Back in the Ring for Another Swing

I've been having a recurring dream. I guess it started late this past winter or early spring, perhaps March or April. In the beginning it showed up maybe once a month, but in the past two weeks I've been dreaming it almost every night. And it's started to bother me. I've been wondering what it means, what's on my mind. Recurring dreams, whether they're nightmares or not, drive me a little nuts and make it hard for me to get any decent rest.

The dream varies a little bit each time but the gist is I'm in Toronto, downtown at the Eaton Centre shopping, and the mall is super crowded and I have too many packages to carry and I don't seem to have enough money to get home.

The night before last Stacy was with me in the dream. We took a cab that cost $30 (ten bucks more than I had anticipated) and I was supposed to pay for it as I had invited Stacy along for the shopping trip and she didn't have any cash. It was like an SUV limo and we sat in the back with five of the cabbie's relatives he was taking to Scarborough after he dropped us off ... except he pulled over under the Gardiner ramps refusing to take us another inch until I produced the cash for the fare.

I had so many packages and shopping bags. Stacy and I were covered in them, I could barely find my purse. And then I found my purse and it was huge and bulging with stuff and I couldn't find my wallet amongst all the books, combs, make-up, phones, music, perfume, panty liners, pens, etc. And then I finally found my wallet and it was huge and stuffed with receipts and notes and I couldn't find any bills. I opened the change compartment and it was filled with quarters and dimes. Busting with silver change! I counted out $20 in change and then found a $10 gift certificate for some sort of ladies clothing store that I offered the driver to make up the difference. But he wasn't having any of it.

He took the change for the trip so far and kicked us to the curb. There we were huddling in the rain with a kazillion packages as traffic whizzed by on all sides and above our head.

In the dream I didn't really care about all the stuff; the stuff didn't matter at all. Every time I noticed a new bag or package, when I opened my purse to see all the stuff inside, the feeling was, "Oh God! Something else for me to carry! Something else for me to deal with!" I would have been content to give it all away to the homeless people living under the highway or to just abandon it by the side of the road, but who does that?! No, I couldn't shirk my responsibility. For some reason this stuff was important or I wouldn't be carrying it around in the first place, so I needed to make sure I got it home. There might be something in there I needed or gifts for the kids or ... well, who knows? I certainly didn't. And I couldn't just abandon a bunch of stuff without knowing what it was.

I woke up feeling really frustrated and overburdened. Still drowsy, I wondered again what these dreams mean. "I just have too many things to carry," I grumbled to myself. And then it hit me--I just have too many things to carry! Aha! I can't get where I want to go because I have too many things to carry ... symbolically, of course. As far as stuff goes, in real life, I literally don't have that much and I'm a frequent purger of flabby excess. But figuratively ... well, well, well, that's a whole other ballgame.

There is nothing like a week of the summer cold/flu to put life back into perspective. Or perhaps I only needed a rest. Regardless of what or how I got here, this morning I awoke a new woman.

I've been wanting to do some things lately ... like really sit down and figure out what I want to be when I grow up, like really sit down and determine some goals and direction and purpose for my life, like really take the time to put the Law of Attraction into use for my professional and personal life ... and like so many things worth doing I just haven't felt like I've had time to spare to do these things. But the dream tells me I need to take the time. These things are important and obviously weighing heavy on my mind.

I logged back into Sparkpeople this morning. You'll recall this website from my previous excursions into healthier living. It's a great site for learning all the how-tos of a healthy lifestyle. I have to say I've got the how-to part down pretty well. I know what I should eat and what I shouldn't. I know how much exercise I should be doing and how much I actually do on a regular basis. But logging into Sparkpeople and using the tools there to track my daily habits keeps me focused and gets me back in the groove. So after a week in bed and a weekend filled with cake, chips, and ice cream, I'm ready to put the needle on the record. I'm sure my trainer will be glad to see me show up at the gym to break the monotony of his afternoon. My health is so important to my energy levels.

But that's not all that's going on with me. I'm feeling some creative twinges. I'm getting antsy in the writing department. I'm craving order in the chaos that is currently my apartment. I'm longing for a routine that includes early morning personal writing. I am thinking of taking an extended blogging break in order to focus entirely on writing a book. It is difficult enough to do anything creative of my own with BnM constantly cluttering my brain, let alone blogging too. I think I need some space. I think I need to shift focus.

I know I've said this before but I'm really starting to feel like the time to do something is now. And I'm really starting to understand that I can't be a prolific blogger and finish my book at the same time. It's an either/or situation, not both, I've only got so much writing juice in me.

I guess this summer I've all ready been taking a bit of a break. I've not blogged much. Increasingly I find there are things I want to write about that I'm just not ready to share with the world at large yet. I need to write these things somewhere, while I have them in my mind, but not here, not now.

Anyway, I'm going on a bit of a hiatus. Knowing me I will most likely still blog once every week or two, but I'm not going back to a daily thing anytime soon. I'm going to take my mornings (my usual blog time) and use them for other writing. And hopefully one day soon I'll have good news about the completion of my manuscript.

Meanwhile, you can follow my twitter feed. If you're THAT interested in what I'm doing. It's hard to deplete your creative brain cells in 140 characters or less.

I need to unburden my life and figure out some things about myself. So I'm going to go do that and maybe I'll never have the dream again.

Mood: enlightened
Drinking: coffee, black
Listening To: buddy's washer upstairs
Hair: ponied