not going to write about my dreams

much, anyway.

Because one of the great things about having a husband was that I always had a captive audience to tell about my weirdest dreams the next day. Not that I don't realize that hearing about another person's dreams is boring and a pointless waste of time, which is why you have to pay a psychologist all that money to sit and listen to your boring and pointless dreams. Also not that I don't realize that my take on what a psychologist does is probably, oh, a hundred years out of date.

But I do love my dreams, and now have no one even mildly invested in nodding and pretending to listen. That's where the practice of blogging really shines, my friends, when you have something to talk about that no one really wants to hear about. 

So the other night I had a dream that I woke up in a grocery shopping cart, with the girls nestled beside me. As I slowly came to consciousness (in my dream while sleeping, so confusing), I realized that I must have gotten sleepy while shopping and just climbed into the cart. I was in the Jewel I always shop at (the one where I cried in front of the pharmacist), so knew that they must have recognized me and decided that it was OK if I just spent the night curled up in a cart with my kids. When I finally sat up, using my fingertips to explore gingerly the shopping cart grate marks on my cheeks, it slowly dawned on me that I had been sleeping in the Jewel, in a shopping cart, every night that week.

It doesn't take a degree to unpack that one, does it?

But while I get what my overwrought subconscious was getting at, I really don't know why it is going all exaggeratedly dramatic on me. I have a place lined up for me and the girls to move to. It is smaller and less expensive than our current house, and allows the girls to stay in the same school. It is maybe not the house I would have chosen were I not trying to choose with an eye to keeping the girls with their same school friends, but I can see us coming to love living in that house. Certainly of all the moves I was contemplating, this is the one that is the least nervewracking for the girls. And given how Annika behaves when her nerves are wracked, this also means it is the move least nervewracking for me.

On the other hand, I'm still waiting on word that the financing for the house will work out, so maybe it's the niggling uncertainty of waiting that's getting me down. *

The night before I decided to put in an offer on this little house, I had the most vivid dream of driving myself off a mountain when I fell asleep at the wheel. Mostly I'm having a lot of bad dreams about all the bad stuff that can happen when you're sleepy, so this probably just means I should investigate insomnia as a lifestyle choice.

In our waking lives, the girls and I are doing very well and only using shopping carts in the appropriate manner. Well, except for Frankie, who still likes to climb in the shopping cart and then have all the food loaded on top of her, which I am hoping is not an eating disorder waiting to happen. And also except for Annika, who likes to take control of the shopping cart herself, especially when it comes to rounding the blind corners, where it's never very clear which side of the aisle you should be occupying, which is surely not the sign of a thrill-seeking teenage driver of the future, is it?

I got the girls another dog, Leonardo di Prancio, shortly after I broke the news that we would need to move from this house. He is adorable and hilarious, and he is also a total little shit. I mean it, but in a completely loving way. I have the feeling that there are not many households where this little guy would fit in (I suspect that his breed is something like Cocaine Terrier), but I am rolling with it because he snuggles up to the girls in the evening and he makes me laugh, and I would forgive a whole warehouse full of broken and destroyed household items in exchange for those two qualities. **

Cleo, sweet, mostly well-mannered Cleo, is enjoying the fruits of  Leonardo's stubborn refusal to learn the House Rules. Like the time I came home from dropping off the girls and discovered that Leonardo had knocked the box of organic, whole-grain granola with flax seed off the table, where both dogs devoured the entire box in the 10 minutes it took to get the kids delivered to school that morning. We spent the rest of the day taking frequent walks, where Cleo looked more and more dismayed as the interval between poops became alarmingly short. Leonardo, on the other hand, was clearly beaming "Worth it! Worth it!" every time he hunched up. By the end of the walk, he was barely breaking his proud stride to get them out. I tell you, he's a rock star of a dog.

Between the dogs, and the kitten, and the girls, and the working, I am busy. Not too busy to neglect updating on facebook, where you can just post the one good sentence that you can't really figure out how to work into an entire blog post, but busy enough to feel my own forward momentum. 

I was driving the girls to a birthday party the other day when I saw J walking down the sidewalk. I thought about how, before, I would have yelled, "There's daddy!" And the girls would have rolled down their windows and waved and been as excited as if they had just spotted a cheetah in the wild. But this time I drove on, and they were too busy talking to notice him out there.

This shouldn't be taken to mean that I don't think he's important to them. The complete opposite is true, and it's a big part of why I decided to stay here in town. I'm not sure exactly what it means, though. Maybe simply that I am no longer a part of their relationship with him. He has to figure all that out without any help from me, and don't think I'm so deluded that I don't realize that that might be a good thing for him. Or it could also be not so great, but let's hope for A Good Thing for all our sakes.  

Also, he was walking with a woman. I have no idea who she was, or what her relationship with him might be, but I realized that I absolutely did not care to know. I do know what that means, and I think it is a good sign.

Especially since I did not dream of him at all that night, and, as has already been well-established, my subconscious is not very good at ignoring the worrisome stuff. 

I think it's time to get packing. I've got more than will fill a Jewel shopping cart, but less than will fill this house, and that's as it should be.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* As a matter of fairness, I should point out that J helped me get the bank on board with this downsizing plan of mine by using the equity in our current house. That's my obligatory sentence of fairmindedness. Funny how I couldn't seem to figure out how to work it into the flow of everything else I was writing. Fair breaks my flow!   

** Although I did move the girls' collection of pottery to a safer spot, because those aren't "household items," that stuff is ART.

Comments

[taly]

Hey, this was great. Hope the move works out. I am glad J helped with the new house (and hopefully, will take care of/take over the existing one?). You've made all the right decisions and choices for the girls as far as I can see from the posts. I hope your decisions about your own future can match those you made for your loved ones.
Some dog you got there. If I ever get an animal discerning enough for organic, I'd flip... And then the pleasure of hunching the flax seeds over the entire neighborhood - concerned about the community :)
Aren't shopping cart dreams about homelessness? Is this why you needed to claim dreams are boring and a total waste of time? If so, please dream of palaces!!! You are the Queen and you rock!
As for fairness - let it break your flow again if there is a great cause! If not - would not mind your being human and keeping it real.
Life is long and worth fighting for every moment of every day.
Packing should be fun - de-clutter and down-size! Friends intact.
Hope nothing derails you from the present course - it is a long-term winner.
Much love and best of karma for y'all

[Joanna]

I hope waking up in a new house will feel like a fresh start for you, with new daily routines that are entirely yours. I have to disagree with @taly that packing is fun :) but it can definitely be cathartic* to dump stuff with emotional baggage at Goodwill.

Dogs are healing! Assuming you get the house, it's great that the girls will get to stay within their little social support network. I hope you find more people to connect with - something I struggle with. People always suggest pursuing my interests, like running groups or a book club. I should try harder at that, but when I was going through a really tough year, it was hard to connect with new people that had their life in order. I wanted to meet people that were also flailing. Should I have hung flyers? "Are you currently having or have you recently had a shitty time? Let's all meet at the bar and weep together!" It's hard to find these people when we're all avoiding eye contact and eating alone on our couches.

*I looked up cathartic to make sure I was using it right. I didn't know it's true meaning is closer to the effects of whole-grain granola with flax seed on dogs - "a substance that accelerates defecation."

[liz]

Sending you hugs and love and (virtual) unbreakable dishes.