in dreams

Normally, my dreams are incredibly boring. I dream about things like putting away laundry, waiting in line at the bank and going to the grocery store. It's embarrassing. Last night, though, I had two exciting ones! In the first, I was traveling to California through what looked like Moab, Utah. I'm not a particularly adventurous person nowadays, and I'm physically disabled, but in the dream, it was like I was my Former Self. I was trail running and sliding down these big hills and climbing--I woke up wishing I could do those things again. Maybe I can, if I modify them somehow? Anyway, there was a sense of urgency about the journey, but I don't really know why. When I got to California, I checked into a fancy hotel, but then the dream shifted so I don't know what was happening there.

In the other dream, I was part of the Harry Potter cast (which makes sense, because Jeffrey and I have been re-reading those books together and watched the first movie again after finishing the first book). We were having a set teardown party, but it was at a gigantic shopping mall. I was saying tearful goodbyes to everybody, but I was supposed to get on the bus to get to the airport. The bus left without me, so I chased down another one on foot and jumped onto it, clinging to some post or something, begging the driver to take a detour. She did, and I raced through the airport, Home Alone-style, to find the person I was traveling with. We met up and boarded the plane. The interesting thing here is that the airport I was flying into was Chicago Midway, and that was "home." I think my unconscious is putting homesickness into overdrive now that I've reinstated my Illinois teaching license.

I think part of the message my unconscious is really trying to send, though, is a sense of freedom. I'm breaking up with medical science, which is allowing me to shift how I take care of my body to something more intuitive and less pathologized. I've gotten my license back, which means I'm very close to getting out of a job I hate. I'm also doing a lot of work on a personal level to remove barriers that I erected myself (for good reason, but they're no longer needed). Yesterday, I did a three-card tarot spread to get myself thinking about the paths I might take. I won't go over the two I did not choose--suffice to say they were grim trudges, much like what I've been slogging away on for the last, oh, 17 years. The third path, the one that made me feel hopeful and probably gave my brain permission to dream about things like travel and adventuring and trail running, was the Page of Pentacles. Here is Rachael Anne Jolie's piece on the Page of Pentacles from her Comrade Femme Tarot series.

I've always wanted a tattoo that said "MANIFEST." Maybe now is the time? It's been difficult to accept that one of the biggest obstacles to living my best life, as the internet says, has been me or, more specifically, my fears. That's understandable, given Reasons, but it's time to face those. A very nice palmist once told me that my cane was a crutch from the past, and that I needed to stop leaning on it. She understood that I needed it sometimes because I do actually have a Disorder. However, she was absolutely right that I have leaned heavily on the notion of being sick, broken, too different to fit in--it's made me feel like a frail outsider, unwelcome everywhere I go. Fear of being torn down, of rejection and of failure has made me unwilling to try, gesturing vaguely at my various disabilities and differences as justification for remaining on the margins when that isn't 100% my situation. It's true that it's probably a bad idea for me to go trail racing through Canyonlands in midsummer. But that doesn't mean everything I long to try is a bad idea. It's time to get out there again, but to consider this time not what everyone else might want or expect, but what I want and need, and to trust that if I get out there in good faith and reach out, friends will be there, not just harpies and vultures waiting for me to fall. 

QotD

questionoftheday asks: Have you ever met anybody important to you (a friend/significant other/etc.) online? How did you meet and are you still close with them? Have you ever met face-to-face?

My answer: No! I'm generally very shy on the internet and hardly ever even "speak" to anyone, let alone meet them in person. The closest experience I have to that is rabbit_paladin, whom I met once, almost 18 years ago, and have kept up with in the ether ever since. I'm trying to be more outgoing online at least, though, so maybe one day!