Last night I dreamed that I was at a funeral, sopping wet. I’d just gone for a dip in a lake. Anyway, the funeral was upstairs, and every now and then I’d go downstairs, to a concrete, bunker-like basement where my therapist was. My intent was to change there. Since my therapist had marked one room as just hers (it had her name on it), I used the other rooms. Once while I was in the basement, I did some writing. Another time I recharged my laptop. Then I yelled at my therapist’s secretary, who was offended that I didn’t want to sleep with her.

Come on, lady, I’m gay.

This afternoon I went to the library to sync my laptop files with my online files. I can do this at home with my hotspot, but it eats up my phone data and takes forever. But since the internet at the library is super fast, I can get it done there in a jiffy. Which I did. This satisfied my inner perfectionist, who likes all my files arranged just so, safe and secure.

Later, at home, I combed through some of the digital (mostly non-fiction) books I have on my laptop and got overwhelmed because there are so many I haven’t read. It felt like I needed to read them all, like, yesterday. Finally I thought, Fuck reading, closed my laptop, and went to the gym. There I processed my need to be constantly reading and learning and was able to find compassion for that part of me that thinks it isn’t enough, doesn’t know enough. (I also did a funny-looking exercise for my neck that involved holding an inflated ball against the wall with my head. See above photo.) Then I talked to the part of me that always pushing me to learn–my inner student–and asked it to back off. “I love learning,” I said, “but you’ve become a slave driver. Give us a break, will ya?” It said it would.

We’ll see what happens.

My “not enough” part said sometimes it’d rather put together a puzzle than read a book, so when I got home from the gym, that’s what I did. Well, after dinner. But here’s a picture of my puzzle progress. Personally, I think it’s coming along nicely.

Now it’s after midnight, and I’m doing laundry. I need to keep this short because I didn’t get much sleep last night–I was up until six in the morning (because of the full moon?)–and I’m tired. Plus, I have to get up early tomorrow. Yuck. I’m not looking forward to it. Oh well, Jesus had to get up early on Easter weekend, so if it was good enough for him, it might as well be good enough for me. At the very least, I probably shouldn’t bitch about it, especially considering the fact that tomorrow I’ll be rising out of a waterbed and not a grave.

But I digress.

In terms of last night’s dream, I think it’s a reminder about balance. I’ll explain. Personally, I associate funerals–at least historically–as a place where I can emote. That is, for the longest time they were one of the few places I could cry. (Now I can cry anywhere.) So I think they represent that part of my life where I’m now paying the back taxes my therapist says I owe with respect to grieving. And all the better that I was sopping wet in the dream, since water represents the unconscious. Like, things are coming up.

As for the fact that I was going down to the bunker-like basement to write and recharge, I think this represents my need to rest (and that this is a safe and secure time in my life for me to do so). A part of me would love to emote all at once and get it over with–just like part of me would like to be reading or learning all the damn time–but another part knows I need to slow down and re-juice my batteries. Balance. And whereas I haven’t quite figured out the door my therapist marked as hers, I’m guessing it has something to do with healthy boundaries. Or perhaps that there’s a part of my subconscious (my basement) that I’m not yet ready to go into and “change.”

Patience, my dear.

Lastly, there was the secretary who wanted to sleep with me. The one I yelled at. This probably just represents real life. Not that my therapist’s secretary wants to sleep with me (besides, it wasn’t my therapist’s real secretary in the dream), but over the years there have been A NUMBER of ladies who’ve wanted more from me than I could give them. Because I’m gay. Like, not just a little bit, but a lot. Like, it’s never changing. Even though one of my former students told me (and my boyfriend at the time) that she though it was a phase. Ugh. Maybe if I’d yelled at her, I wouldn’t be yelling at figments of my imagination now in my sleep.

That’s what I know now that I didn’t know then. That student’s behavior was inappropriate. This afternoon I listened to a talk about micro-aggressions, which are “little things” that people do to cut you down. This can be anything–passive aggressive comments, looking at you judgmentally, dismissing your opinion, interrupting you, or entering your personal space without permission. Anyway, the idea is that normally micro-aggressions are unconscious, both to the aggressor and the aggressee. That’s why the aggressee only thinks about it later. Wait a damn minute, that was rude, that hurt. So, as always, life is about learning as we go. It’s about thinking, Yes, I’m coming along nicely. Emoting a little, resting a little. Getting it wrong one day, then trying over the next. Not being enough or having a voice for years, then gradually finding your Self. Rising–again and again and again.