that I only thought was possible.  I'm not in Kansas anymore...

What are your impossible dreams? Do you honor them?

Losing It

I'm always losing things, my keys....the frustration that I feel when I am searching for them is unequaled. I berate myself. Upheave my belongings. What has that got to do with angst? anxiety? anger? I have no idea but when I lose my stuff, I start throwing things around and my environment becomes more chaotic and messy than it already is.  I envy those of you who are organized all of the time, know exactly where everything is and don't ever go through this. 

Tell me how ya do it? Huh?

Have you ever lost anything and had someone ask you where'd you have it last? Don't you just feel like screaming at them..."If I knew where I had it last, it probably wouldn't be lost!!!" I don't yell.  I usually just give them an annoyed look and say I don't know. 

If I look at the general condition of my house, my room , my bathroom , the kitchen. I'd say that I was totally pissed about something. I could also say I know see angry folks with clean homes but, I'm not talking about them.  I'm trying to get to the bottom of My anger.  What's bothering me.  I don't always know.  I just get this uncomfortable feeling sometimes like I was born into the wrong body or something.

Actually, if I'm honest with myself, I would say that some of my anger stems from being written up at work for someone else's negligence. It bothers me. So, what can I do? Unless, I'm going to take legal action, I can let it go.  Or get some sleep.  All I want to do these days is sleep.  And when I sleep, it's not even a restful sleep.  I wake up 100 thousand times a night. Like last night.

But, I also think that what is bothering me is guilt.  I have so much guilt about wanting to change careers. So, what can I do about the guilt? Let it go...

Much easier said than done.

The Real Issue

I feet incredibly sad about yesterday.  It seems whenever I am presented with crisis or a pending confrontation, my past starts flooding back to me with incredible speed.  It's like standing on the beach and having a huge wave wash over you.  It used to knock me down. But, as I grow now, I am able to withstand the force, I stumble but am with some determination able to gain my barings and wait for the next wave. (For the first half of my life, these waves always caught me by surprise).  Maybe the next one won't be as strong...Maybe it will be stronger...Who knows? I wiil remain standing.

It reminds me of my childhood.  The loneliness insecurity and fear that I often felt.  The monster under the bed taunting and threatening me.

I have fooled myself into thinking that I was enough for my children, even though in my adult life, I have often felt inadequate and empty.  I don't feel as empty these days, but I often feel inadequate.  Sometimes, I think that it's because I am still waiting for that approval from my mom or society as a whole.

What does this have to do with my eight year old son? If I buy into the statistics about african american males and their lot in this country... alot.  I'm often congratulated when I tell people that my oldest son is in college. "Do you know how lucky you are?", they ask. I asked one person, "Why does that make me lucky?"  You raised an African American male? and he's in college? You should be proud she responded. You'd think that she was talking about someone from a poverty stricken country. 

The statistics concerning the life span of African American males, haunts me.  If they live past the age of 25 this is cause for celebration. 

That is part of the monster under the bed that stands over me in the morning, with his arms folded looking down on me, challenging me and saying, "Okay, what are you going to do about this now?"
What can I do to keep either of my young son from becoming a statistic?
I will continue to encourage him  and pray.  I will continue to impress upon him the importance of having an education, not just for an African American male, but for  anyone who wants to make a decent living and especially an African American male.

I will continue to learn about myself and teach him what I learn, and stress to him the importance of learning about himself.

My young son has a personality of his own.  If he can orchestrate a lie to avoid doing his homework --and he did do this-- knowing that it was wrong.  He can certainly take on the responsibility of writing his homework down, bringing it home and doing it.

I remember being a stubborn child.  I had two parents who could have dropped the Rock of Gibraltar on my head to keep me from doing something that I felt entitled to do.  I would have crawled from under it and proceeded with my plans. 

My young son is me reincarnated.

That's where my real fear lies.

Angst-xiety

I woke up feeling anxious this morning.  Yesterday, I met with my son's  teacher for a conference and she noted for me that he had a D in social studies, which used to be his favorite subject. I asked her if there was a way for me to track what he is doing in class because he has been telling me that he doesn't have homework  and I had received a couple of notes on his weekly report that he didn't bring any in. So, I knew that a discrepancy existed between what he was saying and what the teacher was writing.

I must have slipped into denial somewhere...(I don't even feel like writing this).

The subject brings up the question of responsibility and I don't know if this is unique to single African American mothers but it really makes me feel ineffective, inadequate and negligent as a parent.

The first question that pops into my mind is what am I doing wrong?

The first course of action I take is to blame the teacher.

I asked her, "How do I track his work?"
She says, "What do you mean how do you track his work?"
"How do I know when he has homework?", I ask.  "On what nights do you give homework?" 
"Well, I don't give homework on any special nights.  The children write their assignments in their agenda book."
I said ,"Well how do you know if they are actually writing it down?"
"It's their responsibility", she says.
"Well, apparently, my son is not being responsible, I respond. "So how do I make sure he is putting his assignments down and getting his homework done?"

I again look at the that D in social studies, I almost hit the ceiling.

I said, "He has been a straight A student up until now, and I never had any problem with him doing his homework.  I don't know whether he is having trouble adjusting or just not motivated for some reason. That was one of the reasons I asked you a month ago if I could come to come and observe your class because I wanted to see what he was doing." (When I asked her she hemmed and hawwed, I really should have pushed the issue).

She flushed and stared a little.  I repeated, "I need a way to keep track of what my son is doing." 

She finally offered to check his agenda, sign it and then I would have to sign it, as she had done at the beginning of the semester. My eight year old had told me things such as "I don't know where it is, I forgot it"...He did this once for an entire week until I told him that he could not watch tv or go over his friends house until he brought it home.

He's  consistent now.

So, I wake up this morning with my heart pounding...Angry as all get out at myself and my sons teacher.  The discomfort of the anxiety catapults me to the end of my bed where I fall on my knees and appeal to the ethereal powers that be to make the feeling disappear.
I'm sad, and frustrated and thinking about that encounter with the teacher...not only am I pissed at her but I am berating myself for being a bad parent.

But what about my eight year old, certainly he has some responsibility in this? (To be continued)

Self-esteem and Balance

I say, that it is impossible to have balance if you have low self-esteem. The scale is always going to tip your life towards extremes.

My grandmother said to me one time when I was 10 years old, "if you lie, you'll steal".  She ran a nursery school and I was hungry one day, so I went into the kitchen and took some crackers off of the shelf and stuffed them in my mouth.  When she asked me if I had taken any,  I said, "No". At that age, I didn't really understand the full context of what she was saying...or that the statement also applied to her as well. I don't think she understood that either.

But, I guess, the phrase could apply to anything in life.  Dishonesty, skews your view of the world so that your ability to gauge what is correct and incorrect becomes blurry.

I know that growing up with a father who drank and a mother who was once impaired by prescription drugs, has had much to do with how I see the world.  Although, I can say it may have had much to do with many of the choices that  I've made in life,  it doesn't have to continue to negatively impact my life.  My life experiences have given me a new knowledge base to work from.  I've grown.

Low self esteem causes me to disregard myself, to lie to myself.  It tells me to remind myself that I'm not important, that I must cater to the needs and desires of the world and the my needs come last.  Because it has scrambled the picture of myself image it has indeed --as my grandmother warned-- caused me to steal.  I have stolen time from my children and from work, wasted opportunities. And sequestered, it seems, anything that I could get to feed my hungry and distorted self image. I've often molded myself to fit into places and situations that I did not belong, to feed (not nurture- there is a difference) relationships that, i did not belong in or --if I had been honest with myself-- did not truly want to be in. 

My self esteem has suffered along with everyone around me. (Just like any miserable person, I was determined that if I was going to hell in a hand basket, everyone else was coming along for the ride).

My self-esteem was relegated to arrogance.  I had the two mixed up and have just recently have begun to develop my ability to distinguish between them.

I practiced people pleasing religiously as if my life depended on it.  It did...then. I've often found myself doing things for people in the name of kindness, committing myself out of guilt and then finding myself angry and resentful not only at myself, but at the person that I committed to. How crazy is that?

For instance, last week I told my supervisor, with guilt standing in the background,  that I would work on this Thursday and realized over the weekend that I would not be able to meet that commitment.  All weekend I drove around thinking about how horrible my "higher ups" at work are and complaining to myself about how they use intimidation to manipulate you into doing their bidding.  But that's not the real problem... Not my issue.

My issue, the real problem is that if  I am not sensitive enough to my own needs;  if I am not in touch with my own motives and what I'm about; if I'm not compassionate enough towards myself to do what is good for me, then I'm going to suffer. And I don't have to...

If I'm honest with myself about what my needs are-- which is difficult for me. Then I don't feel the need to take anything from anyone else.
                 
                       

The Limitations of Self Will

I can't do my life like my therapist suggests.  I have to put God in the front of everything I do.  My will is gone. Without my Higher Power, I am totally lost. My will used to serve me well.  I thought.  It was like the Blob, gobbling everything in it's path. A hunger that never seemed to be satiated. But everything tangible and human has it's limitations.  I've come to terms with the limitations of my own carnal abilities. And I hit a brick wall when I try to live life on my own terms.

It just doesn't work. God,  has to be in the mix of everything I do. 

I was written up the other day at work.  It felt really bad, I was really pissed. I've often been written up at work, on many jobs. Some of the write ups justified, some not. But,  I was relieved after this reprimand.  I'm not sure why.  I think that I just expected it.  If I'm honest with myself, I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do, anyway.  But, I noticed that in many cases, neither do my co-workers. 

My trouble often shows up when I abandon my own standards for everybody elses.  I don't know how that sounds.  But I'm pretty certain that that's what it is. So, I need to continue to hold myself to a higher standard.  I used to operate on a higher standard.  But, I've become complacent.

I"ve been complacent for sometime now. Society is complacent. But that really doesn't mean that I have to be.

Fear!

I wake up each morning with this incredible fear.  My heart is beating rapidly. How do I get past this threshold of fear to where I want to go? It's like crossing rapids to get to the other side of the river...

Self-Esteem: A rambling

Self-esteem.  At 51 I realize that I don't have enough of it, nor do I really know how to define it.  I used to get self-esteem mixed up with arrogance.  I've been learning for some time that they differ in that arrogance involves the putting people down, and self-esteem involves builiding people up. Arrogance derives from the instinct to survive while, self-esteem derives from a desire to live.

Much of my self image has come from the work that I do. People pleasing and striving for perfection in my life. As long as I have been able to obtain the approval of those around me, my family, my coworkers, friends, my children I've often felt that I had a reason to feel good about myself.  I found that one little criticism would cause my house of cards to come tumbling down and I'd scramble to gather up the pieces and stack them one by one attempting to hold them together with the hope or uncertainty of the next compliment or insult.

What a way to live...or not?

I took my son to see "This is it " last night it left me with a feeling such sadness.  Micheal Jackson was a great performer.  Very involved in what he did.  He seemed to come truly alive when he was dancing and singing, that is the only time that I have seen him that I've actually got true glimpses of his personality.  That leaves a daunting question in my mind.  And it causes me to wonder, exactly where true self-esteem derives from. For someone who has everything...or seems to have everything, why risk your life by taking massive amounts of drugs? Why put your life in someone elses hands?  I could ask a million questions about Micheal 's reasons and motives. But I more concerned about mine.

Where does true self-esteem derive from?

All Fogged Up, Don't Know Where to Go

I'm still trying to hash out this blog thing, Try to shape it, mold it. Make it look interesting to read. Mostly, I'm writing this to try to make sense out of life and to become and "expert in myself" as Harriet Lerner puts it.  I hadn't plan to blog this morning, although I was trying to decide which days I would publish this blog on.  I suspect, that as I learn more about myself, this blog will become clearer and maybe, more interesting.  Then, maybe not.

What prompted me to write was the realization, that I have lived most of my life...okay if you need a percentage-- maybe about a 85% of my life in a fog.  This came to the fore for me when I took my son to school late this morning (he's 8) and saw that the children were having a book fair parade.  Today, they were supposed to dress up as their favorite character from a book.  My son wanted to dress up as Micheal Jackson.  Permission slips were sent home last week, that parents were supposed to fill out and I forgot to send his back to school. I was also adamantly against his dressing up as Michael Jackson and firmly instructed my son to pick another character.

I often say that parenting is the most difficult job in the world.  What makes it most difficult, is that we are mperfect  human beings, who try to raise perfect human beings... Now, you can believe this or not.  I have three children that I raised alone... Two are grown. I know for this for a fact. Maybe, one day I will give concrete proof but at this time, I don't feel the need to explain myself...

Anyway, I am walking my child to his class w/ 24 chocolate cupcakes in two different containers, that I bought at Walmart last night.  One container is decorated with green fingers, and the other with bloodshot eyeballs and bats, plastic ornaments.  As, I'm marveling at the children in the parade, and cutting through open door classrooms to try to get to the office to check my child in, I ask my son "Dante why didn't you want to dress up?" He said , "I did, as Micheal Jackson".  As he stated this, he gave me a look that said, "Mommy, I really, really wanted that but you said no".  It broke my heart.  I had been waiting for him to inform me that he would dress up as another character, and had resolved in my mind later,  that I would allow him to dress up as Micheal Jackson, but I never voiced this to my child.

I walked Dante to the office and signed him in. As I walked back to my car (I didn't cut through any classes this time). It is  cold.  I have on my favorite T-shirt with the Beatles Abby Road album cover, and I have no jacket on.  My hair is barely combed and half tamed with a blue rubber band that I took off of a Sunday newspaper that I bought two weeks ago. I am feeling utter dismay and sadness and I think back to how much of my older children's lives I missed operating in a fog.

Tossing and Twinning in My Sleep

I dreamt last night that I was in this large "house" with these two caucasian people: man and a woman who were married., I suppose I was some type of caretaker.  At one point, the man propositioned me out of earshot of his wife.  At first I was appalled. But, as the dream progressed, I considered taking him up on his offer and actually found myself planning a liason...

Coveting, I've often wanted what others have had because I've often felt that nothing that I have possessed of my own was ever good enough.

At one point my daughter took me on a tour of a new, cheaper apartment that she was going to live in.  It reminded me of the rooms in independent and assisted living facilities that I visit sometimes.  The weird thing is that she would have a roomate but one of them would have to sleep in the living room.  The apartment was nicely decorated but a door was malfunctioned, I can't remember where the door led to. I'm pretty sure, that it was a closet door.  (This speaks to my resistance to looking at my skeletons, I suspect).

I remember then being back in this large house, a mansion and I was in the house with my daughter.  It was Halloween and I looked out of the window and these two blind guys or dressed as though they were blind,  twins, were blind making their way to my front door, using those walking sticks that sight impaired people use to make their way around.  I thought that they were coming to rob the house so, I screamed at Patricia, "Dial 911". When the police arrived, they made me and Patricia pull out ID to prove that we were citizens of the United States.  So we did.  And the police left. The blind people were gone. 

I went upstairs and these two sets of twins in a room, on set sitting on each twin bed, one was doing her homework, the other watched tv.  I noticed that one was slightly larger than the other.  Both were light skinned and wore Afros.  Two darker skinned boys were sat on the floor, watching tv.
I went downstairs and two twins, women,  were peeling potatoes or apples or something, they were sitting at at a kitchen table, talking.  Later they both sat on a green beat up love seat and the boys who had been upstairs,  now seemed to be men came downstairs. I learned that one of them and one of the female twins were married,  while the other two may have been involved but were not committed...

I remember seeing Pam, my oldest and only daughter in this dream and telling her that she looked different.  I told her, "You don't look the same.  Your face used to be round." Her face changed as I spoke and I thought to myself that she looked at me.  But she was ugly. ( I have always seen my daughter as an extension of myself, seeing her this way as an uglier version of me,  is how I truly see myself.  As I spoked to her in the dream, her skin was light and greasy, a strange red yellowish color.  She had acne and she would not turn completely around for me to visualize her face.  I could never get a clear picture of how she looked)

That's all I remember of my dream.

The most significant part of my dream was the twins. They must represent opposite sides of me. The blind twins walking towards the house were not walking in tandem. One was way behind the other.  They could have been trick or treaters but I felt that they were coming to take something from me, my house, or whoevers house it was.  (I was treating it like it was mine). I suppose this speak to my desire make my way to my psychological house...the center of my angst. This is a new undertaking for me, and I am blind in this venture.

The anxiety I feel in undertaking this journey becomes apparent in my reaction when I tell Patricia to call the police.  Why didn't I call them myself? I have alot of trouble setting boundaries... The boundary issue is also apparent in my considering having an affair with the woman's husband whose house I live in and the fact that I am not whose it is in the first place. By the way, being a caretaker in someone else's "house" is what I have always done. Never my own.

The twins in the bedroom, one intellectual and learning, the other goofing off.  Two different sides of me.
Then the two boys sitting on the floor, both watching tv, speaks to my negative attitude towards men and their productivity or usefulness in this world as well as the masculine side of my psyche. It's odd that the twins approaching the house were male too...(My hysterics also speaks to a lack of trust of men).

The ladys downstairs speaks to my domestic side.  Peeling potatoes or cooking, indicates my desire to have a home. Warm nurturing...intimate, the two twins were sitting at the table, they seemed to be the only pair of twins that had an intimate relationship.  The two male twins who came downstairs speaks, I think to my desire to be fully integrated and have meaningful relationships with men, guys.
(Maybe).
Here, I have made a long story short.  When I woke up, jittery and anxious, my heart was beating out of my chest.  I wrote this dream in my journal so that I could analyze it. 

My dreams frequently take me to places that I wouldn't go on my own... The anxiety that I feel can be extreme and frustrating.  But, it provides me with a road map that guides me in the direction that I need to go.

The first two people in my dream were white, the blind twins were very light skinned, the girl twins on the bed were, light skinned but a little darker and then the boy twins on the floor watching tv were very dark skinned,  the women at the table cooking were brown skinned, a little bit lighter than their male counter parts.  I try not to judge people by their skin color but, I can't help but think that skin color is still a very significant issue to me when I look at this dreams, not necessarily in how I perceive other people but how I perceive myself.  Female darker skinned twins were downstairs, and the twin boys darker sat on the floor.  I was intimidated by the lighter skinned boys outside even though they were blind.

How could blind people rob a "house" that they've never entered before?

On with my journey...

R U Angsty?

Before I write anything else, I want everyone who reads this, to know that this stuff is very difficult to write. As narcisissitic and -what's the word ?- histrionic as I've always been, I never thought it would be this difficult for me to write about myself and allow others to see.  I've been writing since I was a little girl, but oddly enough, my reasons for putting words on paper or wherever you write them has changed.  I recently had a bout with depression, which I will elaborate on at another time which was different from any other episode of the blues that I had experienced in my life.  Call it a spiritual awakening, an epihany or whatever makes you happy, this last bite from  "black dog" was frightening,  yet enlightening in a creepy sort of way. It was like a fuse blew in my brain  and I could no longer communicate with the world outside me.  It gave new meaning to the term empty headed, leaving room in my head with the option of filling it with whatever I chose...maybe a new life.


Some people would just  call it burnout or "going nuts",  feel better and keep on moving while the next "black dog"  awaited them baring it's teeth and snarling,  at the beginning of a dark tunnel. Not me, I've decided to use this as an opportunity to learn everything about myself that I can.  Although, I've tried to build my life and achieve happiness the traditional, materialistic, American dream way i.e going to school, getttng a job, trying to maintain a good credit rating (which has been futile), getting married and the beat goes on...  I've found that if your journey in life starts anywhere except inside of you, you will eventually hit a dead end. So this new journey that I'm on, examining my anger, the core of my angst (or unhappiness with any and everything around me, to simplify a term) had to start internally.


Anyway, what came out of this was that it was recommended to me that I read a book called "The Dance of Anger" by Harriet Lerner.  I'd read this book about twenty plus years ago.  At that time I had borrowed it from a friend, in an effor to gain more insight about my anger issues, and hoping that it would help me learn to control my anger.  I was able to manage it a little better after reading it, buy when I picked the book up to read it this time it was like I had never seen it before.


For me, it has opened up a floodgate of issues that I knew existed but couldn't quite put my finger on.


As I examine the core of my angst, which is anger, life becomes "curiouser and curiouser".  So many aspects of anger exists and it affects our lives in so many different ways, I thought it was worth blogging about. I'm not sure how many posts this blog will yield, nevertheless, I am certain that this is a worthy undertaking...if not a painful one. 

I am inviting whoever is courageous enough to come along with me on my journey. 

If your angsty enough... that is.