Dreams

I had the most disturbing dream last night.  I dreamed that I was called back to my high school to investigate a murder.  Except the school wasn't my old school...it was just a random, more modern school.  So I drove there and was taken to the body, which was the body of a young woman with brown hair.  And she had been beaten on the head with a blunt object and it had smashed her skull in.  And there was blood and brain matter all over the concrete.  I looked over the scene and left it for the CSI while I went and interviewed people to see if I could discover clues.  So I went from teacher to student, following her shortened day's path starting from when she got to the school to the point when she died.  And as I was going along, one of the teachers, a man, started to make me nervous by the way he was acting.  I was suspicious of him, and kept coming back to ask him more questions because his answers didn't quite come out right.  At one point we were in a theater, and I was asking him questions, writing on my little flip note pad and he tried to kiss me.  And all I was thinking was he was trying to distract me, distract me from the truth.  I pulled away from him and continued on.

I met him again in the afternoon, in the chemistry room, outside of which the woman was found.  I kept thinking he did it, he did it, but I had no proof yet.  The lights were off in the room, although it was relatively bright because it was a sunny day.  And the door had a frosted glass window in it, where you could see shapes moving outside of it.  It lead onto an outside sidewalk that ringed each of the classrooms, whose doors opened up to the outside in a courtyard.  I was walking to the door and when I put my hand on the handle and pulled it open, I was suddenly hit with the realization that I had just traveled the path of the dead woman and it was clear that, in reality, I WAS the dead woman that was found that morning and that I was taking her/my last step, and that soon I would die.  And it came, too, from behind.  A crushing blow to the skull with what I knew was a hammer.  Over and over, I could actually feel the pain of my skull splintering and shattering and my body falling to the ground, the hard scraping of my skin against the concrete.  And he looked at me, right before I died, and said I told you so.

11 More Days

I was exhausted this morning.  I've spent more time than I care to admit examining every aspect of my life.  Years now.  I don't know why, really, since the answers are the same no matter which way I look at it.    Twenty-three years with nothing to show for it, with the notable exception of two wonderful kids I probably don't deserve.  I know myself and I always have, no matter how much I've allowed myself to second guess it.  I've tried to give all the people in my life my consideration and understanding, my loyalty and love.  I've tried to work hard, be honest and do the right thing.  And all this time I've been trying to answer the question of whether it's been worthwhile. 

What I've come to realize is that it doesn't matter whether it's been worthwhile.  Everything I've experienced, everything that's happened in my life to bring me to wherever it is I am today, none of it really matters.  It was simply a means to an end.  And I've realized that it doesn't matter what I think about it or how I evaluate it.  Rather, what's most important is how I use what I've been given. 

And thus the challenge.  Being a master of self-reflection, I know full well I haven't used a tenth of what I've been given.  Less even.  So the question is whether I will wallow in lamentation over how incapable I am of achieving anything with my talents, or whether I will simply change it and start recognizing all of which I am capable. 

God has brought many wonderful people into my life.  Many.  Flawed?  Yes.  But wonderful people who have helped make me who I am today.  But the one person who turns out to be the one invaluable piece, the one I can't live without?  Jennifer. 

If you know us, my sister and I are very different people.  *very* different.  but if anyone chose to look closer, she is very much the ying to my yang.  She is everything that I, thus far in my life, have been incapable of being and yet everything I value.  She has the inner strength to redefine herself and the discipline to see it through.  She is compassionate and loving.  She is quintessentially WYSIWYG--there is quite simply no pretense about her.   I often say she's not an easy person to deal with sometimes, as I'm sure many people say about me as well.  But she's worth it in every respect.

And after all the self reflection and thought and examination I've done in my life, I think it's pretty ironic that such an important part of my life has been there the whole time and I haven't appreciated it for what it was.  Typically me, to be honest.  It's very true sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees.  But lucky for me somehow I always manage to recongize greatness in people.  Jennifer is great people.  Now the question becomes is whether I can model all the great things she brings in my own life.  I guess only time will tell.

Eleven more days until I turn 40. 

Brave
Loyal
Honest
Forthright
Flexible
Malleable
Hardworking
Forgiving
Funny

Go.