The meaning of things

I have recurring dreams.

Not the same dream over and over, but dreams with a solid recurring theme.

A few times a month I have a dream where I am going about my day in a very ordinary fashion when across the room, outside the revolving door, or through a window I see someone who played a significant role in my past.

It's very cinematic.  I see them, I look away, I double take.  They mouth "sorry" to me with an expression of regret and then it's over.  The dream that is.  Or at least that's the last bit I usually remember.

I don't really understand it.  This person, to the best of my knowledge, is very much alive.  They really don't need to apologize to me, or maybe they do?  Or maybe I owe them the apology?   I don't know.  Is it a closure issue?  Maybe, but I thought I had that.  Unanswerable.

I also dream about the flower shop where I used to work.  I have not been back in there since I quit nine months ago.  My lack of patronage is not for any specific reason but due to the dreams I am starting to wonder if I don't have closure there for some unknown reason.  It's all very speculative.

It's dark outside.  I hate this time of year.  The minute the sun sets my mood shifts.  I know that many others are affected the same way, but still.  No matter how much caffeine I have poured into my system I shut down every day at 5 p.m.  But then, come bedtime I don't sleep well, and maybe that is why my dreams are so broken.  And cryptic. 

It's all a learning process.  Thank God for psychotherapy.

A Lifetime Ago

Yesterday I returned to my Alma Mater with my husband and two daughters.  It seems a lifetime has passed since I roamed the grounds at Central Michigan University.  It's surreal that I even lived there for three years, it's as if I watched it all on TV and it was all the adventures of someone else.

Much is the same about CMU.  Yes, there are a few new stores, and yes there is a Starbucks.  I sniffed it out :)  But many of the old familiar haunts are no longer there, starting with the two apartment buildings I inhabited. 

When I returned to college in January 1994 I lived in an on-campus apartment.  I was free of the dorms but I was still on-campus.  So my rent came out of my financial aid, all other utilities were included and I could walk to class if my car took a crap.  The first of those two apartments was torn down after I lived in it (ha ha, shut up) to make room for a new music building.  The second apartment I lived in for two years, and it has since been removed to make room for a library expansion.  It's hard to point to a parking lot and explain to your 10 and six-year-old daughters "that's where Mommy lived".

We also drove by Robinson Hall where I spent the Fall of 1992 missing my boyfriend and working hard on that 1.29 grade point average. "I want to see where you slept,"  Jayden said.  Well honey, I'm thinking the teenage girl or boy who now lives in that room won't appreciate me showing up with my grouchy husband and two kids to take a look around the 12 X 12 space.  So no, wave to the building we're moving on...

Sundays were always quiet in Mt. Pleasant.  The campus is a hungover ghost town and not much is going on.  We were there for the CMU Girls Soccer game, and our girls, along with their teammates got to spend half time on a college soccer field.  They loved it.  I loved it.  The air was crisp, the sun intermittent, and I found myself hoping that one of my girls follows her Mom and becomes a Chippewa herself.  Hopefully one with a scholarship.  It was a new feeling for me, the pride of passing on a legacy to my kids.  And joy for sharing my pre-them life with them.  Of course I didn't point out the store where I bought the 3 for $5 forties, or the bar where I got smashed on my 22nd birthday and how I may not have been their Mom if I hadn't found a different ride home that night.  But I did show them Moore Hall, my second home at college.  It's a good thing that building can't talk, and I did show them where their Dad would take me to dinner when he would come to visit. 

Then as we contemplated having Pixie for dinner, or perhaps Taco Boy, my girls fell asleep in the back seat of the car and we decided to head on home.  Someday they will understand it more, and someday I will own it more and realize that all those good times were mine.

21 weeks and 4 days... the bonbon eating ends.

Tomorrow morning at 9 am I will once again be officially employed. With a job. That I leave the house and go to on a regular basis.

Tomorrow I start my job at a local family-owned greenhouse/garden center. I'm the "versatile" girl. The one who has greenhouse experience, cash register experience, and the one who ain't looking for Groundhog Day. I want variety, and a lot of it.

I was basically hired on the spot today. Had I not been dressed up I could have started working right then and there. Thank goodness for small favors. Not that I'm not eager to get to work, I just need some time to process the change. So I spent the afternoon looking for more freelance writing jobs, because I obviously don't think I'll be busy enough.

My first freelance writing assignment is due on Wednesday. If all goes well I will post a link to the article once it's published. I'm also going to keep doing freelance data entry for another company because I feel three jobs sounds about right.

It should also be noted that my birthday is two weeks from tomorrow. Two more weeks and my year of crazy is officially over.

Time Suck

I have a friend who the other day referred to blogging as her time suck. She meant it in the best way, and it got me to thinking... if my dream is to be a writer shouldn't blogging and other forms of writing be my time suck too? What if I actually did as many have suggested and blocked out a certain number of hours a day to write? Seriously if you have a job that you go to aren't you required to log so many hours a day anyway? So even if you work in the comfort of your own home (and are technically still looking for outside employment to pay the bills) shouldn't you allot so much time for this "job" of yours? Yes, you should. Or rather, I should.

I have started a book and I am so excited about it. But if I don't allow it to suck some of my time it will never come to fruition and be found on the 3 for 2 shelf at Borders. It's basically written in my head, but until someone invents a brain portal allowing me to download my thoughts (in an organized fashion of course) on to someones computer then they aren't going to be able to read my book. I imagine this concept is similar to the one we had as students where we thought if we slept on our History textbook we would absorb the information through osmosis. Yeah, that never worked either.

Starting tomorrow I am committing myself to a writing schedule, or a time suck, which sounds much more like something I would actually do than a schedule. Schedule equals Groundhog day and I quit my job to get out of that cycle. Waking up every day to "I got you babe" is hell, and the what if that got me in this position will be very disappointed if I have to return to that anytime soon. So send me some time suck good luck and hopefully I actually write and don't spend it all on facebook.