Mother / Daughter Intuition – Thyroid Issues

I recently had another Mother/Daughter intuition experience. I was at work one morning when I got a call from my daughter. She was on her way to have a Sonogram on her neck because of an enlarged thyroid and a goiter. This is an issue she’s been dealing with for several years. She had surgery about 2 1/2 years ago to have a portion of her thyroid removed. At that time they were able to save enough of it so that it could still function properly, and for about a year or so it did. Unfortunately, now it doesn’t, and it looks like they may have to go in again and remove the whole thyroid this time.

Anyway, back to the intuition part of the story. After she told me what she knew to that point and what she expected to happen, I hung up the phone and jotted a few notes for myself (I’m horrible at remembering details if I don’t write them down). I then headed down the hall to the restroom. That’s when I remembered the dream.

In my dream (just the night before) my daughter had experience a very extreme trauma around her neck (I’ll leave out the details in the interest of her privacy). In the dream I wasn’t terribly upset, which would seem very unusual considering the exteme nature of the trauma, but she was expected to recover fully.

After thinking about it, I now understand why I wasn’t terribly upset in the dream. It’s because I was being given a good message. The message was that, yes, there is something going on with my daughter’s neck (something I’ve known about for months and has been on my mind), but in the end she’s going to be fine. This was a reassurance premonition given to me from the “powers” that be…whatever you want to call them. And for this, I am grateful.

Make Money From Home…Not!

I recently stumbled upon an online ad that sent me back in time. It said, “Make Money Stuffing Envelopes.” You know where I saw it? CareerBuilder.com. Come on. You do realize this is a con, right? I mean, if you fall for this one, you deserve what you get.

I know. I fell for it when I was young and gullible. It was 20+ years ago, shortly after giving birth to my twin daughters at the ripe old age of 21. At that time I was determined to be a stay-at-home mom – at least until my girls started school.

The ad I fell for promised I could make $200-$300 a week stuffing envelopes. I was stoked! I filled out the order form, wrote out my $10.00 check and then excitedly checked the mail slot every day, anxious for my “kit” to arrive so that I could start pulling my financial weight at home.

When my package arrived, I was dismayed to find that it was nothing more than a poorly printed booklet containing lists of agencies and types of businesses I could contact who may need envelope stuffing and other clerical services. The other option that was suggested was that I could recreate the booklet and market it as my own. I read the booklet from cover to cover and briefly considered whether it really would be possible for me to build a business in that manner and decided…no. It wasn’t for me. I tossed the thing in the trash – lesson learned. Nine months later I was back in an office job.

The ad I saw on CareerBuilder.com last week claimed I could make $1,000 a week stuffing envelopes. Well, the pretend paycheck has gone up, as has the “initial investment” amount, but other than that, I’m sure things haven’t changed. Even if this were real, I can’t even imagine how many envelopes a person would have to stuff in order to earn $1,000 in a single week. It just doesn’t seem possible. There are so many obvious problems with that idea I can’t even justify listing them. It brings to mind the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza’s fiance dies from licking the envelope glue on their wedding invitations.

But you know what really chaps me? These ads are EVERYWHERE! Including legitimate employment sites. I did a search on Careerbuilder.com for “Work at Home” and got 160 pages of results! Beyond.com gave me 10 pages. Indeed.com…I don’t know how many…I stopped scrolling at 30.

While some of these jobs may be legitimate, I’m pretty sure they’re not the kinds of jobs you would feel good about having. For example, my search resulted in a slue of listings for “Call Center Agent.” I think there was one for every possible city/state combination. You know what that job is, right? It’s answering inbound calls and processing orders from those infomercials you see on tv. Glamorous!

There’s also a “Diet Gum Company” claiming you can make $1,500 per week processing orders at home. Even better – there’s a “Diet Company” that is going to pay you $6,000 a week for taking orders on your home computer. If these jobs were legitimate, first, instead of “Diet Gum Company” you’d see the real name of the company, and second, everyone would be working from home!

While the “Call Center Agent” job may be real, I have to ask this…Does anybody out there know anybody who has really made the money stated in those other ads?

These types of ads prey on people who have to make decisions like, “Do I go to the dentist to have my abscessed tooth pulled or do I feed my family?” They are desperate. If you’ve ever responded to one of these ads I’m guessing you didn’t do it because you were financially independent and just needed something to pass the time. You responded because you really needed the money and were fresh out of ideas for getting it any other way (legally).

I’m think I’m going to take some time and explore some of these listings over the next few weeks. I’ll report back on what I find.

Co-Worker Coincidence…or was it Intuition?

Several years ago I worked for a large insurance company. The Services department where I worked had an employee association, and every Christmas we would pick names for a gift exchange to be held at our company Christmas party. One particular year, we all had a good laugh when I and one of my co-workers (I’ll call her Donna) ended up with each other’s names. It was a pretty large group, so the odds of that happening were pretty slim. Everyone joked that we must have rigged it, but of course we hadn’t.

Although Donna and I often had lunch together, I really didn’t know her very well, so when it came time to shop for her, I had no idea what she would like. One evening, in desperation, I wandered up and down the shopping mall trying to come up with ideas. I didn’t want to give her a gag gift; I wanted it to be something she would like and could use. And of course I had a budget of $10, which made it more of a challenge.

I ended up at a kiosk that sold some really interesting earrings and necklaces made from seashells with gold leaf around the edges. I poked around for a bit and eventually settled on a pair of earrings that I liked and thought Donna would as well. Finally, I was done! I was happy with my purchase (and also a bit relieved)!

On the day of the Christmas party, all gifts were distributed at once so we could open them at the same time. I was apparently faster than Donna, and when I saw what she had gotten me, I gasped! I couldn’t believe it! Donna stopped what she was doing and asked me what was wrong. Didn’t I like my gift? “Yes!,” I said, “open yours!”

She opened the gift I had gotten her and burst out laughing! Not only had we chosen earrings from the same kiosk, we had also picked out the same type of shell for those earrings!

After comparing notes, we figured out that she had shopped first. Was it coincidence?…or had I picked something up from the vibration she left behind?

Mother / Daughter Intuition – The Pregnancy

I have a very vivid memory from about three and a half years ago. One morning – it was a Saturday in October – I woke up, sat straight up in bed, and said to myself, “Oh, my God! I’m going to get the call. And it will be from *Daughter A*!” I was stunned for a few minutes, but then brushed it off as just a weird dream.

About a month later – two days after my birthday – I got the call. I was going to be a grandmother for the first time. My daughter was one month pregnant. No, she wasn’t going to marry the father of the baby, as a matter of fact, as soon as he got the news, he was out the door! But she had decided to keep the baby. She had been worried at first, but now felt she was up to the challenge of doing this on her own. She had not told me when she called me on my birthday because she “didn’t want to do that to me.”

Wow. Even though I had already been *given* the information, I obviously hadn’t believed it. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

It’s really kind of creepy when you think about it. I mean, I *knew* my daughter was pregnant right about the same time it happened! Was I there? Yuk! That’s not something I want in my head!

Regardless of the how or the why of this phenomenon, I remained plugged in to my daughter’s vibration throughout her pregnancy.

When she was about five months along I was planning a trip to New Orleans with a bunch of friends. Even though I was determined to go, there was something in the back of my mind telling me that something wasn’t right. Though the pregnancy hadn’t gone smoothly so far, my daughter had been holding her own. But something was still worrying me. Still not believing my own intuition, I wrote it off to pre-travel nerves and went ahead with my trip.

On about the second day of the trip I got a phone call from my daughter. She had been having contractions and was in the hospital. She was waiting for the doctor to return to let her know if she could go home or whether they would admit her for the night. We played phone tag for most of the night as nurses were in and out of her room, each giving her only partial details. They had to wait for the doctor. Several hours later they sent her home.

The same thing happened that July 4th weekend. I was planning a weekend getaway with friends. This time it was close enough to my daughter’s due date that I decided to pass on the trip and stay by the phone. Once again, my daughter called to let me know she had been experiencing contractions. Once again they did not admit her. They gave her medication to stop the contractions and sent her home.

So…what to make of this? The thing I find really interesting about this is that I was not plugged in at all to either my daughter’s second pregnancy, which ended in miscarriage, or her third pregnancy, which resulted in a healthy baby boy. Each pregnancy was considered high risk by her doctors, but the only one I zoned in on was the first.

Twin Thoughts

I’m currently reading a mystery novel about a family whose 3-year-old twin girls are kidnapped. One twin is returned by the kidnappers, but they keep the other one, and the mother of the twins eventually figures out that the twins are communicating with each other via what they call “twin speak,” which, in this book is a combination of spoken word and telepathic messages. Unfortunatley, everyone else in the book thinks she’s crazy, so she’s got to work this out on her own…that’s all I know…I’m only about half way through the book.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know this, I have twin daughters. They are 26 years old. They live several states away from me, so I don’t get to see them very often. One daughter – I’ll call her “Mommy Twin” – has two children; a 3-year-old girl (baby girl) and a 5-month-old boy (baby boy). Her sister, “Career Twin,” has no children; she’s married to her job. They all shared an apartment for a number of years until Career Twin’s job transferred her to a city about two hours away.

I called Mommy Twin the other night to find that Career Twin was visiting for a few days. Mommy Twin said she was cooking sloppy joe’s for Career Twin because Career Twin never cooks, so she wanted to make her something she hasn’t had in awhile. I said, that’s funny, Career Twin asked me for my Stromboli recipe last week, so I emailed it to her.

“Oh, my gosh”, Mommy Twin said, “I’ve been thinking about that, too! (stromboli) We’ve been doing that a lot lately (thinking the same thing).”

Mommy Twin went on to tell me that on a recent shopping trip she had picked out a cute shirt for Baby Girl, but Baby Girl would have nothing to do with it, so Mommy Twin put it back and let Baby Girl pick out something else. Mommy Twin also tried on a pair of shoes for herself, but in the end decided to hold off on purchasing them until she had more free cash.

So, Career Twin shows up for the weekend, and what does she present to Baby Girl? The shirt Mommy Twin had put back because Baby Girl had refused it!

Not only that, but Career Twin showed up wearing the same shoes Mommy Twin had tried on but decided not to buy! Remember, my girls now live two hours apart. And they had not spoken about their shopping adventures prior to Career Twin’s visit. These events occurred completely separately, with no discussion between them.

This is funny because, while Career Twin’s move was a good experience for her and gave both her and Mommy Twin some much needed space, Career Twin has spent almost every day off since her move visiting with Mommy Twin and the kids. She’s even started looking for a job back in the same town.

So clearly they’re plugged in to one another a little more than usual right now, but that leads me to ponder the idea that twins can someone communicate…telepathically? I do believe in that sort of thing, but I wonder…is it more common in twins than in other types of siblings? What about between mother and child? (I had some very distinct “knowings” around my Mommy Twin’s first pregnancy that I’ll reveal in another posting.)

And what about friends and acquaintances? I had an experience similar to the one I just described about 20 years ago with a co-worker. (Also another post.)

Some would say this kind of stuff is creepy…or even evil. I say it’s way cool! What do you think?

Dream: Taking Care of Myself

I have a two story home where the back yard or possibly back rooms in the upstairs portion of the house are somehow not visible from the outside or just not places I use very often, so I’m not always aware of them. The back yard is somehow on the second story level, and there is a large tree there.

I have been away for a period of time…days or weeks, I’m not sure. When I return I find that a family has moved in to the house. The vision I have of them is that they are sitting under the large tree in the back yard, but somehow I know they’ve been in the house. They have somehow let themselves in even though the house has been locked.

At first they try to hide from me, thinking I won’t notice because the area is not highly visible, but I do know they are there, even before I actually see them.

This family consists of a woman who is sometimes white with long black hair and sometimes black with long hair and her two children; a white girl with pageboy length dirty blond hair and a black boy. Both children are around 10 years old.

When the woman realizes I have discovered them, she approaches me and tries to convince me to let her stay. She has, after all, been moved in and living there for quite some time.

I am livid! I shout my anger at the woman. I can not believe this woman actually thought it was okay to move into someone’s house unannounced. And the house has been locked. How did she manage to get in? Who does she think she is, anyway?

She offers to pay me rent – has even written out a check already and is trying to hand it to me. I repeat my issues with the woman being there in the first place. Who would do that and think it was okay?

I finally tell the woman that she is going to have to leave. This is not her house, it is mine. And she may be in a bad situation, but I cannot be responsible for her. She should have family of her own to help her out. I can’t be responsible for her because I have to focus on taking care of myself. I can’t be put out by her problems. I have problems of my own.

FIRST THOUGHTS:

My initial thought on this dream is that I’m in a stage of my life where I know I must give more focus to taking care of me and spend less time worrying about what others are doing. I’ve come a very long way in the past few years, but I still have a long way to go, and there are LOTS of things right in front of me that could potentially derail my progress if I let myself get caught up in them.

I truly believe we create our worlds and we can do whatever we set our minds to…if we believe. I also know that when we lose focus of our wants and desires, we can feel sidetracked. This can lead to feelings of anger, guilt and general unhappiness. Been there, done that.

But I also believe that we experience everything we do for a reason. And so when we do get sidetracked it is because from that experience we will receive something that will serve us on our own path. So in the end, taking care of oneself requires that we not exclude the wants and desires of others, but embrace them. Play with them, but listen to our heart about how deeply to become invested in them. And when we do find ourselves temporarily diverted, we should take some time to be quiet…and consider why we might have chosen to go there.

Incense and Magic and Witches – Oh, my!

I had an interesting (and slightly weird) day today. Let me start by pointing out that the Law of Attraction tells us that the Universe brings to us that which we are a vibrational match to.

For the benefit of this article, I will translate that into an explanation of why it sometimes seems that when you start thinking about something new you will suddenly begin to notice lots of little things that you never saw or heard before even though those little things have probably been there all along. But now that you’re thinking about this new thing, they are right in front of you, very clear and very obvious (to you). Case in point: I am suddenly noticing references to witches and magic, and information related to same is appearing in front of me as if by…(I have to say it)…magic!

Here’s how this idea started for me today. First, I’ve been thinking about Sage for awhile now. About a year ago I watched a “healer” at a metaphysical fair perform a ritual on someone using smoke from a bundle of dried sage. At the time I didn’t understand the purpose of the ritual, but it was something curious and slightly interesting to me, so I made a mental note to myself to learn more about it at some point.

For reasons I cannot explain, “some point” appears to be now. So this morning I find myself searching online for information about the ritual. According to the website I found, sage can be used for “personal cleansing when your energy is low, you feel depressed and out of sorts, or if you have been around negative people in a negative situation.” It also goes on to say that you can use it before bed to clean away the physical and emotional grime and stress of the day.

For those who are not familiar, you don’t actually wash with it. What you do is light a bundle of dried sage, blow out the flames and use the smoke to “sweep away” all that negative energy you’ve been collecting throughout the day. Why this ritual sounds fascinating to me, I cannot tell you. But it does. I also remembered that I kind of liked the smell of the burning sage when I saw it used at the metaphysical fair, so I decided I would try it. (In case you’re curious, the smell of the smoke reminds me a bit of a certain smokable herb…but we won’t go there in this blog.)

So…I eventually head out to Cosmic Connections, my favorite little metaphysical store here in Nashville, with the intention of purchasing some sage. As I browse, I am sidetracked by a clearance shelf full of various types of incense. There is a particular brand I find interesting. It is called “Feng Shui Incense.” It comes in several blends, named things like “Journey,” “Health,” “Recognition” and “Love.” I read the label for each blend and am excited about each of them…except the “Love” blend. As much as I would like to experience an incense designed to open my “Chi” for Love, I’m just not a fan of Patchouli, which is an ingredient in this blend. But…I do pick out one tube of each of the other blends and a very cool looking incense smoker.

Having said that, I feel I must now say that, typically, when I walk into a store that sells incense I am not drawn to purchase it. These types of stores tend to have a smell about them that I find less than appealing. (maybe it’s the Patchouli?) I will very often experience headaches that will only subside once I leave the building. So why I was drawn to purchase incense to burn in my home is a mystery to me.

Finally, after speaking with the storeowner about the various Sage options available, I select a bundle to use in my yoga/meditation room (I call it that, but it’s really just an empty bedroom I haven’t done anything with yet). I leave the store feeling very happy and content with my purchases and anxious to experiment with my new “toys.”

Later that day I have a conversation with someone I’ve met only recently. He asks me about my day. I tell him I went to Cosmic Connections. He’s not familiar with the store. I explain that it is a metaphysical store. He asks if I am into that stuff. (Um…no…I just like the purple sign out front so every once in awhile I stop in to visit it.) He says he’s fine with that sort of thing as long as something doesn’t come crawling out of my eyeballs while we’re together. I laugh it off, saying that no, I’m not into *those* sorts of things. (That call ended badly.)

Shortly after dinner I decide it is “time.” I don’t want to do the Sage thing tonight, but I’d like to try some incense. I dig out my little bag of goodies and re-read the labels on the three tubes. I decide “Recognition” will be my scent of the night. The label indicates it supports “harmonious Chi (energy) in the fame section of your home.” I’m not sure where the “fame” section of my home would be, but I decide the living room will have to do, as I am also looking forward to watching a movie. This blend includes the ingredients “MYRRH~success, dissolves disturbing influences” (I’ve had lots of those lately, so this sounds good to me); it also includes “COSTUS~harmonizing; CASSIA~good luck, relaxing; SANDALWOOD~protection guidance.” Sounds good. I light a stick and put it in my new incense smoker.

Next I grab the last of the three videos I checked out of the library a few days ago. It’s an oldie called “Bell, Book and Candle,” starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. I’ve forgotten the story line, so I re-read the back of the box. It’s about a witch (Novak) who finds herself intrigued by her upstairs neighbor (Stewart). On the eve of his wedding (the same night she meets him) she casts a spell over him, causing him to ditch his fiance and fall in love with her. Hmmm…Interesting choice.

I begin watching the movie and I’m suddenly consumed with the urge to write something for my blog. (Has the incense influenced this desire?) But it’s such a nice night…first I want to drive somewhere. (I know none of this makes sense. That’s my point.)

Where should I go? There’s a little liquor store down the street. Maybe something…different. There’s a Chai liqueor that I really like, so I grab my keys and head out the door. I get in the car and flip on the radio. About half way to the liquor store I realize I’m singing along to “Black Magic Woman.” Wait, what?

So what does all this mean? Am I destined to find myself bent over a cauldron stirring a steaming mixture of bat’s blood and dragon cuticles anytime soon? Not likely. But I believe this is a pretty good example of how Law of Attraction works. Granted, in this example a random thought process yielded irratic results. But it also raises the question, (to me, at least) of what I could manifest for myself if I were to really focus…

Adventures in Online Dating…What the @$#%!

Not much going on this weekend. I’ll be honest…I was hoping to have plans for a date with…someone…at some point this weekend, but it appears that isn’t going to happen.

I’m trying to understand this. I’ve tried to be very direct about what I’m looking for, but I can’t seem to hold anyone’s interest long enough to actually get to meet them. I seem to get lots of initial interest, and sometimes we’ll get to a phone call, but then they say “I’ll call you again”…and they don’t. I’m not sure why it happens, but it happens consistently. It’s very frustrating.

I even had one guy call me, then the cell carrier dropped the line in the middle of our conversation. I tried to call him back but he was still out of range, I guess. So I sent him an email telling him we must have gotten cut off and asking him to call again when he could. I never heard from him again. He just disappeared…mid-sentence.

I have to wonder if there’s something I’m doing wrong…or not doing…that might be getting in the way of my goals. I’m just trying to meet some quality people, and hopefully in time one of them would be a good fit for a long term relationship.

The thing is, I am happy with my life. I enjoy my friends, have lots of interests, keep myself very busy…I’d like to share that with someone. But every time I put myself out there I end up feeling really bad about myself. Like there must be something wrong with me if no one can stay interested long enough to get to know me.

I dunno. I’m thinking I should give up on my idea that I’ll find someone who actually wants to date me. Apparently I’m supposed to be focusing my energies elsewhere at this time in my life. The problem is, “this time of my life” has been going on for a long time. I’m ready for a change.

I’m guess I’m a little negative tonight…I just got stood up.

Dream: Playing Dress Up (I’m a Fraud)

9/4/07 Dream Journal: Eric Forman – That 70’s Show

There was a car accident where a young man was injured. It looked like a race car…white…or was it just a souped up street car? He was driving and it crashed. He lost a leg. I’m sitting on the landing of an outdoor staircase, watching as the accident happens and then he is brought to the stairway by someone and left there. Time has passed since the accident (dream magic) and his physical injuries have healed. He is still minus one leg and is having to learn how to get around on his own.

So he’s lying back on the stairs…like if you were to sit on a set of stairs and then lie back. And he begins to make his way toward me by putting his hands on the step just behind him and pulling himself up, making his way backward up the stairs. Apparently this is how he will have to get around for the rest of his life. He is not able to stand upright. He will forever have to navigate the world from this position. He is not even able to sit. He either can’t use his remaining leg to push himself or he is afraid to because he is doing all the work with his arms.

I feel bad for him, but know I cannot offer help because he needs to understand his limitations and learn how to live with them. I also have limitations. I also cannot walk upright (I don’t know why), but I can sit, and I have made my way from the bottom of the stairs to the landing on my own. I also have – and use – both my legs to help me move around.

I wait on the landing for him and when he gets there I speak with him briefly. It is mostly just positive message small talk, because I feel that is what he needs. I stay where I am as he continues around and up the remaining steps to the landing above, still one stair tread at a time on his behind, scooting backwards.

The building where we are is like a motel with an open air outdoor walkway and doors to individual rooms evenly spaced along the walkway. The young man has now disappeared through a doorway at the top of the stairs. I begin to speak with someone else who has magically appeared and is standing next to me on the landing. I don’t know the topic of conversation, but I feel a sense of satisfaction that I was able to impart some positive energy on a poor lost soul.

All at once I see at the top of the stairs that the door to the young man’s room has opened and the end of a rifle is peeking out from the darkness beyond…very low to the floow. Five shots are fired in my direction. I take off down the stairs seeking shelter (still on my back, doing some sort of spider walk).

I am suddenly afraid of this young man, and very confused. How could he suddenty become so violent toward me? Even though he is clearly not very mobile, I feel I need to find better cover.

I am now on the ground floor…street level. I make my way across the parking lot in front, staying close to the building and now am heading up a hill on one end of the building which will allow me access to the second floor without using stairs. I see a deck area where people have gathered for a cookout, and I head in that direction. I come in quietly from the back side of the deck so as not to cause too much commotion – I don’t want the young man to know I’m here.

I want to speak with the people on the deck to let them know I am in danger…maybe they can protect me…or maybe I want to warn them…I don’t remember. As I am speaking with them we move inside the room they are staying in. They are all sitting around a dining room table. I am now on the floor next to the person sitting at the head of the table, that person (and the table) are between me and the motel room door. I can see the doorway through a sea of chair, table and people legs. I am speaking with the person at the head of the table, explaining that there is danger out there and we must be careful and quiet to remain safe.

All at once I see him…he is on a dolly…like the kind an auto mechanic would use to roll underneath a car. Someone is pushing him forward along the outdoor walkway. He is holding his rifle at the ready, his head cocked slightly and eyes focused on the walkway in front of him, searching for his prey. I hold my breath, hoping he will not see me in my hiding place behind the table. He rolls on past the doorway and is gone.

I wake up.

FIRST THOUGHTS:

After “What the @$#%!” I thought, “Hey! That was Eric Foreman from That 70’s Show. Why was he in my dream?” Then I remembered I had watched a couple episodes of the show right before bed that night.

But why did I pull him in, and not one of the other characters? My guess is that I identify with him just a little because out of all the characters in that show, he seems to me to be the only one who doesn’t think he has everything worked out. He’s always a little behind…a little confused. Everyone else seems to have all the answers – at least most of the time.

But what is the underlying message here? Am I angry with myself for not being compassionate enough toward…me? Do I feel the compassion I have for others is not sincere? Am I tired of allowing myself to get in my own way? Am I scared shitless that if I stretch my wings too far I will be found out…I will be outed as a fraud?

This brings to mind a quote I received in my email not too long ago:

“Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time Ithink, ‘Uh, oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.'”- Maya Angelou
I sent this to a friend of mine and she responded:

“It’s incredible no matter how old we are the child in us thinks ‘they’ will find out we’re just playing dress up. I’m always amazed at how those people we see as strong and successful struggle with self doubt too.”

I might be onto something here…

Dream: Lack of Voice / Lack of Control / Guilt

8/26/07 Dream Journal:

In the first part of the dream I am moving into an apartment that has lots of closets that are full of lots of other peoples’ stuff…to the degree that the other person I am moving in with…maybe a child, because there is a closet in the hallway full of kids clothes that I’m thinking should be in the closet inside the bedroom…where it belongs…but someone else’s stuff is in the bedroom closet. There are other people with me…not sure if they’re helping me or just there. Then something changed in the middle of the scene…so quickly it almost just felt like a change of my thought pattern…so that now I know I am going to be living there alone. I clearly don’t need all that room and all those closets; the stuff in the closets belongs to those other people who are with me anyway, and so they just need to find other places to store their stuff…it shouldn’t be in my place anyway. But then, if it were gone, the place would be way too big for me. So I began wondering to myself if I should, in fact, be looking for another place to live that would be more suitable to my needs, but the other people didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with the picture. They assumed I would just continue to move into this place regardless of the change of situation (which they somehow knew about even though it happened so quickly and none of us spoke of it).

There is also a scene I keep going back to, which is a bare mattress with all sorts of little silver jewelry findings scattered on the end of it, inside and outside of a clear plastic beading organizer box. Every so often throughout this segment of the dream I would find myself at the end of that bed sorting through the mess, trying to pick up these particular findings with prongs and get them sorted into the organizer…but it was a very slow process…I could only get around to picking up a few of them each time I was there.

In the next scene, I’m with my boyfriend and he is cooking something really good…it’s like some sort of organic, healthy pasta and it’s really good. He has given me a bowl of it and I’m eating some of it while he continues what he’s doing in the kitchen. Then he finishes and comes over to the table to eat…apparently I was supposed to eat some out of the bowl and leave some for him…but I’ve eaten most of it and now there is only a little left for him. He looks at the bowl in disbelief…I feel horrible that I’ve eaten so much without consideration for him. I begin apologizing, saying that I don’t believe I ate that much without realizing what I was doing…it was just so good…and I must have been really hungry. He continues to just stand there and look at the bowl…he says, “No, you weren’t.” I continue apologizing, feeling so helplessly guilty, knowing somehow that he is not going to forgive me for this, and so how can I forgive myself? I have done a terrible thing. He continues to stand there, staring, helplessly. It’s like he thinks that’s all the food there is in the world…there are no other options for him. Because I ate most of his portion he will go hungry. I know that isn’t true and I wonder why we can’t get past this. Why can’t we make more or make something else…but he won’t let go of the idea that half the food in the bowl should have been his. He will not entertain any other options for satisfying his hunger. He will not consider eating the portion I have left him. It is not good enough. He is determined to continue to be angry…and more importantly…hurt…over this.

At one point I say again that I don’t believe I ate that much…that I must have needed it…he responds something like…”No, you didn’t need it. You absolutely have control over what you eat. You could easily get your weight down to where you were only 10 pounds away from your intended weight.”

Next, I’m standing in front of him. He is now sitting in the chair at the table, so he is positioned almost even with my fist, which I am clenching and releasing…clenching and releasing. I am so angry I could spit…and though it would be easy, I am determined not to cry. I am visualizing what it would feel like…physically and emotionally…if I were to let my fist make contact with his face. How dare he! I am watching myself from behind now…watching my fist clench and release…clench and release…finally I say to him, “You have no idea how badly I’d like to punch you in the face right now.”

I leave the room he is in…angry, and determined to get back to whatever it was I was doing before this…as I leave the dining room I close a door behind me. Now I’m walking down a long hallway that is all brown with dark paneling and doors on both sides along the way. I’m heading toward a door at the end of the hallway where I know I will return to the scene where I have been moving into the apartment. As soon as I pass through that door I turn around and go back to the room where he is and try once again to apologize for eating his dinner. Nothing has changed with him…he is still hurt and unforgiving. I am no longer angry with him for his comment about my weight. I only feel guilt for having deprived him from enjoying the food he had prepared. I give up and head back through the hallway toward my “moving in” project, but when I pass through the door at the end of the hallway I am again in the the dining room where he is…I must have so consumed with guilt that I turned around in the hallway without conscious decision. I immediately turn leave the dining room again and this time, when I pass through the door at the end of the hallway I am back in my “apartment.”