All three of the things in my title have been in my dreams of late. A few days ago I dreamed a car — looked like an old mustang — drove off the roof of a house and into an old-style Volkswagen bug, that happened to be painted robin’s egg blue. The mustang compacted like an accordian, and squished the two people inside. Three chunks of human flesh catapulted upward and broke through the window from which I was watching. One of the chunks landed on my arm and I screamed in horror and woke up.
Last night the tollhouse cookies entered, fresh-baked on a plate held by a woman who was supposed to be my sister, and who looked nothing like either of my actual related-to-me-by-blood sisters. An evil man dressed all in red (meant to be the devil, no doubt) entered the room and took her away. He told her he would murder her whole family (and while he said this, he transformed into a man in a Nazi SS uniform). Somehow I managed to hide behind a large sheet of white plastic, and the devil/Nazi man didn’t find me. I felt like a coward in the dream, and promised myself I would find her and rescue her. She came back later as a zombie, dressed in dirt-streaked rags and holding a plate of moldy tollhouse cookies, no doubt to reproach me for not rescuing her. I screamed in that dream, too — screamed and screamed and screamed until I thought my chest would explode. This time I didn’t wake up, though, and the rest of what happened is fuzzy, except I think the Nazi/devil man was standing outside behind my sister (I could see him through the hole she made when she crashed through the wall).
I believe I’m having these dreams because of unexpressed grief. I need to cry. I need to cry a lot, have one of those good, long, clearing-out-the-pipes cries. In order to have one, though, I need to battle many years of stoicism. I learned as a child to express all my emotions through only one — anger. Anger was the only “acceptable” emotion in my house. Everyone got royally pissed off on a regular basis, but I rarely saw anyone cry. When they did cry, it was quite painful to witness.
I vividly remember the first time I saw my father cry. Somehow I had formed the belief (at the age of about four) that grownups did not cry. I looked forward to growing up with joyful anticipation, because I sincerely believed that, once I attained grownuphood, my crying days would be over. Then I walked into the living room and saw my father looking at our couch. The same couch I had recently decorated with one of my mother’s bright lipsticks, that looked just like crayons to me. He stared at all the beautiful, swirly squiggles of vivid red, lay down on top of them and started to cry. His back was to me, but I knew the sounds, and I knew what that shaking back meant. Watching him cry was like witnessing a natural disaster, like seeing a mountain collapse. My dream of a grownup paradise free from pain and tears dissolved then and there.
Oddly enough, I had never connected that childhood belief before with my difficulty expressing grief. I’ve been waiting my whole life for my sadness to end, and it never will. Neither will my love, joy, anger, or any other emotion. Maybe, at age 48, it’s finally time for me to accept grief as a part of growing up. Wow! I typed that and the pipes suddenly started clearing out. Hallelujah and amen.
Thanks, as always, for your kind regard.
~Love and Blessings,
Selene~
