In My Dreams This Week

I've had some really insane dreams lately.

The other night I dreamed that my car had broken down and I somehow had gotten a man to help and was riding with the driver in his pickup truck down a back road with plowed fields on either side.

The man was older, gray, balding, and heavy set. Not long after we set off, police cars raced past us. This is unusual in any rural area. Then I look out the window and there is a man running down the field with a big gun. He is wearing all black.

The truck dissipates and we are running from the man as the police run in. He shoots at the driver-man but the big ol' guy keeps running without a scratch. I hardly heard the shot, so I decide the shooter has a silencer on his gun. Somehow this is scarier.

We end up in a sort of diner/bar. The gunman comes in and tries to blend in at the bar. He's really good at evading police, I guess.

http://www.betterbeerblog.com/index.php/2009/04/04/the-session-26-smoke-em-if-you-got-em/

The police come searching. I point at the man behind his back. When the officer calmly, but abruptly, approaches him, the gunman whips out his weapon and shoots. People dive to the floor. He escapes, police in hot pursuit. They close in. 

He runs behind a barn and I am scrambling to see if they get him, but also to stay out of range of his fire. The old man is still running with me. He's got some endurance! I assume they got the bad guy because I woke up.

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The following night I tossed and turned and remembered many dreams every time I rolled over. However, by morning, I only remember one long dream sequence. 

I was in my classroom, with all my students and my two aides. (For those who don't know I work in a special needs classroom in a middle school.) We seem to be coming back from a lunch break of some sort. Everyone is at their desks and there is an air of expectation. I'm supposed to DO something, but these boxes of items I haven't seen all year appear before me, on my desk, on the tables.

http://www.triblocal.com/wheaton/community/stories/2011/07/learning-resources-donates-more-than-250000-in-educational-tools-and-materials-to-joplin-missouri-schools/

Suddenly, I have to deal with them. I begin to sort one and my aide says something about going outside. "Yes, yes, go on outside," I agree. The class leaves, all but one. He hovers over my shoulder. "You are supposed to go with them!" Now I have to take him. I check the closest door, but they are not seen through the glass. I go to the next door around the corner. This next hallway transforms from my middle school to the high school I went to. They are all lined up waiting, one of my aides pushing the wheelchair and the other in line between students. "Well, push the light switch!" one of aides tells a student. He seems confused as to what light switch. I walk up and show him a switch that activates the door.(It wasn't a normal looking switch, it was yellow and round. This picture is close enough.)

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/toggle-switch-plate

We exit the building. Instead of seeing the parking lot, we now see rows of one-story brick apartments. As we pass them, two boys of middle school age appear and begin to entice my students to get out of line and play among the saplings. I tell them not to.

http://dornob.com/concrete-cantilever-small-brick-home-second-story-box/

Then a white convertible appears, top down, to take us across the parking lot to the grassy area. (As if the wheelchair can get in there!!)

We ride to the yard and Senior class members appear and begin to set up carnival style games. There appears a baseball throwing game, a bowling game, and others.

One student sets up a table with popsicles on it. I go over to help him because the sun suddenly is too hot and the popsicles will melt. We move the table into the shade, but I suddenly realize I am topless. There is a huge crowd of people playing games now. My building principal stands tall in the crowd and I am grateful he doesn't see me. Where is my shirt!? I duck into a sort of wooden shed to look for something to clothe my top half with. I dig and dig in piles of stuff. I never seem to find anything, but the dream presses on.

Next, I am running out the back. I jump a low white picket fence and knock on the back door of a house.

A young couple are watching TV. I say, "I'm not gonna hurt you, but please can I call 911? I've been kidnapped!" Confused, they let me use their house phone (who has one of those anymore?!)

I must have called, because next I am waiting for the police while looking at their laptop. I find a YouTube video of myself speaking to Oprah on her show and I point. "See? I am famous. That's why I was kidnapped!" I am suddenly a black woman with a gorgeous head of fluffy hair.

Then I wake up.

I've never dreamed I changed race before. I've dreamed about school before, and being topless, and fleeing situations, even of gunmen as in the previous night's dream, but never have I changed races. That was very unique. Is it a sign of the times?

Dreams are all about emotions. What I felt more than what was going on is what is most significant. There was a sense of helplessness in each dream. I tried to interact, in many instances, with others in the dream. My role constantly changed as I felt new emotions. In both dreams, I woke up still looking for a hero, that moment when things were solved. I was close to an ending, but not quite.

I guess life feels like that a lot. We can't have a good ending because there is always something next on our agendas. We just hope that our schedules include good things.

A Month of Marriage: Date Night!

I have been married for 11 years, to the same man, and while times are not always perfect, we are still together and still in love. He is my best friend. That is the most important thing. I trust him. We communicate. We share. 
 
Tip #3
Keep dating!

Remember how much fun it used to be to go out, just the two of you.. Why did that stop?
Did life get in the way? Don't let the humdrum of every day spoil the fun of one night off! Make date night a priority. Plan it like you used to. Block off a space on your calendar just for the two of you. 

Maybe all you have time for is a drive into 'town' to get groceries. I don't know how many times my relationship was strengthened just by holding his hand across the seats while we drove. Talk to each other in the car. Since communication is Tip #1, here is a way to incorporate it! You are seatbelted in, you can't run, so tell him your feelings and thoughts. Tell her your dreams and plans for the future, near and far.

Half the fun of dating was sharing dreams for the future, wasn't it? Talk about house projects, where you'd like to see yourself at the end of the year, your fitness goals, your spiritual goals, or even what you would do if you won the lottery. It may open up a pathway towards compromise, understanding, forgiveness, renewed faith in your relationship, and hope.

If you have a regular date night, what do you do? If you don't, will you consider one?

A Month of Marriage: Communication

I want to take this month to talk about marriage.

Each day I would like to share a marriage tip. I have been married for 11 years, to the same man, and while times are not always perfect, we are still together and still in love. He is my best friend. That is the most important thing. I trust him. We communicate. We share. This is the basis for my number one marriage tip.

Tip #1 Say the Words.

You cannot have trust if you do not get your real feelings out there and deal with them. The real feelings you choose to share don't have to be negative ones. Saying "I love you" instead of hoping he or she can see it in your shining eyes or in your daily good deeds will strengthen your relationship. 

Saying how you feel, using I-statements, when you do have to share negative emotions is the best way to share without making your partner defensive. ("I feel guilty when you point that out to me.") 

Forgiving each other, by working out your issues through communicating them and understanding your unique point of view, history/culture (where you are coming from), and emotions, goes a long way towards building trust. 

Being vulnerable and sharing parts of your life was the way you used to get closer back when you were dating, remember? Guess what? You still have to do these things!

Many times, in marriages, our conversations look like this:

There is sooo much I want to share with my husband, especially when it comes to venting about work, but he could care less. That's the truth. He doesn't 'get it', and equally, when he starts telling me all about some I.T. stuff, speaking in just as many acronyms as I have in Special Education, I tune him out. We are working on the relevance part, that shaded part in the middle. I am learning to hold back from every detail and give him a summary if I have to vent, or maybe a funny anecdote. He is also learning to do the same. 

We both have to take time to share our feelings as well. We still have to be vulnerable and give pieces of ourselves. While after 11 years, you'd think you'd know everything about a person by now, but there is always a deeper layer, a memory, an emotion they would never let show to anyone but you. It doesn't happen often, not as often as when we were dating, but occasionally we feel that deep connection again. We feel like we have been equally vulnerable and shared something deep. 

But daily communication doesn't have to be a revelation. It just has to be fair. That's what communication is all about. Getting to that place where you know you are both on the same happy page.