Michael is gone, again. There’s a surprise…not! I try to imagine myself not responding to the next time he pops up on my screen. Would I have the strength to ignore him? Probably not, so what should I say? I’ve got it, “And you are?” Yes, that would be the prefect “cat and mouse” response for me to make. It would be something that gets the delightful banter going between us and lead us down another path of dominant/submissive. In case you forgot, I’m the dominant, something I figured out recently. I’ve sort of always known it, but didn’t want to admit it because a girl is supposed to be “sugar and spice and everything nice”, but I’m just not. I’m strong, intimidating, independent …I’m dominant. There, I said it!
So much has happened since the last time I wrote. It feels like months, but I believe it is actually weeks. During that time, I have had a series of dreams, encounters and therapy sessions that have prompted me to make myself a dirty martini with blue cheese stuffed olives, extra olives please and write. Shall we begin?
Let’s start with the dreams. The first set of dreams revolved around me doing merchandising at my former place of business. I was working with housewares, what a mess I had to fix. A young man I had worked with was there. I asked him if it was time for me to leave. He didn’t want to answer. So, I said, “If I’m wrong, tell me so. If I’m right, you don’t have to say a word, I’ll know. I waited for him to speak, he said nothing and walked away. Then, I dreamt that I was setting up a display of baby dinnerware. However, I was working with my current team. Once again, I had a mess to work with, I was so overwhelmed and more product was coming soon. I realized that I hadn’t eaten and I began to sob. I was calling everyone by wrong names, mixing up their names. I declared that I needed to take lunch and I would call the toy company to see what was coming so I could figure out what I needed to order. I thought, Maybe there’s a baby in my future? Maybe, the birth of a new idea?
There was another dream, that same night. I was walking around a school playground. I was trying to help a foreigner find a little kid’s playground. He took out an envelope of photos to show me what he was looking for. I looked up and saw the spot he was referring to. We matched up the pictures, but he wouldn’t agree with me. When I told him, “I don’t know what else to tell you.” he finally agreed with me. I began to worry that I was helping some kind of pedophile. The high school kids around us didn’t want to help, but I brushed it off as them just being teenagers. I conveyed this dream to a friend and his response struck a chord. He said, “…some sort of helping the wrong person thing.”
In all honesty, that made a lot of sense to me. I keep wondering if I’m doing the same dead-end work, just for different people. I work my ass off and I earn an honest wage for my level of accountability, but is this what I’m supposed to be doing? Am I helping the wrong people? Not that they are bad people, but maybe it’s time I should be working the voodoo that I do so well for someone else? Maybe I should be helping someone start their own business? Should I be starting my own business? Nah, too much work, but it is something to ponder.
A few days later, I had a horrible night’s sleep. I got out of bed at 7am and needed to take a nap at 9:30am. The dreams I had were so vivid and involved my reoccurring dream of there being some sort of passageway to another living space under my house, if one goes through the wall of the pantry in the basement. Long story short, it was different than previous dreams because it included a space with a baby nursery and there was a couple sitting in a bed with an orange bedspread welcoming me in. I wasn’t comfortable with them, so I kept walking forward into the living space that included a MCM kitchen and then led to a living area where I came upon an actress I’ve recently seen in a movie. She was trying to convince me that they were all there to help me to go to the next level of communication. I tried to back away from her, I was afraid and I didn’t think I was ready. I grabbed her breast and I was squeezing it hard, trying to hurt her. She stayed calmed and tried to get me to go with her, but I wasn’t ready…and then, I woke up. I woke up hyperventilating! I stumbled downstairs wondering if I had died. I walked down to the basement pantry and touched the walls to see if there was indeed, some sort of passageway that would reveal itself to me, but there was not. In a panic, I went back to the kitchen and drank some water and then I called my friend who for lack of a better term, is a “sensitive”. This friend sees and feels so much more than most of us and she understands it all. We talked through my dreams and their possible meanings and she brought me to a place of calm. We talked about my deceased dad, my mom and how my mom is always here for me, but dad is in and out, typical. We talked about my mom and how she did some really cool stuff back in the day that I wish I had had a chance to thank her for. My friend put it into perspective for me, she said that my mother respected my decisions and treated me like a person. Yes, yes, she did or at least she tried to. My memories are fading, it’s been 35 years since she passed, but she did her best to let me be my own person, to let me make my own mistakes and hopefully, learn from them. She did that for me…thanks mom.
So much more has happened in the past few weeks. A stranger gave me flowers in the parking lot of Aldi. She said, “These are for you, because the world sucks!” and walked away. I was like, “And you are?” I stood there for a moment and thought, the world doesn’t suck, but thank you! I decided to pay it forward by buying flowers when I went into Aldi myself and I gave them to a woman with three well behaved children. I told her, “These are for you. Have a good day.” And walked away. I did other little acts of kindness that day, I wanted to pay it forward and keep that good feeling going. I wanted people to feel what I felt that moment, gratitude.
Mary, John the Pilot’s other woman suddenly realized that I had “unfriended” her and sent me a text asking why. I wrote back that, “I have closed that chapter in my life. It’s nothing personal. Be well.” That wasn’t good enough for her. She kept texting me and when I didn’t respond, she began to instant message me saying that she had only done nice things to me and didn’t deserve to be “closed”. I thought to myself, “And you are?” Yes, you set me free. Thank you. However, I do not owe you more. We are not friends, we never were. I didn’t respond, but that is what I thought. I blocked her, something I didn’t want to do, but her aggressive messages were not appreciated. This is the woman I was cheated on for? Oh bother. No, I owe you nothing. Thank you and good bye.
I’ve poured myself a second dirty martini with blue cheese olives. Yes, extra olives please. I sit here and I ponder, what’s next? If my son graduates this May, I will have no more excuses not to do something. I didn’t leave a marriage I no longer wanted to be in believing I needed to wait until he was in school. I didn’t leave my father’s house, no matter how desperately I wanted to because I wanted to wait until my youngest son didn’t require daycare. I didn’t leave when I had a chance because I realized now, my father needed me. Once my son graduates, there are no more reasons for me not to pursue whatever it is my heart desires. No more excuses, not to be the person I had always hoped to be. If he graduates, I will be graduating along with him. As my therapist so aptly put it, it will be my life stage graduation. I’ve done my job. I’ve raised my kids, I’ve taken care of my father, this family, this home. I’m done. So, I guess the only question for myself now is, “And you are?”
I can’t wait to find out!!!
#thelieswechoosetolivewith
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