dreams

My Birthday

Posted on by tresswann

Well,  I hit my milestone today.   I have been so wrapped up in this for the past year.  Finally, this week I decided it wasn’t all of that.

So,  I took time off from work and drove up to Finger Lakes to spend some time with one of my besties and husband.  Sunday night we sat outside on the deck and watched the blood moon.  A magical beginning.

Today we drove and saw art and did a little shopping.  And then great wine with friend.

I feel so blessed.  I may have problems walking but I am surrounded by love and new possibilities.  Both my stepsons and their girlfriends called me.  I had best wishes on Facebook.  Messages from friends when I woke.  Awesome card from husband.

I have hope despite all.

Age is a number and a troubling number at that.  I have never done well with numbers.  Can’t say I am looking forward but not looking back either.

I will make this last part of my life count!

I am so blessed

Teeth and Age

Posted on by tresswann

I read a long time ago that if you dreamt of losing your teeth, you were dreaming about age.  In a non-coincidence just before my 30th birthday I dreamt all my teeth fell out.  Now I am older and definitely have teeth issues.  In fact, I believe teeth are at the root (Ha, not ha) of my present predicament.  The hole in my mouth.  Recently, the bridge and crown covering that rogue tooth was removed.  The remainder has to go but I have been trying to hold off as I have an important meeting with the head of my company July 31.  I need to be able to talk and look healthy.   And yes,  my health is important but if I have no job or a miserable one, my health will also be impacted negatively.

Today, I took our 12 year old niece to a bracelet making class for her birthday.  Just the two of us at an adult class.  She told me how she feared 13.  It’s the end of childhood and she will be a teenager.  A child after my own heart as she has 11 months to go.  Today is also the day of my high school picnic. SUSAN GRADEvery year on this weekend in July, my high school which closed in the 80’s has an all class picnic.  I grew up in Levittown and as I explained to my niece not only were there people in your class but whole families you grew up with.  I literally was in the same class with one boy from second grade through my first year of college  I went two years and then stopped.Susan and Jerry Dumas July 2012  I find I revert to high school and try to disappear. I was quiet and odd.  Now I am louder and odd.  I explained to my niece when I was at school being smart was not looked up to.   I also hate looking the way I do.  The first year I went without the brace.  The second year I had to.  Now, I have to use a cane.  I can’t STAND the OMG what happened to you!!! And the pity.  Don’t tell me it’s in my mind either.  Because of mobility, it’s hard for me to get up and move around.  The first year we went my husband was anxious as he thought he wouldn’t know anyone.  He is younger than me and grew up several towns over.  You can tell where this is going.  He recognized more people than I did.  Recognize is relative.  We are older and balder and broader and greyer. Me,  I am the gimpiest next to the guy that my husband knew who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. So,  when I think I see someone I recognize I can’t walk quickly enough to talk to them.  And here’s another reason I don’t go anymore, every year after the picnic someone dies!  First year someone got run over by a cab, 2nd year a guy who grew up behind me was hit by a garbage truck, last year someone from my class was killed by a wrong way driver.  Why tempt fate?

So jewelry with niece, leather wrap bracelet, nicer than hippie ones, safer than picnic.  However, all the nostalgia and seeing things again through 12 year old eyes.  We leave the class and part of the rogue tooth crumbles and comes out.  Irony and age.  Now I have another hole in my mouth, more poison loose in my body.  A stunning reminder of aging on a reunion day.

Zombies, Dreams and Other Bumps in the Road

Posted on by tresswann

Disclaimer:  Life isn’t always about the disease or the condition.  When this journey started, I said I would not be confined or defined.  Well,  I started to let that happen.  I am fighting my way out of it.  I really dislike fighting.  I don’t like conflict.

Fact about me:  I am an avid, voracious and catholic reader.  However,  I don’t really do the supernatural or horror. Mysteries?  Yes.  Literature – smiles.

Disclosure:  My area of concentration at college was the synchretization of African religious beliefs in the colonial world.  I know, I know what was I thinking.  It is seriously interesting to me .  And that means I studied obeah, santeria, macumba, voudon.  But so not into zombies and if you really look at voodoo that’s not what it’s really about.

About conflict:  Work has been in turmoil for awhile.   I discovered earlier this year that my group head does not believe I am qualified to be a trainer!  It’s my job and I have been doing it with this organization for 15 years   11 years ago this month the training department in North America was disbanded as it was considered an expense not an investment and I was let go.  I was hired as a corporate training manager for a major US retail chain.  6 months later, I was asked back to finish some work.  So I did both jobs.  When the retailer went into bankruptcy, they were thrilled and I started working more hours, lots and lots.  Even now I average over 40 (billable) hours a week, have trained literally hundreds of people and created numerous successful programs.  So d’uh?  When I came back simplistically because of the expense thing they couldn’t call me training.  There are also corporate cultural and political issues so I do not identify there as a trainer because I seriously love what I do and yes, it pays well.  Also,  I work in I.T.  And am not technical.  I am the translator.  For those of you of a certain age,  I am the Mikey likes it of the department – if I understand and can do it, anyone can!  She says I told her I wasn’t a trainer.  Uh,  I made a  comment on 2nd day she was here!  In fact, one year they called me BUST – business user services/ testing!  My immediate manager and my former manager are moving to the other side of the business.  I was told that they didn’t know who my supervisor was going to be or where I would be located.  Unsettling.  And you know stress goes right to my legs and it’s not good.

Ok stage has been set.

Sunday night I dreamt that this woman (group head)  was a zombie!  She was on the ground disabled.  I was there and someone had given me a HUGE cartoon-like Chinese cleaver.  In my real life I have problems literally killing flies.  So,  I am holding this cleaver and there are people standing around me telling me I need to cut her head off.  It’s easy, the cleaver is big enough, it will be a clean cut.  I hesitate but they tell me I need to and can.  I visualize a dressed chicken. At the last minute  I smash her face.  There’s blood all over her face, rivers of it.  Then she starts to get up and I wake up screaming.

In the real world, I don’t talk to her or interact with her.  And I don’t do blood.

Cut to next day,  I go in and get a note from my former manager, there is a training job open.  Oh, I am not an employee. I am freaking and bouncing off the walls.  Tell husband to be ready and get me.  I literally stumble in.

For now, all is good.  It may even work out.  And I am walking really well.  I have had some great meetings and interactions.  It will be alright.  I am beginning to feel like me, the old confident, creative me!

But what did that dream mean?  Why did I have it then?