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Sunday, 09 October 2005

Very strange....

I had a very strange dream. It was about my parents' house, which has strong symbolic meaning in my dreams. Generally, it represents my life when I was part of their "household". In my dreams, the house is frequently haunted (another dream symbol; the "ghosts" represent unresolved issues, memories, etc.).

In this dream, though, it was the same house, but I had travelled back in time to long before they owned it, when it was owned by a prominent local family (in the dream I knew who they were; in waking hours, there is no such family who owned their house).

In the dream, the house had fancy gates and fences, it had a balcony which I felt was later removed, and it was just generally the home of a wealthy family. It was also not haunted, the haunting having taken place some time after that (that, I'm sure, has very significant meaning, but I don't entirely know what it is yet).

The daughter of the household was marrying a man who was the ancestor of the man I was married to in my dream (not Andrew, so it must have some symbolic meaning; weddings certainly have symbolic meaning). I witnessed their wedding in the back yard, and then I went to her and told her more or less who I was, and sort of guided her into doing certain things that I knew I was supposed to help her with. Inside the house, I was looking around and seeing the way things were set up, and noting how they would later be changed...

One thing I recall is that I told her she was going to conceive a baby very soon, that a son was coming to her. I'm not sure why she needed to know that. I also noted that her new husband looked very like the man to whom I was married in my own current time. I remember telling her that she was going to have many children (I don't recall now how many, but it was a very big family, I recall that much).

Several things about this dream strike me as significant, and I'm going to have to think about it and see if I can figure out what they mean.

Traveling back in time to before the house was haunted is hugely significant, but I'm not sure what it means. It may be some sort of "changing the present by changing the past" fantasy.

Also significant is the wedding, which generally signifies a sort of "coming of age" or a positive life turning point. It wasn't my wedding, though, but that of an ancestor of someone important to me, so I don't know what it might mean in this context.

I feel, overall, that this is something very positive, but I'm not sure (yet) what to make of it.

Tuesday, 04 October 2005

Expectations

I realized years ago that I was never going to live up to my mother's expectations. I'm not entirely sure what those expectations were, to be honest, I just was never good enough, and that was blatantly clear to me. Praise always came with a "but..." to make sure that I knew that no matter how well I did at something, it was never quite good enough. I was never okay just as I was. The goal was utter perfection, and, of course, I fell short of that, and therefore I was useless, worthless, lazy, good-for-nothing, etc.

The other day it occurred to me that I've still failed to live up to my parents' plans, expectations, and other ideas about what I should be. This is partly because they don't really know who I am (I don't think they ever did, really), partly because their expectations were usually unrealistic, partly because I don't think they really knew what I was "supposed to" do or be, only that what I did and was wasn't right or good or whatever. I'm definitely sure that "move to a foreign country, get citizenship outside the United States, and estrange yourself from us" wasn't what they expected from me, and I'm sure it is, for them, just one more reason to call me insane.

I have, however, been living up to my own expectations for myself, achieving many, many goals I've set, and keep moving forward. I'm doing well as a freelance artist and designer, I'm happily married, I have a pretty okay life. I'm not rich or famous, but I don't really want to be famous (I could handle being rich, heh). I have issues in my life, days when I feel crappy, etc., but overall, I'm doing very well for myself, and I did it almost entirely BY MYSELF. My parents contributed almost nothing toward my recovery or my search for sanity and balance. I did that almost entirely alone.

So the thing is, whose expectations matter more? My own or theirs? It saddens me that they think I'm crazy (I don't know that for sure, but the last time I spoke to my mother she did make it clear that she thought I was psychotic and delusional, and the last time I talked to my father he made it VERY clear that I was a burden he didn't want to bear), but ultimately, what would I be if I'd kept on trying to please them, to live up to their poorly defined and unrealistic expectations of me?

I don't like to play the "what if" game in this case, because I think it would have destroyed me. I'd rather look at all that I have achieved, all that I have become, and all that I can still be and do.

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