Dream Wars

On my list of top ten subjects to read about and become a master of, is included the topic of dreaming. I want to know everything there is about dreams. I want to know how to dream better, longer, faster, clearer. I want to control them. I want to understand how my brain picks pieces of my day to store in my subconscious, sewing them together to form dreams where I went grocery shopping with an old family friend to bake Christmas cookies as I have an apron tied around my pregnant belly. What is the point of a dream like that? Is it reminding me to call an old family friend? Is it God's way of telling me one day I'll be a mom? I like dreams. They're this rare glimpse into what your brain is doing when you're not aware of what it's doing. 

My fascination with the brain started extremely young. I didn't realize it before but now I know exactly how that little fascination started. I was five years old when my dad was working to build a corporate office building and a crane struck him in the head. His hardhat saved his life, but his 300+ stitches proved that his brain had not remained unscathed. My dad suffered seizures, his personality changed, he was different than before and even a five year old can understand. As a little kid I became fascinated with how the brain worked. Our family had a 15 pound Random House Dictionary that I would drag off the bookshelf to look up a word I'd overheard or read somewhere. I wanted to understand everything. 

As I've grown older I've kept this underlying theme. I want to understand everything. I want to know why my brain chooses to remember what it does. I'm 25 years old. I cannot remember a lot of my childhood. I'm not really sure why, but my childhood is blurry and the only memories I do have involve my brother too. I don't know if I actually remember them or if I've built them there with the retellings from family members throughout the years. The only real memories I have from childhood...are the facts and information that I have memorized. That, to me, is fascinating. I can recall with almost no issue whatever, ANYTHING, that I have ever learned. Movie quotes, song lyrics, birthdays, anniversaries, dates, facts, trivia...can be recalled with almost no issue. The recall issues come with actual experiences. I don't really remember my birthday parties as a child. I remember seeing pictures and being told what we did. I do however have every lyric to every song on the Flipper soundtrack still in my head because I got that CD at my birthday party in 5th grade. That's how my brain works.

I fight with my brain. I would love for it to recall what I did last weekend as easily as it recalls the lyrics to Everybody by Backstreet Boys. I'm getting better at it. That's what my dreams are though. My dreams are experiences and I get so paranoid that they're telling me crazy important things and I wake up to only remember the subtle details. I want to remember the lyrics. I want to remember the quotes. I want to remember the dates and times. I'm working with my brain on this. My brain is not adjusting as easily as I'd like...because I'm 25 now and not 5 and my brain is older and slower and training it is different. I'm doing it though, because dang it, I'm going to remember my dreams. I want to know what my brain's doing in there. I have a lot to accomplish and I'm going to need my brain in tiptop shape. 

Gather Your Thoughts

Tonight I was on the phone with my long distance boyfriend for the second time in nearly ten days. This is the "time apart" of our relationship, when he spends a few months 2000 miles away and we test the limits of communication. As his cell phone dips in and out of service, our schedules clash, time zones collide and general mayhem occurs, our relationship becomes a series of tiny conversations. 

His life and my life move at about 100 mph in opposite directions while the only thing holding us together is this tether on the heart line. I love this man with all my heart and that's why I fight for those tiny conversations. I was blessed this week with getting two extended phone calls giving me a chance to vent a bit. My poor boyfriend. He is seriously the best. He worked for hours yesterday and hours today just to get me to spill my guts. 

Here's the deal. I'm a generally happy person. I smile 97% of the day. I can laugh off most crappy situations. I have the ability to find the fun in almost any mundane task. I have personally witnessed my overly bubbly personality annoy other people. I'm THAT girl. I'm loud. I laugh a lot. I don't take things seriously. I say all that to say that when I lose those parts of me, when life gets heavy, when I start to slide...I don't talk about it. I shut up. I don't tell people when I need help. I don't tell people when I'm struggling. I take it all on my own and no one finds out unless they know me REALLY well and basically read my mind. 

My complaints are usually masked in sarcasm. I laugh at things that stress me out as I try to balance it all. When out of my mouth spills only sarcastic one liners and the only thing I ingest is coffee...those are the signs. That's when I'm losing control. I know this now and now you do too. I need someone to watch me. I need someone to be on top of my game when I'm doing my best to ignore it. The closest person I have to that is my boyfriend and that's only because he knows me better than I know myself some days. He can read into my tone and know exactly when I'm not okay and he'll flat out say "what's wrong?" even when I've technically done nothing to indicate there's a problem. 

Today I am facing the fact that I need to get myself in check. I have let things slide and now I'm reaping what I've sown. My attitude sucks. I'm depressed. I'm lonely. I would rather sit and complain about these things or make sarcastic comments to those around me than actually do something to fix it. I've been wallowing in my self appraised shortcomings in life and allowing myself to become my own worst enemy. I have been looking at my life as a badly dealt hand at cards and whether consciously or not, it has been causing my life to become exactly that. I haven't completely destroyed my life or anything, but I have definitely caused myself unnecessary heart damage in the past few weeks. 

I have to stop. I have to stop thinking I don't deserve to have a break. I have to stop thinking that I don't have time to do the things I need to keep my mind and heart healthy. I have to stop filling my head with so much negativity that all I do is produce negative energy and suck people into my stupid funk. It's time to get out of the funk and get back on track.

After what I can only assume was a very frustrating conversation for my boyfriend to have with me he told me to "gather my thoughts" and we'd talk more later. This was my opportunity to explain to him why for the past week I have been Negative Nancy and I sound completely unenthused. I'll admit that first I was irritated at him for telling me to do that. I have my thoughts gathered. I'm mad. I'm tired. I'm so tired that I'm mad about being tired and vice versa. I miss my boyfriend. I have very little social life. I'm depressed. I had all these thoughts gathered. Along with the thought that I wanted to keep holding onto that. That's what I said. I told him that I knew how to fix it and that I just didn't want to. It's so stupid how that happens. It's like some little demon inside me likes being mad and wants me to stay that way even when I don't want to at all. It's this battle within me and I fight it more often than I'd like to admit. I suppose the first step to overcoming something is identifying it. I have different thoughts gathered now. The original thoughts are still there, but now I have a plan for overcoming them, and I'm actually going to do it.