The truth in dreams

I have remembered many dreams lately. I do not usually. Perhaps this means that I am simply not sleeping well, perhaps something in my subconscious is trying to get my attention. Early Saturday morning I had a dream that my baby brother had died. I was hysterical, stammering on about his potential, the person that we knew he would become, and the fact that he never got there. I was full of the most excruciating pain. My brother and I are not very close, and I go back and forth between trying to have a relationship with him and then pulling away with the realization that I will get hurt again, or the fear that I am enabling his behavior. My brother is not an addict--which I feel I must say lest the "enabling" comment be misinterpreted, he is simply emotionally immature, and his behavior hurts my family. I awoke to the confusion of awaking from a bad dream and realizing that it is over, and touched my fingers to my cheeks tenatively to feel the moisture of tears, which had spilled down my face, over my chin, and into the warmth of my neck. This dream had really affected me. I felt strange for days. I called my brother, with no response, as usual. I thought of him that morning as I ran errands and bought him a small gift. No response as of yet. I asked my parents about him about 6 times since then. I still feel like something is wrong.

Last night, perhaps in relation to the post I had written about my current overwhelmed response to weddings in general, I had a wedding dream. My mom had talked me into getting married sooner, in her backyard. I was getting ready at her neighbor's house and waiting for my best friends to get there. I was nervous and upset at the short amount of time I had to get ready and they were late due to the seriously short notice I had given them. I was excited, also, until i put on my dress. It was in the state it was when last I saw it--as of yet un-altered. My dress' neckline is low and I am in the process of having it raised to become more "appropriate" and in my dream I am wearing a tank top under the dress. A tank top under a Monique Lhuillier. I am also wearing a bra with straps. I guess in my dream I didn't have time to grab the bag containing the special, and appropriate undergarments I have already purchased. My friends burst into the room and begin to help me, and I instantly regret everything. My beautiful dress is wrinkly and the tank top looks terrible and I become hysterically upset and angry at my mother (remember she made me do this--why I have no idea). I suddenly can't believe that I chose a backyard over a venue or a church. The officiant comes in (who for some reason is dressed like the Pope) and sees me in my hysterical state. He asks me if I am having cold feet, and I look him in the eye and shout, not about the marriage, about the WEDDING! This is terrible! I wake up.
Is it the pressure my mom is placing on me right now? The ideas she is forcing on me that I do not like? Is my subconscious trying to tell me that the long engagement was a good idea to prevent the stress I experienced in this dream? before I chose my wonderful venue I had dreams about the venue my mom wanted me to choose and its lack of a real aisle. i guess I dreamed of this dramatic entrance to the wedding and so this venue didn't have enough "drama." In the dream, I would be excited and about to walk down the aisle, and then instantly panic that the guests would see me walking to the aisle and it wouldn't be dramatic and that is just "wasn't right." What's next?

Later that night I had a dream of being trapped in an elevator which is tipping sideways inside of the elevator shaft and no one knows how to get me out. I am calling 911 and getting through, but the operator tells me calmly that she doesn't know how to help me, and to just stay calm. For what?! Just as i fear the elevator is going to turn completely sideways and plummet down the shaft, a crowbar comes bursting into the compartment, rips a hole in the side wall, and I am lifted out by my dad, along with my brother and other people that I recognize as my dad's employees. I have no idea what that one means.

I'm going to admit it

Call TMZ. Heck, call my therapist. I have a problem, a big problem.

I am sick, so so sick, of hearing about weddings. That includes my own. I am going to admit that while I am glad we waited and had a long engagement, some part of me wishes it were over and that I could move on. I think it's the overwhelming pressure placed on MY wedding to be something DIFFERENT than the ten million other weddings that come before mine. Whatever. Thinking about weddings makes me want to puke right now. I have had to talk (and think about! and plan!) my rehearsal dinner-albeit 8 months away. We just booked our honeymoon, and the stress of making ONE MORE DECISION was overwhelming. My mom calls me daily about djs, florists, table number card holder things, and I simply don't want to hear about it. I need a vacation from thinking about this event. I'm done. I want to call someone in to make all the other decisions for me (someone with great taste).

I have always had this fear that if I was exposed to too many weddings I would never be able to have one of my own. You see people doing the same things (yes, I know we call those things "traditions" and that there is a reason we all do them) and I start to feel as though it is fake, predictable, cheesy. I have sat at a wedding and cried tears of sadness at the tragically sad way this "joyous event" was carried out. I feel like fake rings and plastic cake toppers and the whole wedding aisle at Michael's gives me hives. On the other hand, spending ridiculous amounts of money is not what the day is about. yes, I want something elegant, classy, and beautiful, but I hate that the wedding industry tries to sell you this dream, assuming that all females want it. Sure, I want the normal stuff. I only plan on doing this once and I want "the day." But being forced to talk wedding and watch weddings and participate in them...thank God I am not an attendant in any of the ten million weddings coming up. I seriously dream about the day AFTER the supposed "greatest day of my life," of unpacking my new dishware and cooking something beautiful on it. Of sleeping all Sunday and just being a normal human being. I hate that bridal store attendants try to sell you this childish bride-image that they think you absolutely cannot live without, at any price. I want to buy a house, decorate it, plant a large garden, adopt another dog, all things that take post-wedding money and time. I don't think that this day, sacred as it is, requires a spending spree. Does spending more of my parents' money mean that I love my fiance any more? I think not.

Why am I so angry? How do wedding professionals do it? How can you watch weddings over and over and not help but feel that these people are doomed, cheesy, predictable? This is not cold feet about the man, it's my reservations on the process. Just hearing "wedding" or "bride" just makes me shudder. Is something wrong with me? And when did we remove the importance from this process? I'll admit guilt on my Christmas celebrating, it is more style than substance. it is more about the gifts than the birth of Jesus. Sure, that's sad, but the wedding? How did the event start to overshadow the momentous commitment you are making? I feel sick for ever having opened a bridal magazine. So sick, in fact, that I feel like going home tonight and purging each and every one. i need to start from scratch and figure things out on my own.

New Beginnings, a.k.a. what you can and can not change

I just realized that my last post was my first of 2008. I do not usually make a big deal of New Years or the changing of the calendar, I don't normally do any of the ritualistic "firsts" and "lasts"--I find them depressing. But this year has been a little different and a little more challenging.

2007 (that's last year for those of you who are still behind) began with bright hopes for the future. I had recently gotten engaged and had set a wedding date, and I was excited for the rush of the holiday season to pass and for the exciting ventures ahead. I planned an engagement party and picked a venue, the proverbial ball was rolling. We had chosen our time, the time that was right for us, to make this sacred and most important commitment. We were surrounded by friends and family that, for the most part, were not only happy, they were overjoyed for us. Then Josh's cousin got engaged, then his sister, best friend, and two other friends. They all planned weddings during the early to mid parts of 2008. They all planned weddings before ours. Now it has begun to seem trite and predictable, and I worry that people will be sick of weddings by the time ours rolls around, the moment that we planned with purpose and intention. But, I must accept what I cannot change. They might be sick of weddings, but then they can go home and leave us to celebrate. The commitment is about the two of us and our families.

2008 started with a snore, as I was sick and Josh stayed in with me and we were sleeping over the midnight hour. Then we were off to Montana and I told myself that when we returned home, dieting would commence. I am not one to put off the onset of a diet, but dieting on vacation is silly. I must say that through the holidays, knowing that this diet was in my future kept me from taking extra helpings and more than my share of cookies. So, two weeks into my diet I am happy to report that the upper area of my stomach is beautifully defined and you can barely pinch the skin. I feel really validated for getting up at 5:30 and jogging before work, rationing myself to six small meals a day, counting out crackers so I do not exceed my serving. However, and I know it's only been two weeks, but still--my lower stomach does not look any different. It is not smaller, it is no where near the point where definition would show up, and it doesn't feel any better. And that is how I manage my weight loss, I do not weigh myself because to me, the number means very little. I like to judge how I look and feel, how my clothes fit. I don't expect to look like Brooke Burke overnight, but come on! A little help here! And that is when I must accept what I cannot change. That is just how my body looks at its best. And my best is all I can do. In a society where a size six is viewed as "thick" you can't blame me for wanting more, but I need to be happy with what I do have.

So I continue on my new "healthy" beginning, hoping for a seamless 2008, despite my attendance at 5 weddings and their accompanying parties as well as my own.

And hey, maybe high-waisted pants really will come back in style. And when they do, I'll be looking great in them!

Third Time's a Charm

I will admit willingly that I am a control freak. A passive-aggressive one. Figure that out. Anyway, I like to have control over myself and the situations I place myself in. The problem arises when i have no control over the situations I find myself dropped into. I will also admit that sometimes, sometimes, I feel as though I know better than others what they should do with their own lives (don't blame me, I have individualization!*). I want to help them, guide them toward smoother waters, point out the chaos in order to end it for them. But then, my logical brain tells me to shut up, because, after all, "since we all have opinions, we are all opinionated, which means that 'opinionated' is just another word for 'bossy'" - K. Ward

Wow, i just quoted myself in my own writing. Someone is feeling a little cheeky today!

I'll stop now. But with this closing thought: here's to those who want to help, and here's to the frustration that comes from knowing that your advice won't be taken. To my similar humans, i sympathize and empathize, and i wish you all the best.

*If you don't know what this is, you should take StrengthsFinder.

Understatement of the Year

"Lynne Spears' book about parenting has been delayed indefinitely, her publisher said Wednesday." -AP

An Elegy

I wax elegiac today in memory of a brave and inspiring soul. As he makes his way through the arched trees and into the calm and peaceful valley of the afterworld, I reflect on the way he has touched my life.

My sophomore year of college brought change and heartache. I began the year with a new boyfriend. I moved into an on-campus apartment with a few friends, or so I thought, and I had a class with a sworn enemy. Okay, not really, but Tiffany and I were not friends in High School, and while I knew our paths would cross as English Majors, I still wasn't prepared to see her so soon. The class was was an English core in Fiction, reading it and writing it. I hardly remember what we read because I was engrossed in the writing. At the helm, the soon-to-be-Doctor Professor Scott Odom. He was a father and a Ph.D. student, a writer of published and unpublished works. He loved his students with a passion that is rarely seen amongst the professors and teachers in our lives. He helped us write, encouraged us to have our writing read by others, and apparently, had cancer. We never knew.

He is gone. With him he takes the stories, the tears, the elation and frustration of hundreds of writers. The confidence and trust placed with him will follow him to his early grave, and for this, I mourn. He was a wonderful man, a talented writer, and a positive soul. He worked so diligently each day, something i can't say I would have the courage to do were I struggling with his disease.

He was in my life for a mere semester, but he affected some of the changes that would affect me forever. I started my novel in his class. I read it to him in his office. I sent copies of it home with students and peers for their parents to read. I emailed it to my entire family and heard their feedback. i have never been so open with my art. And you know what else? Tiffany and I talked, she shared with me the troubles she faced, and I gave her mine. We made s'mores over the burner in her dorm stove as she listened to my problems with my roomates, and we became lifelong friends. I became a lifelong writer. i believed in myself and my ability.

I suppose my sadness comes from my own failure to communicate this to him. He was young; I guess I assumed I had all the time in the world to gather my stories, write them, have them published, and present him with a copy and a note of thanks. That time, like Dr. Odom, has passed. I am sorry.

Bittersweet

Ah growing up...

Why is it so difficult to say goodbye?

It sit at my computer in my cubicle at my new job, surrounded by the sounds of progress and professionalism. I type away at a project descripion, reveling in the information about groundwater and wells, the headphones digging into my ears, and the first strains of a familiar song enter my brain. It is a song by Death Cab for Cutie. I close my eyes and lean my head back and let me thoughts drift where they will. I am in college, freshman year, in the dorm room of a friend. He takes a cd from a case and places it in his computer's disc drive. The music begins and, almost instinctively we both fall at ease, sinking into uncomfortably hard chairs. It is my junior year. The Los Angeles sky threatens rain, my favorite weather condition. I pull my iPod from the depths of my bookbag, setting it to rest atop Complete Works of Shakespeare. The sounds of Death Cab enter my headphones, forming the perfect musical companion to grey, cloudy skies. I trudge uphill, across campus, toward home. The campus has been decorated for Christmas, one of the lovely things about attending a Catholic University. It is so beautiful it almost hurts. The chapel, its large, circular window surrounded by a lighted wreath, forms a foreboding shilouette against the contemptous sky. I pass a large Christmas tree, its ornaments shining and glimmering in the last light of dusk. I make the familiar turn past the building we called Gotham, three stories of stylized concrete and glass, steaming in the cool damp. I pass the residence of the Jesuits and reach my favorite vista. i gaze across the sea, take a deep breath of the cool, stormy air, and watch the threatening sky swirl and stir. I walk into my dorm complex, full of light and laughter. It is similar to an apartment complex, the kind kids like me could never afford. the center artium glows with orange light and the fountain plays and teases the light. Up one flight of stairs, across slate hallways, and into my door, emblazoned with holiday greetings. the warmth hits me, and the familiar sounds flood my ears. I pause Death Cab, and greet my roomate and best friend. I was not in the place where I was born and raised, but I was happy, content, accomplished; I was home.

Why can't I return there? Christmas reminds me of the freedom usually associated with the holiday. School would let out, finals finished, papers submitted. How did college pass so quickly? Why didn't I stop and enjoy it more often. I tried to. I would stop, like the night described aboved, and try to breathe it all in and save every feeling. But I knew, even then, that I couldn't. I sensed my own mortality, the mortality of the moment, even then. I can't say whether it tainted the experience or made it more beautiful and telling. Now I work in a job where much is expected of me. I write for the good of the earth if not the good of my soul. I will work on Christmas eve and the day after Christmas, New Year's Eve and my birthday. I will spend the majority of my time here. I leave, and my head is full of ideas and themes from the proposals I have written and not the justice involved in public policy creation or Richard III's motives behind killing his nephews. Life is different, yes, but better, worse? I don't want to make that distinction. Things are always better, things are always worse, things are just different. What is consuming my mind now is the knowledge that each progressive era had its place in my life but each one has ended. There is no going back.