Dream (When You're Feeling Blue)

For the last 6 months or so I've been dreaming of running away.

Maybe it's loneliness. Living life essentially on your own at 32 is sad. Often I've heard people say there are those surround by people everyday and yet are so alone. Until I aged and began taking on the "adult" things in life (bills, mortgage, full-time job), it's hard to understand what they mean. Once there you look around you and realize there are many people in the world, but few, if any who are our "rock", our confidante, our salvation from the world, the ones who keep us from that glorious padded room with the cool white jackets. The more you take on yourself, that you deal with by yourself the more you realize how alone you really are.

Maybe it's just not being "equipt" - genetically, emotionally or physically - to deal with the stress or all the pressure that comes with being an adult. My father said to my mother one night months ago that he didn't think I could deal with owning a house. I vacilate between thinking I am tough, resiliant, rational and absorb alot of emotions and "things" that would wreck other people and thinking I'm a totally delicate basketcase. Perhaps my view of me, is so totally different from the reality. Could it be that I am really a person who has no business ever being thrown anything because I can't handle it? Do I need to be coddled and kid gloved? Could the old adage about God not giving us anything he doesn't think we can handle would be WAY off base with me? (I personally like Mother Teresa's version.)

Maybe it's because the person I've become is far from where I feel I should be - like the "real" me and the me I am keep drifting further and further apart. Think of a very calm water and two pieces of driftwood. Slowly, surely they drift apart and despite still seeing "me" in the distance, I can't quite reach and keep "me" from drifting away. I watched the end of The Blue Lagoon the other night. The frantic-ness with which the boy tried to reach the drifting paddle (in the super calm water with the circling shark) and then the calm resigning they did to losing it and just being adrift was reassuring. Perhaps we eventually stop lamenting what was lost and are just content to drift and be what we are. (Of course, shortly after this they opted for the berries because what they were would eventually kill them anyway, but another point for another time maybe.)

Maybe it's that I'm sick again with a virus, ear congestion and sinuses holding onto everything inside of them for dear life. This makes the third virus since December. Each one has a lovely intermission of a sinus infection and the last time, sinus AND yeast. Aren't you happy you stopped by to see what I was up to today? :) :)

Maybe it's the feeling of giving everything and receiving nothing but the request to give more. The kids require alot of love, attention and are needy in so many ways. The 60 of them we are seeing daily gives you little time to "recharge" before the next one. The end of the day is draining and the "recharging" isn't happening in the face of laundry, cleaning around the house, the mail piling up. Even the little pick-me-up I've had lately - the glimmer of hope for a break in the current "climate" - the little Crocus sprouting up by our mailbox has become withered and trampled upon since it's initial sprouting. The money keeps rolling out and EVERYONE and their mother keep asking for it. The rolling in is less eventful and less frequent, I guess that's why I wonder constantly why I haven't gone bankrupt yet and where I got all the smoke and mirrors.

But the dream of running away. The carefree, lightness of it all. Somehow in our dreams there are no bills, no commitments, no "have-to-do"s. It is grocery shopping in 70 degree weather at outdoor markets just for food for the day. Light cotton dresses with perfect hair (no pun intended, but the new cut and color are growing on me). Friendly, unintruding faces who offer up a nice hello, ask about your life and continue on their way. Totally happiness in the woman - who she is, where she is, what she is...with no stress, no longing, no desire. Aha. The dream that keeps you going when you are feeling blue. May yours be vibrant and plenitful and most of all, present.

Song by Frank Sinatra