sogni e le aspirazioni

I really enjoyed our talk today.  

Did I say too much? Was it too soon?

"Too Much? Too Soon?"

You helped to put a lot of my worries at ease.  I guess all I can do now is remain focused on my education and career goals and hope that the rest of it falls in place. Like I said, it's nice knowing I'm not alone, but at the same time I want to make sure that we're gonna be okay.  It's so close, I can taste it!

We can do this.

l'apocalisse II

It appears that we’re on a bus and the person in charge of the tour group asks me to help him out.  I’m with my dad, who looks tired, so I ask him to sit down and rest.  There’s a black family that was sitting in the middle of the bus, but they all seem to pass out and I attempt to get them moved.  This bus is parked directly facing the front of a nice hotel on a main street, and next to a cheaper building.

Inside the cheaper building, the group I’m with has a whole floor and I assume we’re closer to the top of this building.  High enough to need an elevator.  The person in charge asks me to start handing out 2 forms.  One is agenda of the tour, the other is a map.  I hand them all out and I see that there are rooms that young adults are going in.  These are their dorm rooms. I had been placing the forms in their rooms.  I knock on one door and the guy takes the forms from me.  I walk down the hall and a group of 3 girls are walking in to their room.  I tell them, “Hey, we just caught wind that someone is planning on bombing the ------- Hotel across the street later, so we need to evacuate.”  I hand them the forms I was passing out and say, “If you’re gonna take a shower, make sure you hurry up becos we’re leaving soon!”  I could see that they were really sweaty, like one would be after a workout.  The next door I move on to is slightly ajar and when I open it, there’s another door behind it.  I thought it was a fake door and someone yells out, “That’s the vampire’s room. Just knock to see if he’s there.”  I knock and hear him yell back in a kind, jovial voice, “Hold on a minute,” and this tall brunette appears.  He invites me in and I repeat that we’re needing to evacuate becos of the supposed bombing.  I go to hand him a form, but I realize I’ve run out. He politely refuses and asks, “How do we know it’s true?  And do you think it’s really gonna reach us? We’re on the other side of the street.”  Suddenly, the room begins to tremble and I can see that we’re slowly moving downwards, but the room is still intact.  My instinct is to try to get out through the door, but it’s too late. I turn around to vampire boy and there’s a hole where he was standing.  I call out to him and hear that he’s still arguing on whether or not it’s necessary to evacuate!  After awhile I can’t hear him anymore.  The room starts to rotate and it’s a scene straight out of Wipeout!  I steady myself between three walls as the room rotates vertically, these walls are similar to dry wall and not so harsh.  The room finally stops rotating but I’ve lost 2 walls.  The ceiling and floor sandwich me in and I tell myself that I need to stay near an opening or brace/wedge myself between the two walls in a way that will not break my bones or cause me too much pain.  I can now see that I’m sinking past all these other levels until I stop again.  It’s a brightly lit room with plastic/iron school chairs stacked, like a storage room.  It’s white and I see an opportunity to get out.  I hesitate thinking it’s not the right floor to get out on, but I notice that the room is still sinking and there’s water starting to pool.  I rush to get out and the floor keeps on sinking.  I realize I would have drowned.  

I look up and the wall between the storage room and this warehouse area has been knocked down but there’s an opening to the building, kinda like a loading dock.  The floor is filling up with water so I high tail it out of there and that’s when I remember that earlier I had stepped on something harsh that hurt my foot.  Nothing bad, but definitely annoying.  As I’m stumbling through the water trying to get out there are random shoes.  I find a not so wet area and start trying out shoes.  The first one was too small.  The last vision I had was knelt down trying on shoes on my right foot, tying the laces and looking up at the arched doorway leading to the outside with the daylight waiting for me.  It was bittersweet to know I had survived.  I had survived.  And yet I was frightened to walk into that light becos I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I was afraid.  And there was an eeriness that it might be the beginning of the Apocalypse.

Earlier in the dream, my husband and I are looking for properties.  I remember meeting a 20-something blonde guy at a hotel bar who promised to show us his father’s property.  When pulling up to the house you see a large 2-story home on a corner lot.  From the outside he shows us where the master bedroom is located and it’s gorgeous balcony.  The floor level has 2 bedrooms next to each other, but they each are 2 story and have access to their own balconies.  To the right of the house is a small driveway and a 2 car garage, and to the left of the house, under the master bedroom there’s a great deck painted brown.  I start to sand the deck and notice that the wood grain is absolutely beautiful.  There’s a camera crew filming a woman talking about how she had seen the house before, but didn’t think it was so great becos of a $30,000 price difference “but I’ll keep it on my maybe list.”  The show was Property Virgins or My First Place on HGTV.  I say to the guy showing us around, “You must have had some awesome family get-togethers out here!”  He looks at me and gives me a half grin.  He then walks us around the back of the house into a mudroom, which opens up to a galley style kitchen and breakfast nook.  We’re then greeted by his dad who is cooking up lunch and 3 excited dogs.  As we venture further into the house we see that the breakfast nook opens up to the living room.  It’s gorgeous and I get a feeling that we’re putting in an offer. 

The guy showing us around looks exactly like Alex Pettyfer from the movie Beastly. He seems very detached, quiet, with a nothing-to-lose attitude. We make small talk with him, but I don’t remember what it was about.  But in a sequence of flashes I see him at the top of a building doing a swan dive, with the building behind him bursting into puffs of gray, yellow, and orange.  As he’s falling I can see that the building is a hotel that I’m familiar with. 

_________________________________________

I dreamt this on August 14, 2011.  I can’t remember what happened in between the house scene and the bus scene, but like so many other dreams, it felt somewhat real.  It must have been set in a larger city with large apartment-type buildings like NYC or Chicago.  I also had an overwhelming urge to cry when I woke up, but I fought back the impulse.

desideri e domande

Here I am.  The eve of my 30th birthday and I feel like a failure.

I'm having a 3/4 of a mid-life crisis, which is funny becos nowadays people go through mid mid-life crisis. I guess mine just didn't hit me till now.  

I went to bed last night overthinking, overanalyzing my birthday.  At Thanksgiving, I had made it clear that for my 30th birthday I wanted a dinner with my closest friends and family.  My birthday would also have to...HAVE TO...include mariachis in a charismatically lit backyard serenading the guests and myself.   I even wanted my husband's family there.  Come Christmastime, I had reiterated my desire for a dinner and mariachis.  At Maund's cousin's wedding there were mariachis who went from table to table taking requests and AGAIN I expressed my birthday plan.  

So imagine my surprise when my husband approached me Monday, August 1, 2011, asking what I wanted to do for my birthday.  Three days before my birthday!  I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty sure that a tiny piece of my heart died at that moment.  That's an intense thing to say, right? I know, but I've noticed that this year has caused that to happen in me.  I do my best not to let things get to me, but I feel that I try so hard to please other people that I expect the same from them.  I have such high expectations and when they don't follow through I take it personally.  It hurts.  This experience felt like cramming for a test.  You've had all this time to thoroughly prepare for the SATs, but instead you procrastinate until the week of the exam and say, "Well, we could hav a BBQ and invite some people." What does that do? A BBQ is not a 1400 test score.  A BBQ is the credit you get for bubbling in your name on the score sheet. I plan all of my birthdays.  I plan events for other friends.  I help in the orchestration of other events.  I cook Thanksgiving meals.  I cook Christmas meals.  I plan Easter holidays. I bake birthday cakes and attempt to decorate them with other than frosting to coat them.  I wanted someone to care for me.  I wanted someone to say, "I know you've had possibly the worst year of your life, so far.  From Aug 2010 to now, not only have you experienced change, but you've had to endure many losses.  Neither loss is greater than the other, but each loss equally as painful. Let's celebrate you and start a new year with hope and joy."  I want to have a happy event.  I didn't want a consolation prize.  I wanted a well thought out plan.

I look back and think about what I've written and it sounds selfish.  I'm a Leo.  It's in my nature to want to be the center of attention, but that's not really me.  I have a tendency to want to take care of other people.  I have a tendency to protect others.  So maybe this is the selfish, self-centered side coming out in this entry.

This was the kind of toy I got for my birthday.

I started thinking about my childhood and realized that I never had a birthday party.  You're probably wondering, "how is that possible?" or "c'mon, everyone has parties!" Nope.  I have a picture of my 3rd or 4th birthday.  My mom had bought me a new shirt and had baked a cake.  In the picture, there is a Cabbage Patch Kids Talking Phone next to me and my cake as I'm about to blow out the candles.  I remember that day becos I got chocolate frosting all over my shirt and got upset.

I'm guessing that my other birthdays were like that, but I can't remember any of them.  There was never a planned party at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, or Chuck E. Cheese.  There were never house parties with nifty party favors or cartoon themed plates, cups, napkin.  It wasn't until my 18th birthday that a couple of people took notice of the lack of celebration. Barbara, my hometown bestfriend, knew that my family wasn't as well off as hers, but she never ceased to surprise me.  She never missed a birthday or grand event.  For my 18th birthday, she showed up at my door and presented me with a little gift.  She then kidnapped me and said that becos I was now 'legal' it was my mission to buy a pack of cigarettes and porn.  Those were the rights bestowed upon me as an American and that's what we did.  Later that day, I called over to the Garcia's house to see who wanted to hang out.  Wilbur and Bern were brothers and the sons of my Spanish teacher.  We had gotten close and hung out just about every single day that summer.  We played guitars, they taught me chords, they schooled me on classic rock and singer/songwriters from the 60s and 70s, how to exercise, play sports, run, tried to teach me how to cook.  They were only 4 and 6 years older than I was, but we connected on so many levels and I learned a lot from those two.  Bern picked up and mentioned he had just gotten out of work.  Since we were "new" friends, the brothers didn't know when my birthday was, nor did I know theirs. We chatted for awhile and he asked me what I did that day.  I mentioned that Barbara had taken me to go buy cigarettes and porn and he laughed.  He got quiet for a moment and then asked if it was my birthday.  I acknowledge that today was indeed my 18th and he asked what I was doing to celebrate.  Bern wasn't satisfied with my response and said, "I'd like to take you out. Get dressed! Get ready! We're going to the Riverwalk!"  That was the thing to do, go celebrate in San Anto' which is an hour away.  I had so much fun that night.  I got wined and dined and treated important.  Well, not exactly, maybe soda'd and dined would be a better term.  It was a great night and a nice ending to what would have otherwise been a disastrous birthday.

Since then, I try to plan events for my birthdays. Dinner with friends, drinks, maybe go to a club.  Maybe that's why I was hoping that this one would be different.  That someone would want to take care of me.

I thought about all of this as I was trying to go to sleep.  I started crying silently in the dark and it was a little difficult to stop, but through all of that, I never once woke up my husband.  This got me thinking about other things. The night before I had finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and I wondered if I had given up on my own Personal Legend?  When I was younger I had many dreams that I thought I would fulfill.  I never had a time frame, but these were things that I wanted to do.  Now that I'm 3/4 of the way to the halfway mark of my lifespan, it scares me.  What do I have to show for this?  I graduated high school.  I graduated from university.  I lived in Italy. I worked for a non-profit. I'm married.  I have a house and mortgage.  We own 2 cars and will be done paying off a 3rd soon.  We have a cat and 2 dogs.  That seems like a lot, but I want more.  And I felt like the shittiest person in the world becos when I think about my dreams and fantasies, I'm always alone.  I never see my husband in these visions.  I had toyed with the idea of skydiving for our wedding anniversary and found out before booking that Maund is scared of heights.  How did I not know that?  In all the time that I've known him, I just found this out last year.  One dream I have is hiking through the Dolomites and when I close my eyes to envision it, he's not there.  When I was younger, I wanted to be an epidemiologist, but that would require more schooling.  In honing my skills, I realized that I wanted to become a Foreign Services Officer, but to really be considered for a position I would need my masters degree.  And really, that's probably the minimum requirement.  So I definitely need to go back to school and practice my languages more.  Maybe even learn 2 or 3 more.  But even in this dream, I'm by myself. 

Is he holding me back? Or better yet, do I want an excuse so that I don't have to take credit for not fulfilling my Personal Legend?  I would have no one to blame but myself.  Do I still have time to fulfill my Personal Legend or is it too late? I assume I need to do this on my own.  It's a personal journey, but how do I realize my dream when I'm attached to someone else?  And not just someone else, but a complete life which includes hundreds of possessions, a mortgage, and furry friends.  

I would love to find a genie in a lamp.  I could make a couple of changes.

Or better yet, turn back time to one significant moment and change it.  I thought about this last night and I know what that moment would be.  I would go back to the 6th grade and forget about my crush on Colin.  I think that would have changed things dramatically.  It would have saved me a lot of grief growing up in a small town.

I feel awful for having these thoughts.  I feel disgusted for asking these questions.  Honestly, this is the only forum where I can get these thoughts out.  But my biggest fear is that now that I've asked these questions, do I need to answer them or do I continue with life as I know it, ignoring the desires of my heart?  Am I too afraid of answering these questions?

veranda

These last 2 nights I've been having trouble staying asleep.  My throat has been killing me and I decided to take Nyquil last night.  I remember mostly me and Yuni waiting for an aerobics class to begin, but we weren't at the gym.  We were waiting for one of those music rooms that you have to sign up for.  Ya know, the kind with a piano and bench and you take your music and just play and everything is muted? A practice room.

We enter once the room is ready and there's a piano, but I have this anxious feeling like I'm waiting for a ride and I don't want to miss them.  I walk back towards the front of the building past the other practice rooms and wait in the lobby.  Only now it's a reception/lobby/bar of a small hotel, almost galley-like, very narrow.  I've been outside this hotel before, just walking past it, but in another dream maybe 1 or 2 months ago.  

I'm waiting in the seating area. It's got a great lounge feel to it with big plush velvety purple chairs and candles everywhere!  Then a Hispanic gentleman approaches me and I have this feeling that I used to date him a long time ago, but I don't know if it was anyone from my real life.  He's a minor distraction and he mentions something about soccer when I realize that the person I've been waiting for has already come and gone.  

I rush out the front of the hotel and into an apartment building but I take a wrong turn and the whole first story turns out to be someone's apartment.  I found this out the hard way, I opened a white 6 panel door with a bright light radiating from around it but instead I find an old lady sitting on the toilet! Eww.  She points me in the right direction and I end up walking out her front door only now I'm on a wooden front porch with some stairs leading down to the ground.  

I follow them down to the ground and when I look back towards the house again, it's actually an apartment building and all the balconies are adorned with bikes/flowers/laundry/wind chimes, tons of randomness.  I look back down the street and see a row of houses that are pier and beam and sit up from the ground.  I start running along the houses on the right hand side and am frantically looking for one house in particular, but I don't know which one. 

There's a blue house that I run past with a woman standing on the front porch.  She calls to me, "Over here! You past it!" as she's waving me down.  It's your mom.  I run up to meet her, give her a hug, and we sit on the steps of the porch just talking.  She's talking and I am intrigued, but I don't know what she's saying.  She's also smoking a small joint and she offers but I decline.  She gets up to water some plants on her porch and she walks back and forth still talking.  I feel at peace.  She sits back down, still talking, and at that point her right hand reaches for my face.  Her thumb is positioned to sit on my chin while her index finger and other fingers are slightly curled under my chin/jaw.  She looks me in the eyes and with kindness and empathy in her eyes she says, "I know."

And then I wake up with a pain in my throat.

Maybe it was the combination of alcohol and hypnotic meds in the Nyquil, I don't know.  Why would I dream about talking to your mom? All views of this dream had a patina hue to it except when I was talking with your mom.  That scene had a light bluish tint.  Kinda like a freshness.  I don't know if that even makes sense, but that's the easiest way I can describe it.

Weird, huh?

l'apocalisse

OCTOBER 25, 2006 entry taken from my previous blog

I had left the house w/ intentions of getting the mail before my folks had awakened. It's early morning and the sun still hasn't come up yet. I'm jogging down Lavaca St and can see my breath materializing in front of me. As I near the lake, I notice a big group of college kids gathered outside a movies/special effects office. The bldg has a platform just outside the entrance which is composed of tall windows. That is where most of the kids are standing. There is also a blue van w/ the back doors open wide. The kids are arguing about who gets to "hide" inside the office. Apparently the kids on the platform have already staked out their territory and have no room available for the new kids. At that moment, a series of cars come racing by and turn down 1st Street towards IH 35. You can feel it coming, but you don't know what it is. It's something that strikes fear in everyone and you feel compelled to hide.

My name is Molly and one of the kids calls me over.

"If you want, you can come inside Molly. You too Brett. We saved a spot." I still haven't made it to the Post Office, but something tells me it's not important anymore. In the mix of things, I remember I never said goodbye to my folks. After all, I should've been back home by now.

"I'm sorry, we don't have anymore room," is what I hear one kid tell the group near the van. "But I have some pain pills if you need them....that's all I can offer ya'll." At that point a massive group of beings is seen heading in our direction. I can see my phone ringing and it's Dad. I play calm and tell him I’ll be home soon. "I can't talk right now, but I'll call you later. Love you."

At this point I've made my way inside with the others and have settled into a little nook under a sewing machine. It's an open room w/ sewing machines and movie props scattered everywhere. My spot is located along the southern wall closest to the lake with a window right next to me; I can see something staring at me. I don't think it can see me, so I slowly put down my phone and make sure the LCD screen is faced down as not to blink. I close my eyes and pray for a miracle, but they're here.

You can hear the terror in some of my friend's voices. They're being taken away and the most frightening thing is we don't know where. In fact, the not knowing is strong enough to drive a person insane. I can feel a being standing right over me. He says, "Look at all these heads, should we take one?" The other doesn't answer, but they decide to take a head anyway. I feel its hand hovering over my face and it quickly chooses the head to my left. I was lucky enough to have covered my torso w/ many objects that my head looked like one the props in the shop. One more prop head to the right and it would have found me.

I escape but I soon find out that this journey is just beginning. I'm lucky to have not been taken and yet I still find no comfort in this. As I make my way out of the office, I scan my surroundings looking for others. I'm alone and the quietness of the early morning, the stillness of the streets, makes me realize this is how it will end...

_________________________________________

I dreamt this the Sunday night I got back from Houston (22 Oct 2006). I had just gotten back from visiting Dre and this was also the day we had gone to NASA. The dream was rather long and this was the most intense scene of the whole sequence of events. I just had to get this down in writing so that I wouldn't forget. I'm pretty excited about it, but it may sound silly to you.

OK...Rewind for just a minute...Saturday evening we were sitting around watching TV before going out and we started chatting about our most frightening nightmares. I had mentioned to Dre that my most terrifying dreams always involve military takeover and seeing my family killed right in front of me. Turns out that Dre's nightmares also involve military take over.

So Fast-forward back to NASA...Well, once we were finished taking the tour, our tram cart stopped in front of 2 space shuttles. Being the flutter bug I am, I jumped off the cart and failed to listen to the guide over the intercom. Apparently, this was a "brief stop and should you decide to get off, you will need to catch a ride on the next tram in 15 mins." Dre seemed a little peeved about this being that it was cold and now we were stuck. Fortunately for us, we weren't the only idiots who had decided to jump off and explore this pit stop. Seems like our whole group was just as eager.

15 mins have come and gone and we're sitting on a bench huddled together for warmth. At this same time, the rest of our group is ever so excited about the jets turning flips and zipping through the sky. Yes, I'm amused as well, but people seem to be going out of their way to catch a glimpse of these jets. Then in the back of my mind I start to wonder, what if these were enemy planes and what would it be like to see them start picking off people? At that point I turn to Dre and bring up the whole "end-of-the-world" scenario. We start looking at our surroundings and plan out where to hide, what to do for food, and when it got right down to it Dre busted out w/ a "fend for yourself" rule. I couldn't help but think, "That's FUCKED up!" That's why I've decided to present this scenario when meeting new people. After all, I need someone reliable to get me through the Apocalypse.