But a Dream

I wrote this on July 14 of this year after a particularly vivid night, but I thought I could share it now.

I dreamed the other night that I was engaged. Most of my dreams have a general theme, and this particular dream was no different. It had pieces of reality in it- a weekend away at a family wedding, my real relatives were present and accounted for- and particles of complete nonsense- I was fighting, literally fighting, Jennifer Anniston off my fiancée and driving cars off the tops of buildings. And like most dreams, the details of the dream slip away as each hour passes since I’ve woken up, and yet I tried desperately to grasp onto them; like grabbing at a run-away kitten, I trap it for a second, just enough to be covered in hair but too far to actually rub my face in its fur. Most dreams I have include a storyline, characters, twists and turns, like watching a good but odd movie in which I happen to star. Sometimes I see myself from the outside, sometimes from my point of view. Characters will randomly swap out and be played by different people, right in the middle of the story, like a bad soap opera. Everything makes perfect sense at the time, but becomes more bizarre as I try to recall the story or tell it to someone else.

Only one time, when I was little, do I remember things being significantly different. My family was vacationing at the beach, and one night there I dreamed I dove into the pool at the hotel; the odd part was that I could feel, in my dream, the way it feels to dive into water. I could feel the sudden rush of cool, without bubbles like when you just jump in, or an ease of water around you if you walk in, or sprinkling heat like in the shower; it’s a sudden, body-shocking rush of pure cool around you, as pure as the air around you now. And I could feel it in my sleep; I could feel it so vividly that I woke up thinking that I had sleepwalked and sleep-dove into the pool and was surprised to find that I hadn’t.

The dream I had the other night was akin to my diving dream, except it was an emotion, several emotions, that I felt so much that I thought I was alive. I felt it like you can feel the change from humid to rain misting in the air and you know that you know that it’s now water, something you can grasp in your hand. In the dream, I had forgotten I was engaged until I noticed the ring on my finger. It was silver or white gold, with a small, round diamond in the center and one round turquoise stone on each side of the diamond. It was so simple, and so odd, but it was mine. And as I looked at it, it realized that I was engaged, to be married. The sense of peace and happiness I felt was pure and simple, with the colors from peace and joy flowing and blending into each other, until they filled me. It was the steady flame of a candle in me. It was like pouring beautiful pink-red water into a crystal basin. It was like a note from a perfectly tuned piano that echoes through your body, until your chest pulses with the immeasurable rhythms of the note. It was a perfect, perfect feeling that filled me and I understood because I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care. It was the simplest and most amazing emotion I can ever remember, and it was but a dream.

Once upon a time in high school, the girl at my table in science and I had a conversation about the one thing we wanted to do in life before we died (now that I think of it, an impressively complicated topic for two fifteen-year-olds). She insisted that she wanted to be a mother, and however much I considered her position, I could only understand it as it applied to her. I have never understood the drive to be a mother or the amazement that people find at bringing forth new life; it is a reconciliation I have had to make with myself for being so different from almost all other women I know in my Southern upbringing. I want to be a mother, but I want it like I want to visit Europe or graduate with a doctorate degree; it’s desirable, but if I don’t, I won’t feel as if my life has lost some luster. Even eight years ago, I knew that the one thing, the truly, truly one thing that I desire with a physical ache to have is to be married. I could list the reasons why, but it would sound as if I have calculated this top position logically. I haven’t. Like the feeling I had in a dream, it simply is. In my calculating, pre-psychologist childhood mind, I always thought that people dreamed what they feared or what they wanted. I haven’t really changed my mind on that position, but I have never believed in it so much until now. I dreamed a dream that was more telling of myself than I could ever say or write. Though it was but a dream, please don’t tell my heart- it wants to be married.

Random Update

Okay, enough of the serious blogs. Here's a random update of things in my life right now:

I love the way Frosted Mini Wheats soak up the milk when you drop them in it. As much as I've eaten of that darn cereal lately, I've seen this a lot.

My Norah Jones station on Pandora radio is amazing; I couldn't have imagined there were that many songs out there for my Norah Jones-moods.

Rich saved me from a "butterfly" the other day and I have never been more grateful that he doesn't chide me for crying over things such as that.

My legs are peeling from a sunburn... I got on Labor Day. What in the world took so long??

I really need to make that apple crisp stuff I made a couple weeks ago again. It was one of the best desserts I think I've ever had.

While riding in the car, I flip to 99x every so often just to see if they're playing "Ignorance" by Paramore.

Speaking of which, here are a few lyrics I can't stop listening to as of late:
I'm not the same kid from your memory
Well, now I can fend for myself
-"Ignorance" by Paramore

The more I know, the less I understand -"Forgiveness" by Don Healy

Well you and I
Why, we go carrying on for hours on end
We get along much better
Than you and your boyfriend
-"If It Kills Me" by Jason Mraz

Send me the miles and I'll be happy to
Follow you Love
-"Many the Miles" Sara Bareilles

I was born to walk, and built to last
-"Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai

I'm really into animal prints lately, but just zebra and giraffe. I think it started with the zebra print cake on Cake Boss early in the summer.

My apartments a mess, but I'd rather spend time with Rich than clean it. Or play WoW. Both are way more fun.

I think I have a really cool job.

I have finally met a three-year-old I like. She looks at me funny, won't sit on her dress, and is overall kind of weird, which is why I think I like her.

I hate typing transcripts; I mean, I really, really hate typing transcripts and listening to my own voice and realizing on paper how many more things I could have done had I been able to read it instead of being in the moment.

I am enjoying learning so much about myself through grad school and the past six months. I am finding myself growing and changing so much, and for the first time, I really think I like the woman I'm becoming. Tis a lovely journey to be on.

Down the River We Go

There are times in my life when I get tired of fussing about things and I simply suck it up and do it. When I arrived at my internship sit last Tuesday, I decided I was done feeling unproductive and scared of doing the wrong thing; I got frustrated enough to just say, "Screw it, I'm at least going to try." I did a few things wrong, but I did it anyway. When I knew my last relationship was ending, I fought against it, fought against him, fought against myself to hold onto something out of fear of the unknown. I was a struggling dam against a natural river's course, and the change it would be. My only success was in flooding my own life with fear and unhappiness. Long after many, often times smarter, people would have given in, I finally gave way and let the river run its course. I was taken aback at how easy it was to let the river run over me and carry me to a new place. I have now wanted his bed out of my bedroom for two months. I have even made plans for someone to help me move it, but have found other things to do instead of dealing with it. Today the dam burst again, and I could wait no longer to have it out; I wouldn't even hold off and have someone else to help me move it. It took me twice as long to do it myself, but every time I would reach a point where I was afraid that I couldn't accomplish the task alone, a surge of anger and resoluteness would wash over me and I pushed harder. I am currently fighting off an allergy attack because of it and my healing shoulder and arm muscles throb at me, but my bed is in my room now. It is just another way I know that the flooded plain is behind me, and I am traveling onward to new places.

Down the river we go- down, down, we go.

Swimming

I learned how to tread water years ago. Though a total surprise, it was necessary that I learn. I knew of the existence of the sea, but it was abstract and a far distant concern while I was securely on the shore. My plunge into the sea was sudden and vicious, and I was lost in waves, not knowing where the surface was or how to reach it. I'm not even sure I wanted to fight; I didn't think I could or even know that I had to. Eventually the angry waters receded, and I could touch ground again, gasp for air, and remember how to breathe. I never truly made it to the shore again; occasionally the waves would lap over my head, and I would begin to tread water as best I could. Over the years, certain events were undertows that drug me out, deeper and deeper each time. I learned to tread water better, because it was necessary- I was quite literally fighting for my life.

Eventually a storm of unexpected strength appeared and the undertow swept me away, pulling me under, far, so far from shore. For a time, I fought to stay above, but I grew tired, and weary, and simply let go. I sank below the surface without struggle. I didn't necessarily want to and wasn't actively trying to drown; nevertheless, I didn't care if I did. I lacked the will, the strength, or even the courage to swim, and so, I sank. Life vests were thrown to me, and I accepted them reluctantly. I eventually stopped sinking and even broke the surface, returning my life vests out of pride.

For the next two years, I came closer to the shore, but was still to deep to stand. So I treaded water again. Waves would come and wash over my head, and I learned to tread more and better. At the end of those two years, another massive storm came, similar in magnitude to the one before it. To my complete and utter surprise, I found myself able to keep my head above water by my own strength. The storm swelled and thrashed me through the sea, like an angry child at a naughty doll, and yet I was firm, my head stayed above, and I continued to breathe. I never expected that I would be able to tread the back-breaking waves; my surprise in this was then completely overwhelmed by my shock at my ability to swim for the shore. Only a short time before, I was drowning; now, I was able to swim out of the undertow that was railing against me, siren calling me to a release. When I was drowning, my loss of will and courage was brought on by my knowledge of how weak I was; I knew I couldn't fight strong enough to stay afloat, and I didn't. But somehow in the last two years of treading, I grew stronger than I ever imagined I could be. I grew strong and courageous enough not just to breathe, but swim to shore and to freedom.

Originally I thought this would be a story on treading water. Halfway through, I realized I wasn't giving myself enough credit. I'm no longer simply trying to breathe; I'm taking steps, or strokes rather, to be whole, stronger, better. I am the lion who found the courage that was there all along, and the view is much better from the shore.

Battle

Today I fought with a salmon. He was dead, thankfully, and hopefully not for too awful long; otherwise, Kroger owes me an explanation. Despite being thoroughly dead, he almost won. After buying a large piece of salmon on sale at the grocery store, I thought I was just going to pull the salmon out of the package, cut it into three pieces, and bag the portions individually to freeze. As it turns out, they leave the skin on fresh salmon; as it also turns out, God gifted salmon with scales and skin that are of the same ease to cut or pull apart as rubber. An epic battle ensued, between the skin of a dead fish and my stubborn will to finish the task. It took me a lot longer than the chefs on that episode of last season's Top Chef, but I figured if what's-his-face could skin an eel, I could wrestle the skin off this salmon. And I did. I also laughed my fool head off at the realization that, on a Sunday in August at lunchtime, I was in my apartment, alone, wrestling with a dead fish who appeared to be in the lead.

Over the past few years since I moved away to college, I have had to learn how to do many things on my own that I always took for granted. I have learned to light a pilot, grocery shop on a budget, navigate traffic across six lanes, get a discount on a pair of display shoes, open a bottle of wine, have cable set up at my apartment, and make homemade biscuits. It has only been in the last few months that I have completely changed my view of these lessons. For most of my life, I have chosen not to try things for fear that I won't do them perfectly; or, I have practiced them obsessively until near perfect before I congratulated myself on the task. Six months ago, I would have called someone to help me with the salmon, given up altogether, or just cried out of frustration through the entire experience. Somewhere along the way, I have learned one of my most important lessons in a school of life-- I have learned to give myself a break. I pulled off more of the salmon that I probably should have, and I made a huge mess while doing it. A few weeks ago, I learned how to open a bottle of wine; of course, I only accomplished this after twenty minutes that include breaking off the cork in the bottle and ending up on the floor with the bottle between my legs to have enough leverage to pry out half a cork. But I did it. I don't know how to be a good counselor yet, and I don't know how to live this far away from so many people I love. What I do know is that sometimes, I have to get out of my own head and just try. I'm going to screw it up, but I expect the screw up, and that expectation and the willingness to laugh at myself is enough to keep me going. This odd little adventure in a tiny apartment in north Atlanta is one of many I've embarked on; lately, I've just been bringing paper to take notes on.

Internship, commence

So, we'll see how far I get in actually writing in a blog on a regular basis. I am notorious for starting journals and other such places to keep thoughts and only writing in them three times. However, today I started my internship as a counselor. And I'm terrified. Often times the best therapy for the therapist is to process the day and then let it go; so, without divulging any information about where I work or those with whom I work, I will discuss me in my day today- besides, that's what really counts here anyway.

I am astounded by how much I have changed in just the past six months, and I know that six months ago, I would not be able to deal with this madness I have gotten myself into. My job is proving to be shockingly flexible, something I never would have expected from a psychiatric hospital. While I tend to enjoy these sorts of jobs, I'm concerned with the lack of guidance because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing good to learn how to get from one section of the hospital to another, but I have so many other serious concerns. I'm worried that I won't meet the criteria I need to for my program, and I'm concerned about how different I think my internship will be from a lot of other people in my program. I still don't understand 75% of the paperwork they showed me today, and I'm made speechless by the assertiveness, optimism, and sheer, well, balls of the intern with whom I'm paired. And I still don't know what the hell an ADL is. I do know, however, that they brew free coffee and provide Coffee Mate creamer in the cafeteria 24/7; attempting to do group work with someone who is actively hearing voices is about as useful as discussing feelings with a 5-year-old; and that somehow the staff manages to laugh and breathe despite the 214 people in inpatient care today alone. I also know that the one woman with whom I had close to one-on-one interaction today reminds me so much of myself; she shouldn't, as she is a patient and I'm a counselor, along with 15 other things that separate us. But I know what's it's like to swim in that sea, and I know how scary it is. I also know that sometimes it's all you can do to hang onto the life vest, and her strength in clinging to that vest is commendable. While I don't know how to do the 15,000 little things I'm expected to do, and I don't know exactly how I'm going to finagle this to work in my program and my life, I do know why I'm there. And today, that's enough.