The Power of a Dream

This past week I had the most intense dream of my life, the kind that you wake up from sobbing.  I have had emotionally intense dreams before.  The kind that you wake up from and can feel the emotion that the dream created for hours after.  I remember more than one time that I was mad at my husband all day because of a dream, though usually in those situations I forget what the dream was about few days after it happened.  But I always seem to remember the emotion that was attached.  I have a feeling this dream won’t be one of those I forget.

I think having crazy dreams has always been in my makeup.  When I was very little I was a sleepwalker because of my nightmares.  The doctor told my parents to stop trying to wake me up and just follow me to make sure I was safe.  I eventually grew out of the sleepwalking but nightmares continued for a while.  I had one nightmare about some kind of invasion that was a recurring dream for years.  When I was in junior high and high school I had many dreams about cute guys and silly fights with girlfriends that I would write out often cause I would always hope that the dreams about the cute guys would come true.

When I was beginning my pregnancy with my daughter I had a dream about giving birth to a baby girl and I didn’t want anybody to know yet.  I found that a little odd.  Brad and I don’t find out the gender of our babies until they are born so I had to wait 9 months to find out if that was a real dream.  I had a nightmare the night before the scheduled C-section that I was on the table having the baby, they pulled them out and it was a boy and I didn’t want it.  I woke up terrified that I was going to hate my baby if it was another boy, even though the whole pregnancy it didn’t matter to me what we were having.  When they shouted out the next day that baby was a girl I cried with relief.

Why can dreams have such a powerful influence on us?  Those that are not pleasant and those we don’t want to have again are nightmares that can keep us from doing many things in life.  Meanwhile, those marvelous dreams that inspire can make us fight for new heights in our lives and really help us reach for the stars.  I don’t really have an answer for the above question right now, but I want to follow it up with another question.  Are they just dreams or glimpses of possible destinies?

So back to the one I had this week.  When I was waking from it I became conscious of the fact that I was sobbing, bawling almost.  I couldn’t stop, I was shaking and the tears were flowing hard.  They weren’t happy tears; I was downright devastated.  So…doesn’t that make it a nightmare?  I don’t know, maybe, but somehow I don’t think so with this one.

My dream started off with me being on vacation in Italy with my extended family.  We went to go see a play.  Afterwards they were all excited to start “treasure” hunting in the rocks and dirt that were by where we were staying.  The “treasures” they were looking for I classified as junk.  At this point I got frustrated because I felt like we weren’t here in this beautiful place to look for little metal trinkets.  We needed to go see the city, we were just minutes away from Rome (one of my real life dreams to see).  I started arguing with one of the members of my family about how we needed to go see Rome.  They said it wasn’t in the plans that we were going to do mundane things around where we were staying.  I was fed up and told them that I was not going to be this close to Rome and not go see some of the art.  I was going to go see Bernini’s work and not going to miss out. (Side note:  Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an artist in the baroque period in Italy.  His sculptures can be seen throughout Rome and he happens to be my favorite sculptor, amazing stuff!)  At this point I turned around and stormed off towards the city.  I didn’t look back, I was mad cause I felt like they had been dangling the dream of seeing this art in front of me but were trying to keep me from it.  As I got closer to the city I was waylaid by some hot Italian guy that wanted to take me to dinner, cue the husband.  He was on a business phone call as I passed him, but he was there.  The Italian guy was still following me until I forcibly told him that I was in love with my husband over there and that he needed to get a clue and go away.  Nothing was going to stop me from reaching my destination.  My husband followed me, still on the phone, to the outskirts of the city.  For some reason there was a gate we had to go through and a line to get in.  As I got closer to the front of the line I realized that they were asking for passports in order to get in.  Mine was back with my family.  I was devastated, completely crushed.  I turned away feeling like all ambition had been destroyed.  This was the point that I woke up, having turned my back on this big dream and feeling completely wiped of all hope.

I cried for a long time when I woke up.  I felt the devastation so strongly.  I luckily have a loving husband that put his arms around me and held me tight as I dealt with the blow.  I began to wonder why it impacted me so.  Over the past few days I have been pondering on that thought.  Even now as I recall the dream I can feel the emotion that it evoked.  Why was not being able to see some sculptures in a dream so devastating?

I am not a dream interpreter, nor do I know one I could ask.  As I have mulled this dream over I have begun to wonder some things.  First off I want to put out there that I don’t think my family (meaning parents and siblings) are in any way a hindrance to me getting out there and seeing what I want to see.  I would have to say that I have that all on me.  I have felt strongly lately that I have only me to blame for my perceived inability to achieve my goals.  If I haven’t gotten there it is because I haven’t done all that I can do to get there.

Also what about my husband being on a business call and not fully engaging in the situation?  Well I will admit when he works from home I feel that way, but he tries really hard to be a part of what we do individually and as a family.  I think to me that part of my dream is just that lately I have felt quite alone in my conquests.  I have wanted to reach out for help and support but haven’t known how and so I keep my struggles mostly to myself.  This is a very lonely thing and something I would like to eliminate.  I want to surround myself with support and also be that needed support for others.

I have been feeling that overall what this dream has done for me is that it has opened my eyes to some deep feelings I have been suppressing.  I have lots of goals for my life, one of the more immediate ones it that I do want to complete an ironman triathlon.  Up to this point I have been staying “outside the city” and just concerning myself with mundane tasks, not fighting to get in.  So my take away is that I need to stand up and get myself there.  The other take away is that when I do end up just outside the gates of “my Rome” I need to be prepared with whatever “passport” is required to go in.

So once again I am going to refocus.  I have been struggling with my rut still, but I will get out.  The only way I can do that, though, is if I enlist help.  I need to fill my stadium with excited supporters, fans, who will cheer me on no matter how slow I am and also who will help me stay in line and focused on the end goal.  None of us can be truly successful in life if we turn our back on friends and family and expect to do it all ourselves.  We especially need to make sure to remember who our biggest fans are: Jesus and His Father.  When we have them on our side there is nothing we can’t do.

The Rut

Sometimes I wonder why we have to go through ruts.  I understand the need to fail, it helps motivate us to push forward and succeed, and without knowing what it is like to fail we don’t really understand what it means to succeed.  But a rut is like failing ALL THE TIME with EVERYTHING for an extended period of time without any visible way to get out.  Think of the poor bowling ball that ends up in the gutter, it will stay there until it passes by the pins without having a chance to fulfill it’s true purpose of knocking some down.  So I guess I wonder what “pins” in my life I am going to miss by being in the gutter I feel I am in, and am I going to be able to get into that ball return and try again? Or will I get stuck rolling around like a dork never going anywhere again?

I had thought that the New Year was going to be my ticket out of the rut, but after only 2 or 3 good days I found myself back, and deeper.  The excuse of first trimester yuckiness only takes me so far, this rut is all me.  The thing that I think is the hardest for me to deal with is that I know what I should do to stop the lazy unproductiveness.  Just turn off the TV, get off the couch and do SOMETHING. 

Every morning before I get out of bed I try and talk nice to myself and plan what I want to accomplish that day.  I don’t try and plan too much cause I know that I will need a nap and I will start to feel queasy in the afternoon.  So I tell myself, lets get the laundry clean and put away today.  Then after my two older kids are off to school I plop myself in front of the TV or my computer and stay there the rest of the day.  By the time they get home from school I am so apathetic I do nothing to help them with homework or a snack.  I use the pregnancy excuse to not make dinner and let my husband know we need to have leftovers.  I stay put until it is time to put the kids in bed and then I go to bed myself.  Lazy good-for-nothing.  I try and tell myself I can do better tomorrow, but really I am just thinking of all the meanest things I can about me.  It cycles over and over until I am stuck in a house with no food (cause I haven’t bothered to go shopping) where the kitchen in clean and any room that is not much traveled but the rest is messy.

I haven’t done anything to improve on my health like I keep telling myself I need to.  Go on a walk today Kae, the dogs need to get out, take them to the dog park.  Caleb loves riding in the bike carrier, bike to the store for the bare essentials at least.  Go do yoga, I have an Xbox game that has a great yoga workout.  Nope, I sit on the couch all day.  So sit on the couch and make a plan, think through what can be done to better the situation cause with a plan it is easier to succeed.  No thought going on, play the mindless game on the computer while mindless TV plays in the background.

I have a pretty good idea why I am in the rut.  I am stressed out.  I am overwhelmed by lots of different aspects of my life.  We are passing through what most others are these days with finances where money is tight.  This is always difficult for me cause I am not good at budgeting, it is a weakness that I can’t seem to overcome.  I am also stressed over the overwhelming task of getting my house organized.  I like things neat and tidy and due to some household projects the house is unorganized again, I want to get it back to the way I like it, but I feel there is so much I don’t know where to start.  Once again it is time to pull out all my paperwork and do taxes, another stressor trying to find all my receipts.  My husband is also having his own struggles and I hate to see him unhappy so I take that stress on too.  I let it all consume me and I turn into a veritable couch potato.

When I am at this point where I feel so overwhelmed and I can’t seem to move forward with everything I start having a quote from the Disney movie “Mulan” play through my head over and over.  I love that movie and at the end the Emperor of China says something that has always stuck with me, “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.”  I would like to say that I find comfort in that, but in all honesty it depresses me.  I think, “I am passing through adversity and I am definitely NOT blooming.”  I want to be the rare beautiful flower that blooms when the going gets tough.  Instead I am like an ostrich…hide my head in the sand and the world will pass by me.

Not quite sure how to get out, I know I should just move and do, but unfortunately that is easier said than done for me.

New Year Musings

So in the spirit of the New Year I have been spending the past few days pondering about resolutions I want to make.  I will need to admit that over the last few new years I have not really made an effort to decide that I was going to change anything.  I have always wanted to, but I never really know where to start.  I guess I started thinking about it late cause I still don’t have a “list” together.  But my wonderings have brought on some more of the serious talks and thoughts.

In discussing this with my husband and realizing that I have not been very good at completing goals (more likely than not because I am pretty bad at setting them) I allowed myself to dig deep inside to try and figure out why.  Have I always been bad at goal keeping?  Or is it a rarely newer phenomenon in my life?  I think, “Hey I used to be really good at accomplishing things!”  So why do I have such a hard time now?

I guess I am good at excuses, I am good at starting something and then get in the throws of it and come up with why I can’t continue.  So I thought about that for a good half a day and allowed myself to be disappointed at my constant excuses as to why I can’t.  This newfound honesty with myself led me to think deeper, dig back farther to see if I can’t figure out where the excuses started. 

Going WAY back, when I was little (before age 10) I did dance for a bit.  I liked it and remember liking ballet and tap especially (the woman that taught us taught us everything).  I am not sure how old I was when I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore.  I don’t even remember why I asked to stop, but I quit right before a huge production they did of the Wizard of Oz.  Four of my siblings also performed and it was awesome.  I remember feeling sad when they were doing the big rehearsals so mom made it so that I got to be one of the little kids having the story read to so I was a part of it, but I wasn’t dancing.  Years later when I was in high school and wishing I could dance better I would always ask my mom why she let me quit…she never could say either.  I guess I was insistent.

Another time in my growing up years I was learning to play piano.  The teacher I started with taught the Suzuki method (I think that is what it was called) where you first teach the kids by ear and then introduce the note reading.  The teacher had a baby and had to quit before I learned to read notes.  My mom found me another piano teacher (an extremely good he-records-his-music-for-a-living pianist I might add).  He wanted me to learn to read music and play that way, not by ear.  It was hard and I got frustrated that it wasn’t as easy for me so after a short while I gave up.

There are a few other times in my growing up that I gave up on something cause it wasn’t as easy as I thought it should be (mainly guitar and clarinet), in order to really learn I was going to have to work at it.  I want to insert here that for a while through my teenage years I harbored frustration at my mom for letting me quit.  I have since realized that she let me make a choice and I am the one living with the consequences and I don’t hold her responsible at all.

In talking this over in my mind I came to the conclusion that I ended up quitting every time something wasn’t easy or completely natural for me.  I was always a good student, but I never learned how to study, to work for a grade.   I was that student that some hated cause all I really needed to do was be in class, take notes and I would mostly get A’s.  I am a natural test taker, I get nervous and stuff, but I can make sense of things on the test and fudge my way through correctly if I don’t fully know the material.  When I went to Uruguay on my mission I understood the Spanish pretty much as soon as I was in country, I didn’t have to struggle like most do for months before they can understand what is being said.

So does this mean that I am never going to be able to do things that are too hard for me?  Am I always going to quit once it is tough and only keep moving forward on things that are easy for me?  I would like to put out there a resounding no.  In furthering my contemplations and realizing that in the past I have given up when it got hard, and since marriage I have given up on many new goals because they were hard, I have not given up on two things that are extremely hard: being a wife and mother.

Marriage isn’t easy, living in “the real world” with someone where we have to think about finances and housing and where to buy food and what to eat and how best to keep our relationship fired up is not easy, but it is SO worth it.  Everyday I tell my husband I love him and even though some days I don’t feel it as strongly as others I do love him dearly and I am so grateful to have him. 

Being a mother is a goal I have had in my life, but I must admit I was never that girl in high school that LOVED babysitting or was always grabbing everyone else’s babies to hold.   Because of this there are times that I find being a mom extremely difficult.  But I hold MY babies dear and close and love them oh so much!  I have to admit I am a good mom because I have FANTASTIC children.  They are so wonderful, part of it is just cause they are great, but part of it is because I am doing something right with them.  I am just exactly the kind of mom they need. 

So what does this have to do with new years resolutions?  I think that over the years I have been letting the difficulties of being a wife and mother drown all other abilities to do anything else difficult for me.  I have not had anything left in the tank so to speak to fight any other battles.  I have “coasted” through life up until this point quitting anything once it gets hard and then when I don’t stop being mommy and loving wife I almost have no idea how to try to do anything else.

My hope is that because I have realized this that the rebellious me, the one who likes to be unique and different, can look at this as a challenge.  Time to pull out the big guns and prove to myself that I can set goals and do something else that is hard and unnatural.  Cause if I can stick to it, the more I work on it the easier it will become.  I can make the change.  With that in mind what do I want to tackle this year?  I need to be realistic.  With another child coming in August I have some limitations.  I can’t do the “lose 80 pounds” or “do that half-ironman” like I had last year.

How about this year I work on a feeling?  I have a friend who shared that she likes to have a theme for the year, one word.  I really like that.  I feel like my word this year will be: embrace.  I need to embrace who I am now, embrace who I want to become, embrace every opportunity for good, embrace my family as much as possible, embrace my life.