4:20 p.m. - 06/19/02
sometimes it feels like peanuts // dre-e-e-e-eam, dream, dream, dream.
security over freedom. unfortunately. it's not that I want it to be this way, it's just that I'm so frightened of anything else. though the prospect of rooming with sara at hampshire has alleviated quite a bit of my fear. it's funny really; my first night there we stood in the hallway and discussed recovery over her shower materials, and she was so good about explaining that she'd been in lots of hospitals and this was the best one, that everyone really wanted to get better here. she was so good at making me feel safe. I won't pressure her to go to hampshire of course, but we're so similar, she'd probably love it, and we could help each other through the stresses of leaving home and being in college and generally living in the world. there was a time when our rooming together would have been bad, but we're both better at boundaries now. we're both better at loving only so much as we're able...
when Joe first went to college he roomed with a good friend from high school. I'm a lot like Joe, emotionally. what's good is good, methinks. but who knows where anyone, including me, will be in a year. who plans for such a thing?
that's what's so bizarre about applying to all these colleges. here, judge me, and not only judge me, but judge me on a person I will no longer be (completely) when I hypothetically begin attending your school. does the process of evolution mean nothing to them? I wish college were like sixth grade volleyball. I wish you just signed up and let the coaches deal.
sixth grade volleyball was the only sport I played for that reason and also- because my sister thought I need a more active activity, and I was still completely incapable of saying no to my sister. in sixth grade, I was pretty much incapable of wanting to say no to her. at least the latter part has changed.
the doc and I mostly talked about that today and about family dynamics. I think we must talk about friends or school or *something else* next week because even though the thorough discussion of my siblings is new, I'm tired of talking to him about people he sees three days later. I want to talk to him about my life outside of my family, and that isn't just outside of my parents. I want to talk about my life outside of this state, outside of this mentality, and outside of this race. I have so many beliefs and thoughts and experiences we never discuss, for one reason or another, and I'm so tired when I go there, I just wish that for once we could prompt me on something other than the bloodliebs. but then, I kind of brought in on myself, because he was talking about NY, and I mentioned that I'm not really excited about going, and how my sister and I are sort of ick, so really he didn't prompt the family status much at all. I could have just as easily mentioned that Scott might be in NY during the run of the play, or perhaps during the final rehearsals, which is so incredibly wonderful, but for some reason that wasn't on my mind. I know the 'point' of therapy on one hand is to talk about the more painful, unexciting things, but generally I tend to disregard my points of happy-happy-joy-joy (and I don't have enough outlets for them) so I think it's good for me to bring up people like Scott and Mandy and Chas and Julie and Laura and Cami and Lindsey and Britt and Silje and Sara. I mean, it's good.
The session seriously flew by, and I felt cheated when he said, "So, I'll see you next week?" I think it might have been on the short end of an hour, and since he tends to do 70 or 80 minute sessions, this really felt quick. when we went to the car the clock said "12:05" which means we ended on time, but considering that he ran over with the person before me, I think my shortchanged feeling was justified. more likely I had things I needed to say but hadn't thought to bring up. even now I'm not sure what those were. I think I'm just entirely too introspective/ complicated. I delve into too many details of my life, and when someone asks me to pick one topic to discuss and then give up talking for a friggin week, it feels worse than if I weren't given the opportunity to talk at all. sometimes, having to choose between new crochet yarn and a new CD is worse than being broke entirely.
I had a dream last night that I was back at my old school. All four schools (primary, upper elementary, middle school, and high school) were kind of squished into one building and there were several levels added on for stores, so that basically the place was a cross between an educational institution and a shopping mall. it started out on the last day of my junior year (supposedly). I had gathered all my bags and was in this large room, a little like my ms chorus room but with no rises, standing with my friends. I had been on my way out, but then I realized everyone was loitering and the clock technically said we had five or ten minutes to go before the bell. since it seemed kind of ridiculous to stay, I thought I might just skip out early, but they started to play a popular song of the year, the tune of which has slipped my mind - but was supposedly by "Jimmy Eat World" (who I've recently decided are very very cool, and everyone got hyper and danced around.) I remember there were these two kids kicking themselves for not being around more during the school year because they didn't know this song that everyone was so pysched about.
and then we started saying the obligatory, "let's get together this summer"s and "make sure to keep in touch" and Shandi started to cry a little and said something about how it was stupid to even try because we never stay in touch (which is completely not true- I mean, we can *drive* now, hey; we always stayed in touch over the summer). so I told her that we had to because this summer was our practice summer; we had to make sure that we stayed in touch because otherwise we might not do so after graduation when it was *really* hard...and matt, who'd been standing silently, seemed to agree with this.
so I knew that my parents were waiting to pick me up, and (as was often the case when I attended school) I felt badly about making them wait, but I decided to screw it and talk a little with friends. somehow or another I ended up in an auditorium with this girl named Andrea who had come to me for advice about whether to hang out with her friends who were 'cool' or her friends who weren't. I was just starting to delve into which friends she had a better time with (after a quick joke about, "Well, it is high school!" i.e. of course, you pick the cool friends; you're sixteen and you're shallow) when all this girl (whose name is either Cathy or Kaitlen depending on who she actually was; stay with me) sat down and started talking in unison with me and doing all the same hand gestures. now, Cathy was the showstopper female performer (not exactly deservedly, but nevertheless) at the high school before I got there, and then I inherited her position my sophomore year (my leading in fall play). Her sister Kaitlen was the year younger than me, and was big into her sister's talent. kind of like I was as a kid with my sister starring in high school. actually, the dream got me to thinking this morning that maybe one of the reasons I was so competitive with Cathy at the same time I (occasionally) liked her was because I was competing with my sister. I mean, I'd convinced myself very early on that I had to star onstage my sophomore year because Sarah had done so, and I wasn't about to be stopped by a girl who hadn't even done community theater. (crazy, yes?) anyway, I did star my sophomore year, but this did nothing for my feelings of inferiority because I starred in the *play* and Sarah starred in the *musical* and we both know that the play takes so much less talent. and then there was the added bonus that I entirely screwed up the night she came. yes. it was not a good thing.
anyway, the dream. I (sort of jokingly) yelled at this girl who I thought was Cathy to stop following me, and she said something about how since we were both in theater she could follow me really easily, and then I looked up and a couple seats away, there was *Cathy* and Kaitlen was the one sitting next to me, and I was like, oh great now I have to compete with the little sister. it was majorally a mess, on top of which, no one was giving Andrea any advice. urgle.
so later, I was on one of the higher levels of this very maze like mall that had really small circular floors (but a whole bunch of them) and this girl walked past toward the expensive clothing stores, just ooozing money, and this kid named Kyle who was kind of a troublemaker throughout grade school said to me, "if you want to get good, cheap clothes, you should go through there" (pointing out a different area that we were just passing) and I told him that was good to know, as I followed him around the curve looking for a way out. I kind of wanted to keep talking with him, but as usual in school, I felt awkward, like maybe I was still the know-it-all honors kid he knew in fourth grade, and besides, I'd just gotten back from six or so months in the hospital. yes. in my subconscious D!@#$%^ doesn't exist...my subconscious is cool like that.
I wandered around for basically forever and couldn't find any way out. I ended up following all of these kids into a dead end area, or actually, I think there were some people gathering there to take some sort of last-chance/make-up final, and then I was trying to climb down this thing that looked sort of like that sculpture Homer and Lisa climb up when they break into the museam to see the Isis exhibit. (Non-Simpsons viewers: a collection of colored bars that move around when weight is placed on them and lead you to other bars.) So I'm almost all the way down when this guy says to me, "If you're going to go down that way, you should probably..." I don't know, hold this or, move here, or something. He directed me. And I was like, "Oh, yeah. I would have fallen if I hadn't done that" and then I was angry because I would never know if I'd have seen the problem on my own.
So I was walking around in the hallway which was dark like one of the hallways in the primary building and this guy (I don't think it was the same guy) came up to me and asked me something that I didn't understand, and he said, "Are you new here?" and I said, "No, actually I've been here sixteen years" and he was like, "Not in the primary building all that time, I hope," and I laughed obediently and told him no, not in the primary building. And then I was turning a corner and somone (also a guy) was asking me a question related to direction on the bars thing (hmm: raising the bar???) and he talked about how it was parallel to some street in Neverland. I told him I didn't know where that street was and he looked completely shocked. "Are you new here?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I've only lived here a few months." That got rid of him. He went into a bathroom and I was left to face a sort of dorky kid (the kind who, in fifth grade, still used his sleeve as a kleenex) who'd ridden the bus with me since the time we were *going* to primary. He looked at me, confused and a little slow. "So," he said, "Did I meet you really early in that seven months?" and I was took him aside so that the guy in the bathroom wouldn't hear, and so that he'd feel special and maybe understand that I was letting him into my confidence and he shouldn't alert the bathroom guy the moment the door reopened- and explained that no, I had wanted to get rid of this guy who was bugging me about streets and directions and so I had told him I'd only been here a few months. which, I pointed out, *was* true- I'd just neglected to mention that before the time I was gone (my time at Rogers) I had lived here sixteen years. and the kid was still a bit confused but also a bit entertained, and I went on my way.
the next thing I remember, I was in the auditorium (again) and this kid was jumping from row to row on the chairs and I realized there was some sort of animal a couple rows down from him, a mole or a groundhog or something, and just as I was understanding enough to be completely disturbed this kid (whose name was Nick, and who grew up to be the less cool version of a computer hacker) jumped the final row of chairs and smashed down on top of this animal, who was obviously just confused and trying to find it's way back outside. So I was really upset and sick at this fact, and I wanted to go hit Nick but I didn't want to get too close to the murdered animal, so I just sort of froze where I was and tried to move up the row a little further toward the exit. then everyone started yelling about what he was doing and the mess he'd made, and I turned around and was really grateful that this other girl was screaming about it all, until I realized that there was a kid in the top row ripping up paper, and that was all anyone was chastising. someone told him to think about why he felt the need to rip up paper and leave it all over the floor, and I remembered that in general, I did it because I was angry, but this kid mostly looked calm.
so maybe at this point, I was outside for a few seconds, or maybe that was before the whole primary incident. anyway I looked across the road to this icee stand where my parents always picked me up in grade school (on the rare occasion I didn't ride the bus) and it was packed with kids. I figured this had something to do with the fact that Disneyland was coming that night (I'd heard this earlier in the dream) and noticed that the sidewalk at my feet was completely decorated in chalk for the occasion and there was (another? or the first?) rodent, smaller than the one in the auditorium, moving through the grass below. I figured he'd been disturbed by all the extra action and would find his way along, and then the *next* thing I remember, I was upstairs in this very open area, and I was going into one of the stores, and I was starting to feel all panicky and confused, so I left, but as I was leaving I realized I was holding a glassy orange toy-animal about the size of my arm and so I set it down a folding table that had tape down the middle. I set it down on the wrong side of the tape, and this kid told me that I had to go see his dad for shoplifting, and I was like, "No you don't understand; I just got confused- I don't even remember picking it up." And he was like, "No you really have to. It's ok, don't worry. Just go see my dad." And I was really pissed because by now my head was really crashing in and my conscience was joining in, raining on my parade with its cries of "Thief!" and I really never liked knocking on someone's door asking them to punish me. So I figure, I'm finally in a spot with doors, I guess I'll just leave, but as I'm starting to leave, I feel weird about not following through with what the kid told me, and what the hell, he seemed nice, so I go back the long way (out of nervousness) to this sort of crazed office and there's the kid who told me what is now a while earlier to go see his dad. I play innocent and am like, "Who's your dad? Is he- are you his dad?" thinking that my "new kid in town" card can help me plead innocence in taking so long to turn myself in. And then there was this other littler kid next to him, and the dad was surprised that I knew he was both of their father, and I was like, "Oh the (store) kid has a little brother I didn't even notice; guess I lucked out..."
That's all I remember. It's the first dream I've remembered *at all* in a long time, and I think it's going to take me awhile to weed out what little guidance I can from the metaphor. I know it has something to do with competing with my sister's shadow, competing with my sister to advise me (the Andrea part), and competing with my little sister self to let me be my own person. also, there are a lot of school images, and I don't think that's random. I'm not sure what's up with the mole and the groundhog. These are the groundhog references that come to my mind, in the order they come:
1.) My second grade teacher, whose name sounded a bit like groundhog, and who tended to hold her head toward the ground, i.e. burrow.
2.) six more weeks of winter, the whole shadow-vs-cloudy deal.
3.) my cousin Stewart. he got married on Groundhog day.
and these are my mole references:
1.) The Wind In The Willows.
2.) The Mole reality series where one of the characters pretends to be working with the team only to sell them out at the end.
2.) I was thinking that the mole was the largest of all rodents (I know this because the porcupine is second largest and I'm obsessed with porcupines) but that isn't true, it's the beaver, so who knows what the hell that means.
oh, and I was thinking about characters and names and I remembered that in eighth grade I wrote a novel where this girl's best friend always told her what to do, and this friend was named Nick (like the kid who killed the animal)...Nick-in-the-story was also based on my friend Matt, who was present in the first scene, and is very not controlling of my life. So yeah.
mostly, I'm just writing this down because I want to remember it this well tomorrow, and because in a few months if I reread this entry I'll be able to access some of the images as clearly as I can right now, and that's always really cool.
so yeah.
chord
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