"Go With the Flow"
Anniversary
My husband and I celebrated our 6th anniversary last week. Strangely, I kept thinking it was our 7th. I was absolutely convinced of it. It took my husband telling me that we had only been married 6 years that pulled me out of the delusion. What? How could I get that wrong?
For the first time in our marriage I had planned a trip. I got us a luxury hotel room in San Antonio on the River Walk. My husband had never been there; never seen the Alamo or visited any of the attractions. I had been there many times and wanted him to experience it. I thought it would be nice. My mom agreed to watch the kids and everything looked like it was going to go smoothly.
Then the day before it began raining and a cold front came through. It went from 80 degrees to 30 over night. We went anyway. My husband wanted to go to church event on the way. I was against it but eventually just let him have his way. Of course, we had a fight because of it thanks to me. At least it passed without it becoming a real issue. We compromised and it was not so bad.
We got to our hotel and then went to eat. We had a reservation at the Tower of the Americas, a tall, needle-like tower that has a spinning restaurant on top. We had a marvelous and very expensive meal. I allowed myself to eat until I was stuffed.
I began feeling icky when we got to the hotel. I thought it was indigestion so I drank my tea which was bitter. I couldn't sleep. The indigestion was really bad. Finally, at 3am I awoke and needed to throw up. After that I was sick until we left. My husband went to see the Alamo alone the next day (in the rain) as I tried to eat food without success. I was sick the whole drive home and into the night. I felt great the next day and then was ill again the day after. I finally started feeling better 3 days after it all started.
Later, I realized why my tea was bitter. In my hurry to leave I had packed my vitamins and tea quickly. I drink a magnesium supplement and I must have throw four Tylenol into the bag of powder without thinking. That is why my tea was bitter. Thankfully I only drank half of it. So for a whole day I worried that I had overdosed on Tylenol until I found out my mom also had the stomach flu.
Dreams
On top of a ruined anniversary and illness, I have been having unsettling sleep. I remember my dreams and rather than write them all out I will retell only the details that leave me feeling unsettled.
In one dream I was in our old RV from when I was a child. At some point we went into a basement and it was flooded and dripping water. I saw there was food. It looked like stir fry beef with veggies and stuff in it. I took two bowls of it and began eating it. As I ate it someone pointed out that there was worms in it. I looked and sure enough there was this long, centipede-looking creature slithering about in it. I had just eating a large noodle and immediately knew it was another worm. I spit it out and did not eat anymore. In the dream it really disgusted me.
In another dream I was teaching 6th grade students. I had been out on break and returned unprepared. As a result, I did not teach well. I also did not remember the student's names. They acted horribly and I had one student who wanted to be bad. I got very upset at the students and even threatened them. At one point we were in a swimming pool and this one student wanted to skinny dip. She then later did sexual things in class. At the end, I finally just decided that I would try to teach the kids however I could and suggested we play games. It was at this time that the students seemed to settle down.
Last night I had several dreams in a row (can't recall them now) where I was stuck in situations that I did not want to be in and could not get out of. When I awoke I was upset and grumpy and telling someone that my only options seemed to be to stay in the bad situation or quit altogether. The dreams showed me trying other options and all of them failing. I felt very out of control and apathetic when I awoke. It seemed that no matter what I tried, I was being forced to do one thing and one thing only and the only way out of that was to quit. I told my guides, "Then I quit".
At one point I was told a whole message. It went something like this: You should go with the flow. Don't lose hope and don't give up. There was much more to it, but I don't remember it word for word now.
Before bed I had asked what the future held for me. To be told in my dreams that I was stuck where I was for a while longer was not what I wanted to hear. It made me feel that much more hopeless.
Career
I have a job interview scheduled for Monday for another counseling position. I have not had a good feeling about it since I took it. I literally feel like anything I do right now to try and get out of the job I am in will not be successful. I am very upset about it because right now the only hope I have been holding onto is that I can get a counseling job. I took a half day off for the interview and it is my only free half day. After that I start using my maternity leave. The only positive to taking a half day is I get to sleep in one more day. Otherwise I feel that my time is being wasted going to this interview. My husband really wants me to go, though, since it is located in a place he wants to move to. I would love the job, but everything in my being tells me that looking for another job right now is hopeless. My dreams last night seem to have confirmed this. All I can think is: What is the point?
Go With The Flow
After I got sick with the cold that would not quit I had a week of not being sick where I began to feel a bit better. Unfortunately, during that week I was horribly unhappy and depressed. First I had a student threaten me and then I had a coworker threaten me. The student upset me more than the coworker because the coworker was threatening to "tell on me" basically to try and get me in trouble or written up. I honestly didn't care and laughed to myself afterward because, really, I would welcome being fired right now. lol Then ext day, though, when I went to work I got a strange migraine headache that left me not being able to see or speak correctly. It lasted two days. I knew my blood pressure was up and I also felt like something was very wrong with me.
Fast forward to a couple of days ago. Thanksgiving day to be exact. I realized I was angry. All my illness, the migraines and the tension I have been feeling are coming from me being very, very angry. Angry that I have been forced to put my life on hold; that I am not being allowed to move forward. I don't know why, but it seems to be connected to others - my husband or my baby, maybe my sister, I don't know. I also realized that I am acting like I did when I was in high school. Sullen, angry, isolating myself from others, finding fault in everything and everyone around me. It is not a fun place to be.
So I asked for help and what do I get? Dreams like the ones I mentioned above and being told, point blank, that I am stuck where I am for a while longer and that, really, there is nothing I can do about it except quit. Quit. If I quit I lose health insurance. If I quit, I lose money. If I quit, I may not be able to get another job and we will have to move. If I quit I am not better than my mooch of a sister. And my job is not bad right now. In fact, it is super easy. Free money in a sense. It would be ludicrous to quit right now.
But the feeling I get is that I will be stuck in this limbo until this baby is born. That I will be back at square one when summer comes. Do I resign and pray that I find a job? Do I stick to the plan to sell my beautiful house and land and live off my husband's income until I find another job? Will I even find one? Then I will be home with a small child and a baby with little money at my disposal which means less freedom. No, the future I see ahead of me is gloomy. I don't want it but apparently, I have no choice except to start the gloom now or later. Not much of a choice. I feel once again forced onto a path that I do not want to be on. I tried to get off the path years ago. Where did it leave me? Misery. I could not diverge from the path. All other paths were dead ends. The only time I succeeded was when I applied to jobs along one particular career path. Once I gave in and accepted this as my fate, things were simpler, even happy. And here I am again, wanting to split off from the path and again finding dead end after dead end.
And what message do I get? Go with the flow. Ha!
Apparently there is some lesson in this, or maybe not even that. Maybe I have just agreed to help people using this particular career path. Or maybe I am not ever suppose to know. I wish I could go back to that numb state so that "going with the flow" were easier. Perhaps I will. But I can't help but think that I will be angry for a while longer. To feel forced to do something you do not want to do would make anyone angry. Also, to find that all your hard work and dedication meant nothing except a degree that is going to sit in a dark filing cabinet unused, is quite disheartening. Part of me wants to sit huddled in a corner and cry all day and the other part of me wants to lash out and make everyone hurt like I am hurting. I feel wounded. That is not a place to be. Wounded animals are the more dangerous and destructive.
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