“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.” — Agatha Christie
When my friend Gina was first diagnosed with cancer her biggest concern was that she would die before her twin daughters turned 18. She was afraid that their biological father would take them away from everything she had worked so hard to provide: stability and love, their home, their step-father and their little sister. Throughout her battle with cancer I never once heard her complain about herself, the treatments or anything else. Her mantra never changed. She simply had to stay alive until the twins were 18. She knew she could not fall short of this because the consequences for her daughters were too horrific for her to even consider.
Her worst nightmares have come true.
Last week, less than two months after losing their mother, their biological father abruptly removed them from their school in the upscale suburb in which they have lived for more than 1/2 of their lives. He has taken them to the home of the most recent woman he is living with in a rough neighborhood. He has told them that their mother never loved them and only wanted his money. He has cut them off from all of their family and told them they will never see their step-father or little sister again. He has not even bothered to enroll them in school.
I don’t know what precipitated any of this. I do know that the girls are terrified and cut off from everyone they love, everything that is familiar and safe to them and all while still grieving the very recent death of their mother.
Her sister said it best, “Gina is counting on all of us to fix this.”.
I don’t know how to fix this. All I do know is that getting the word out through my blog may lead us to someone who can help. There is a court hearing next week in DuPage County IL. If anyone reading this knows anyone or knows someone who may know anyone that can help my friend’s daughters (attorneys, advocates, etc.) PLEASE leave a comment here.
Thank you.
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“There is a fine line between love and illusion/A fine place to penetrate/ The gap between actor and act/ The lens between wishes and fact” - Rush
~ Between Sun And Moon
We had been friends for years. Our kids were friends. Our husbands were friends. We all spent several nights per week together in one combination or another. All of us hung out at their house at least one night almost every weekend. We went on couples’ dates together. We went on family outings together. We attended concerts, went out to dinner, had parties and barbecues…all together. They were our best friends. They were there for us when we were having marital problems and neither took sides. They were like family.
That all changed one night in July. Turns out there was a big secret lurking in their home that they hid quite well from us, despite all the time we spent over there or how close we thought we were. We knew they were having some marital problems. We knew their teenage son was having some emotional problems. We had no idea, or looking back it’s more honest to say that we had some idea, but we really didn’t know or want to know the whole truth.
My friend called and asked if I’d watch the kids. She was hysterical. Of course I said yes. It seems their marital problems were much more serious than we knew. He was threatening to leave and take all of their money. She was panicked, had some errands to run, and wanted to leave the kids with us for a few hours.
She returned several hours later and that is when the full truth came out. He was in the middle of a full-blown narcissistic rage that would only continue to get worse as the night went on. He made many threats against her, her car, our home, their home and himself. He would hang up on her for refusing to come home and then immediately call back to scream horrendous insults and threats at her. She and the kids were panicked. My kids were panicked.
At one point she was on the phone with the police and kept putting them on hold to answer his calls because she was afraid to not answer him even while on the phone with the police. The whole truth was displayed for us with all the gory details that included years and years of emotional, verbal and physical abuse against my friend and her teenage son. She tried not to let us hear but he was screaming so loudly that even at the lowest volume we could hear him clear as a bell from the next room. She finally became so terrorized that she actually believed he would come to our house and asked if we could go to my sister’s to spend the night there instead.
Of course my sister opened up her home to all of us. We stayed up until 3am talking and just sitting with her and her kids. The whole time the insane phone calls never ceased. He called his wife and mother of his children names I have never considered calling my worst enemy. He threatened suicide. He threatened to burn down the house. He threatened to bash in her car. I heard him say that she had unleashed a monster that she will never be able to escape from. He tried every form of aggression he could think of to get her to come home but she was too scared. She finally turned her phone off and we all slept on the floor in the living room of my sister’s small home.
Of course he never did any of the horrible things he threatened to do the night before. In the morning, sober and more in control, he apologized….sort of. She went home. With her kids. Alone. We offered to go with her. The night before she had said she would be taking the police with her to pick up clothes for herself and the kids. In the morning, when he was calm, that all changed and they went home.
My sister and I were terrified of what they were going home to. What he would do once he got them back into their house all alone. When I spoke to my friend later that day she said that they had talked and everything was fine. I imagined him standing over her shoulder or even on another phone listening. I was traumatized and shaky for two weeks afterwards. We had re-lived any given night from our own childhood and were helpless to stop it even though we are adults now.
I have not talked to her since. Her kids have not spoken to mine since that night either. I knew I could never be friends with a known child abuser but I naively thought that she and I could maintain our friendship and that our kids would not lose their friends. I was wrong. I tried for months to get together for dinner or drinks but there was always an excuse.
She and I did have an e-mail correspondence in which she mentioned that she hopes her son is happy and that she has done everything she could to make his life perfect and prepare him for adulthood. That story may still fly with the ladies at school or in the neighborhood but she knows that I know the truth. I couldn’t just go along with the delusion so I reminded her that her son is depressed and about as far from happy as he can be because of his abusive father. She didn’t come out and say why she has cut us out of her life but I can only guess that they need us out of their lives because we know the truth. His image is blown.
I had suspected he was a narcissist. There were many clues. He always had to be in control. Once he even took the wheel when hubby was driving us somewhere because he thought he was about to hit a parked car (he wasn’t). His constant efforts to convince everyone of his perfect image and the perfect home and all the things he needed to make it a perfect home. He was obsessed with appearances including, but not limited to, a perfectly landscaped and manicured lawn. He bragged constantly about his latest frivolous purchases that no one else cared about and had to have the top of the line everything. He always had to be right. I also noticed tell-tale signs in the ways they interacted. When his glass was empty, she jumped to refill it. At parties they hosted she spent the whole time keeping everything immaculate instead of enjoying the party. I could go on and on. I chose to ignore it because we enjoyed their company and because I figured their marriage was their own business.
One night in July changed everything and yet it changed nothing. We lost our best friends but that was really only an illusion anyway, wasn’t it? For all I know we are just one couple in a long line who have been cut off when he has slipped and exposed his true nature. Nothing changed for my friend and her son. I hope they are ok. I hope she gets the courage to take care of herself and her kids. I hope she believes that I will be here for her if she does.
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“Math anxiety: an intense lifelong fear of two trains approaching each other at speeds of 60 and 80 MPH.” — Rick Bayan
This is one of the formulas we “learned” last night in stats class:
Are you f-ing kidding me?! What the hell am I supposed to do with that nonsense?!
There may be some of you reading that look at this formula and laugh, as I would if I saw 1 + 1 = 2 (if so, please contact me, I need help with my homework).
But I’m not laughing. That formula and the others we learned last night appear to me to be in a foreign language. Ok, well technically they are partially, due to the usage of Greek letters. Who the hell decided that was a good idea?! And why hasn’t that been modified for us boneheaded psych majors with no interest in this crap whatsoever? (Me). I can’t be the only one who finds this baffling and completely uninteresting in the history of psych majors. Greek letters? Seriously? I thought the only people who still used Greek letters were frat boys so that their little drinking clubs sounded more like official organizations.
Perhaps I can find a frat boy to tutor me in this foreign language class…maybe even a young Greek frat boy….hmmmm.
I have no idea how I’m going to pass this class. Can someone who knows what they’re doing please figure out the probability of me passing and let me know?
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“When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part” — George Bernard Shaw
I’ve spent the better part of the past two years learning about myself. I’ve focused on my insecurities, my self-defeating behaviors, my dark side, my playful side, my roles and how I relate to others. During this time, as has been well documented here, I also went through a marital separation, marriage counseling and ultimately reconciliation. Through that all though, my focus has been on my part in the problems we had and what I need and want. It sounds selfish I know. It was, and still is, necessary for me to continue to understand myself. A lifetime spent ignoring myself didn’t work out so well and was one of the biggest reasons for the derailment of my marriage in the first place.
I believe a new phase is upon me now. I have begun to re-integrate focusing on my husband’s wants and needs in addition to my own. I didn’t notice until recently that I was so terrified of falling back into old codependent patterns of people-pleasing that I almost completely stopped focusing on him. Again I think this was necessary for me to do as part of my own process but it is now safe to at least dip my foot back into the pool of focusing on others sometimes, specifically my husband.
It is not as if he has been completely ignored. He hasn’t. But in my quest to stop my own insanity I also stopped analyzing him. That is a good thing because it became extremely unhealthy for me to be constantly trying to guess what he wanted or needed and then attempting to provide that to him without his asking or even his consent. There is a happy medium though. I know he will tell me what he wants or needs directly these days. But sometimes picking up on things that are not directly expressed can lead to better understanding and communication, without becoming a codependent, people-pleasing nightmare. He has taught me that.
He has pointed out to me on many occasions when I am falling back into old patterns of destructive behavior when I was clueless that I was doing so. He notices when I am anxious and questions me until I figure out and communicate what is bothering me. He sees better than I do when I need to get out of the house and just have some mindless fun. He supports my every decision, even when there is not yet evidence that the decision has been a good one. He is more intuitive than I ever imagined. He gets me. He knows me. Warts and all. And for some reason he still likes me. I’d even go so far as to say that he likes me even more now than he ever did before our separation.
I’ve read two very different books about marriage in the past couple of weeks. They are An Unfinished Marriage by Joan Anderson
Just as Eat, Pray, Love had a major impact on my thinking about myself, these two books about marriage have also had a major impact on my thinking about my marriage. I highly recommend reading these two books back to back. Joan Anderson’s story is told from the perspective of a woman of retirement age whose children are adults. Elizabeth Gilbert’s is told from the perspective of a woman who married the wrong man because she thought it was what she was supposed to do, has never wanted children, went through a nasty divorce and is faced with the decision to remarry despite having sworn off marriage altogether. These two diverse perspectives from women who have had such similar experiences are priceless.
Just as I learned there are no shoulds for me personally, there are none for marriage either. My husband and I are free to create our own personal definition of what our marriage looks like. We are also free to change that definition anytime we like. I don’t have to be a people-pleaser in order for us to be happy. In fact that has the opposite effect. I just need to be myself and so does he. Our whole dynamic has changed considerably since our separation and it continues to evolve daily. He surprises me on a regular basis these days. I continue to struggle with my own process but he seems to really have come into his own. It is ok for me to lean on him from time to time and vice versa. It is ok for us to maintain our own identities and in fact, this strengthens our relationship. In many ways we have switched places and continue to flip-flop in our different roles as spouses and parents. It’s all ok. It’s really as if we are different people today and despite the fact that we have known each other for almost 24 years, we continue to get to know each other as we change, grow and evolve as individuals, as a couple and as a family. Marriage is what we make it and I am beginning to realize how exciting, fun and fulfilling it can be. I can’t wait to find out where we are headed next.
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“42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.” – Steven Wright
My statistics class…well, it sucks. I hate every second of the class itself, greatly dislike the professor and am completely baffled most of the time. Much of the content is not difficult to understand. The calculator is difficult. It’s so unbelievably complicated to use. Besides that, the apparent complete uselessness of what I’m required to learn is annoying beyond belief.
The class is almost 4 hours long, every Monday night. That is a long time to spend doing something you despise, don’t fully understand and couldn’t care less about. The professor is a rigid, socially awkward, inept teacher and openly bigoted woman. It’s the perfect vortex of hell.
This week during class we were discussing matched pairs. This is an experiment conducted using groups of similar couples. When she asked if any of us could think of examples of matched pairs I said twins. Correct. She added that husbands and wives are another example. Another student chimed in with, “or husbands and husbands”. This clearly made her extremely uncomfortable. She said, “let’s just stick with husbands and wives and not discuss anything ‘bad’”. Based on this comment alone, you could argue that all she meant was she wanted to steer clear of any controversial topics. However, several of her own comments from the week before were equally offensive and so the conclusion that she actually does believe that same-sex couples are “bad” is a reasonable assumption. While I don’t agree with her on any level, it is her opinion. But why she feels the need to repeatedly state her opinions on social issues in a stats class is beyond baffling. This is not a sociology or human sexuality class. It’s stats.
She is also humorless but does not realize it. She says things that are meant to be funny but are not. She then awkwardly attempts to chastise the class for being a “tough crowd”. And finally, the material we cover in class is presented in the form of a power point presentation but is, in fact, simply copies of pages from the textbook. We wouldn’t want her to hurt herself putting any effort into the course material. She blows through the 312 functions on the calculator that are necessary to come up with answers to the problems we go over. When she asks if everyone is ready to move on she frequently pauses for about 1/8 of a second and then moves on, or simply ignores anyone who indicates they are not ready to move on.
There are several helpful sheets we can find online to walk us through the calculator functions for any given formula, which she directed us to. However, these will not be available to us whenever we have a test. I found that out when I asked if we were on our own with the calculator during tests and she said yes. Later in class someone else asked if we could utilize our calculator instructions during tests. She launched into a defensive rant about how the majority of the students in her last class (who did not have their calculator instructions during tests) earned A’s with only 2 or 3 earning C’s and D’s and therefore she did not feel there was any reason for her to make that exception for our class. Based on the significant number of students who were in attendance during our 1st session of class but were not in attendance during our 2nd session leads me to believe that she left one very important statistic out of her little rant. How many students dropped her last class I wonder?
Later on while going over bar graphs she discussed the four types of bar graphs. She showed us (on her power point taken directly from the textbook) what each of the four types looks like. She then showed different bar graphs and asked us to tell her which type each one was. Several of us answered the first one with the same answer. She said we were wrong and told us which type it actually was. We were all confused. We indicated that the graph she was showing us did not look anything like the example for that type of graph. Her response? She launched into yet another defensive rant about how statistics are not exact and if we are looking for exact answers we should try algebra instead. I don’t know about everyone else in class but I’m not there because I want to try statistics. I’m there because it’s a required course for my major. And one of the prerequisites is algebra!
During the 4 hours of misery that is this class she graciously allows us one break. Twelve minutes. Not 10. Not 15. Twelve.
I am determined to pass this class because I need to move forward. I’m trying to look at it in much the same way I did pregnancy and childbirth. The process is hell but the end result is worth it. I wonder how many times I’ll have to repeat this mantra to myself before the end of this semester. I know one thing. I cannot wait to get my hands on the class evaluation that students are asked to fill out at the completion of each class.
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“Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” — George Carlin
Hi. My name is Cyndi and I have a problem. Facebook. To be honest I also have problems with twitter, e-mail, texting, google reader and multiple other online distractions, not to mention multiple offline addictions. Don’t judge.
I’ve seen the following canned (Who writes these things anyway? Is there some sweatshop somewhere?) Facebook status update a few times over the past several weeks:
WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! Press 1 for English. Press 2 to disconnect until you learn to speak English. And remember— only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, JESUS CHRIST and the AMERICAN SOLIDER. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom. If you agree… copy and paste in your status
This one doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t understand what the first *ahem* sentiment has to do with the second. So, I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when someone I know well posted this as her status. She has been my go-to person for all questions related to Christianity for years. I felt comfortable that asking her about it would not offend her as she is aware that I am a heathen and therefore prone to asking the tough questions, which I did:
I don’t understand this…would Jesus disconnect anyone who doesn’t speak English?
I admittedly do not know everything there is to know much at all about Christianity or organized religion in general. I am pretty sure I’ve got the basics of Christianity down. I know for certain that one of the more common Christian ideologies is, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” [Matthew 7:12]. (You’re impressed that I knew the book and verse aren’t you? I love The Internets.) The good old golden rule.
Is it really that offensive to be offered the option of pressing “2″? And if so, why? If I were in a foreign country and I had to contact some wretched call center for any reason I would be delighted to have the option (even if it was #7 or #212) to reach someone who speaks English. Do unto others, right? Isn’t the truly offensive action in this scenario the fact that you have to contact a call center at all? I’m fairly certain that the concept of the call center originated in hell and that Jesus does not like them anymore than we do. We all know as soon as we dial the number that we will be placed into that dreaded loop of options, excessive hold times and finally will be transferred to someone in another country who will tell us in English that whatever we are asking for is not going to happen and we are just screwed, thankyouverymuch.
My personal favorite canned Facebook update makes much more sense to me. In fact I think whoever came up with it should win some sort of online Facebook-status-writing award or something. It’s as if whoever penned this sentiment somehow knows me and was able to express, much better than I ever could, what I truly feel in my heart and soul:
Please put this on your status if you know someone (or are related to someone) who is an idiot. Idiots affect the lives of everyone. There is still no known cure for stupidity, but we can raise awareness …… 93% wont Copy and Paste this, many because they’re too stupid to know how to copy and paste. Will YOU make this your status for at least one hour?
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“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” — Anaïs Nin
As I do with most of my quotes I came across this one by accident. Just searching for a quote to match what I want to say almost always leads me to at least one that jumps out at me. This is one of those quotes. It explains in three sentences my own fear of how others, my husband in particular, view me when I’m feeling particularly anxious. I so do not want to be the life-sucking drain on him that this quote describes.
Yesterday I felt overwhelmed. When I feel this way I can, and did, go to the dark side. I had too much on my mind, partly mundane tasks that needed to be completed and partly unnecessary, unproductive worry over things I know I have no control over. I’ve gotten better at recognizing when I’m doing this to myself and talking myself back from the edge. Yesterday that didn’t happen.
When I reach that brick wall where I feel completely overwhelmed and my mind is racing with 100 different thoughts at once I become paralyzed. I feel overwhelmed with it all and don’t know where to start so I don’t. I shut down. I procrastinate, avoid and attempt to escape. These methods do not solve anything and in fact, make the situation worse.
I’m not even talking about any major tragedies here. This happens within the confines of what can only be considered regular everyday life. Nothing extraordinary happened yesterday. I’m not even certain how I came to reach the level of paralysis I felt.
Hubby and the kids were all home due to the holiday so my normal routine was disrupted. I had some work to do. Laundry and housecleaning needed to be done. I had homework to do. Hubby needed to drop his car off for a few hours for routine maintenance and needed a ride there and back. Then there was the worry. My mother had some routine lab work come back with some abnormalities that require further testing and the possibilities there range from easily fixable to absolutely devastating. We have to wait and see. I have a hectic day today and was already worried about getting my work done. Then there were several discussions with hubby about home improvement projects that had my head spinning trying to decide which of them were priorities and which of them were easily affordable. That all led to worry over my future earnings, my mother’s health, on and on and on. Once I get going, if left unchecked, I can end up worrying about things that could go wrong 20 years from now.
Once paralyzed I feel shame. These are all normal everyday things. Others seem to handle them all just fine and here I am practically panicking over them. I then beat myself up for being such an utter failure and overall mess. It’s difficult to dig out from. And it’s all in my own head.
In reality, the things I have no control over and/or are unknown are not worth worrying about as worrying solves nothing. I will know when I know. The tasks that need to be completed will get done if I just chill out and do them one at a time. Hubby helped tremendously by listening and by taking on some of the tasks. Why didn’t I just ask him in the first place? I know by now that asking for help is not a sign of weakness but sometimes I forget. I also don’t want to burden him with all that is going on in my head. I don’t want to be that drowning person.
Today I am more rational. I realize I am not sucking the life out of my husband when I talk to him about things that are bothering me or ask for help. We are here for each other, that’s one of the good things about being married. I can also put things into better perspective. There are certainly worse things that could be going on. Like anything else in life, it’s how I think about things that determine how I feel about them. I wonder how long it will be before I stop forgetting that lesson.
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“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” – Richard Bach
I’ve written quite a bit about marital problems. Looking back, it’s clear where I could have taken responsibility for things that I didn’t but at the time I probably would have punched anyone for even suggesting that maybe some of our problems belonged to me.
When hubby and I first started marriage counseling, sometime in late 2007, I was not hopeful. He went only begrudgingly. In fact, he went only because I gave him an ultimatum. He spent a huge amount of time and effort on arguing about going (as if we didn’t have enough to argue about already) before the ultimatum. I couldn’t take the fighting anymore and finally “strapped one on” (my therapist’s words) and said we had two options; divorce or marriage counseling.
We were fighting like cats and dogs. We literally could not be in the same room without fighting. I was crawling out of my skin. He was mostly confused, I think. I wanted radical changes in our lives. He didn’t want anything to change. I was accusing him of all sorts of horrible behaviors. He denied them all. I was holding grudges dating back 10 years. He didn’t know what else he could do about that. It was a no-win situation. We had to have help.
Knowing all of that, I’m sure you can imagine how thrilled he was to be there. Our first several visits consisted mostly of him denying we had any reason to be there in the first place and me sobbing in the fetal position. He raised his voice. I cried harder. Good times.
Through all of this, I was somehow able to communicate to the marriage counselor what my grievances were. The biggest one was that I had been betrayed. Never mind that it was 10 years prior. Never mind that he had done everything in his power during that 10 years to make up for it. Never mind that he had apologized no less than 1,000 times and proved over and over again how much he regretted it and that it would never happen again.
I was recently talking about this with someone who put it perfectly. I took very good care of that grudge. I nurtured it and watered it and held it and talked to it until it grew into this diabolical malignant tree whose roots invaded every aspect of both of our lives.
Why did I do that? I was a victim. It makes me sick to write that today, but that’s how I felt. I had been betrayed by the one person in this world I trusted the most. He was the criminal and I was the victim. That role suited me well for 10 years. In that role, I got to view him as a jerk who I could leave at any moment if I decided that’s what I wanted. In that role I got to keep one foot out the door. In that role I didn’t have to truly commit to real intimacy. In that role I was above criticism from him. How can the criminal dare to say anything even remotely critical to the gracious and wounded victim? When he did dare, I was sure to remind him and order was restored.
The marriage counselor was right there with me. She blamed him for everything. When he complained about that, I felt further justified in my own victim role. I was right. A professional said so! I accused him of not wanting to take responsibility for his actions. I was quite sanctimonious. While it was true that there were some things he was not ready to take responsibility for, this was not one of them.
The exact amount of time we spent with that marriage counselor is fuzzy. It was a time of such turmoil that the details aren’t clear. At some point I came to realize what hubby had known all along. She wasn’t the right counselor for us. We never had one session with her in which any progress was made. We yelled and fought and cried throughout each and every session and we certainly didn’t need to pay anyone else for that, we were good at it all on our own. We left feeling further apart every single time. While I always felt like I had someone on my side, it wasn’t helping our relationship.
It took the genius of our second marriage counselor to make me see that there were things I wasn’t taking responsibility for either. The big one was, of course, that grudge that I had been clinging to for so long and my status as victim. The act of betrayal itself was not my responsibility. That was all hubby’s and he knew it. What was my responsibility was letting go of the victim mentality and the resentment. We didn’t have a single chance at success without that. Once I finally learned that lesson, the rest of our issues were much easier to deal with and ditching my victim role felt like a 1000 pound weight was lifted off my shoulders.
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“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” — Arthur Conan Doyle
All I can think of to say is, “DUH.”. My sister read my last post about the only dream I’ve remembered in a long time. She nailed it. It took her all of 5 minutes. It’s so weird how we can sometimes see other people’s dilemmas so clearly but lack the same clarity in our own lives.
The last time I was in an art gallery was when I took my first solo trip over mother’s day weekend in 2008. I wanted something tangible and local to bring back home to remember my trip. I wanted a constant reminder of my new found liberation and the trip itself. I purchased a fairly large photo taken by a local photographer of the beach on which I stayed that weekend. It’s unbelievably beautiful and is prominently displayed in our living room.
I vowed to make it a mother’s day tradition and travel alone that weekend every year. Last year I wasn’t able to afford the trip. I am planning on going this year. I have the hotel covered but have not yet booked the flight or rental car. Provided that my level of income is the same or better than my last job, the expense of the trip will not be a financial burden. But I don’t yet know for certain what my level of income will be. Although I am 90% sure that I’m going, I have held off on finalizing the arrangements and some doubt remains.
Obviously my family’s financial well being is of utmost importance to me. But taking this trip is also important to me. And there you have it. The meaning of my dream. I am struggling because I am dying to go but am afraid to officially book it in case our financial situation deteriorates. My dream of purchasing a large painting but then being advised not to do so for financial reasons is my brain reminding me that while I may not be consciously thinking about all of this on a regular basis, it is a dilemma. In my dream I was leaning towards buying the painting, just as I am leaning towards booking the trip in reality. I woke up from my dream before making a final decision. Clearly I need to wake up and make a decision soon.
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“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.” — Neil Gaiman
I rarely remember my dreams, as in maybe once a year. I did remember one I had recently.
I was in an art gallery. I picked out a very large painting to hang in our family room. I don’t remember anything at all about the painting except that it was extremely large. For whatever reason I really wanted the painting. I was all set to buy it when someone stopped me. I’m not sure if this person worked at the gallery or was someone who had come with me. I don’t know who it was. It was a woman. She stopped me to point out that the painting was so large that it required a permit. She went on to remind me that if I did not obtain the proper permit I would not qualify for an FHA mortgage should I ever decide to refinance. I took her warnings into consideration and was leaning towards buying the painting without the permit anyway. Before I made a final decision I woke up.
As in most dreams this scenario is absurd. In reality no painting would require a permit or preclude me from obtaining a mortgage.
I am not currently in the market for any artwork and have not been in a gallery in almost two years. I’m not considering refinancing either.
The only part of the dream that seems to have any connection to reality is the consideration of mortgage lending guidelines but only because I’m a mortgage underwriter.
I know very little about dream interpretation and there is not much out there in the way of concrete research conclusions available to reference. I have a couple of dream interpretation books but they are vague and conflicting. I realize that most events in dreams are symbolic, not literal.
Left to my own limited to devices I concluded that the painting itself was not important. I didn’t even remember what it looked like. That left me with only the idea that there was something I wanted but was uncertain if I should buy it due to financial concerns. Or possibly even a more simpler interpretation could be that I am struggling with a decision.
I can’t think of any decision I am struggling with and there is nothing pressing that I am dying to purchase. I did, however, recently change jobs. Maybe I am just worried that I will end up regretting that decision? The mortgage industry is not exactly stable these days. Job security has been an almost constant concern for the past three years.
I have no idea if I’m anywhere near the right track. I did think it was worth thinking about though since I so rarely remember anything I dream about. Maybe this one was important. Or maybe there’s just a large painting in my future.
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