I didn't make time for a walk today. I was tired from being awake half the night with insomnia, fighting nightmares where literally our house was haunted and trying to kill us. We were deciding whether to sell it without telling anyone, or wondering if we demolished it and built a new house on the same property if the deadly spirits would return with the new digs. I'm sure this nightmare is to be continued, so I'll try to keep my two followers up to date on that.
This dream was simple to decipher: we are currently in danger of losing our house. The house has been a crushing financial burden since buying it after my wife lost her job at the same time all my freelance work dried up. This house has felt like it has been trying to kill me since we bought it-even when I'm awake. Scary times. Which makes me think quite a bit about how we got to this point? We are two educated, smart, and creative people who have put our dreams out there, only to have them handed back to us. We've done things the right way, more or less, but here we are, facing very hard decisions.
At age 39 going on 50 I can see clearer than before where I have made my mistakes, if you want to call them that, and where I have found my strengths, if you want to call them that. It feels very much like we chose to live out our own self proficies, we actually choose our own paths. I personally never thought I could pull off making 5B Ice Cream a success-in my mind it was a farce, no matter what success it brought. The farther it got, the more I convinced myself it would never work. Each step of the way I could see how impossible it was, and how wrong I was doing things. Ultimately, I proved myself right.
Tonight my wife told me of how her own actions had determined her diminishing TV career, how she was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Each moment of success was tainted by a cloud of doubt and a need to hold on to each moment (not enjoy it-just hold on to it) for fear they would be all over tomorrow. And she did not enjoy it, and much of the momentum is over.
I see friends facing divorce because they chose to turn a blind eye to who their spouse really is-they "always knew it would end this way". I see other friends "trapped" in jobs they "hate" but are who are unable to see themselves in any other role. I see others married to the love of their lives, but drowning themselves in a sea of disconect and miscommunication, so therefore they do not communicate or connect.
It feels to me in this very moment that we are all in more control of our own destinies than we want to think we are. Sure, we cannot control everything and everyone around us, and why would we want to; but, we are all living the stories we have told ourselves in one way shape or form.
Of course the problem is that you cannot just flip a switch and tell yourself a new story of how successsful you are suddenly going to be. Positive thinking is a start, but ultimatly the new script must be real. That's the only way they work. And perhaps this is where the control of our destinies ultimately breaks down? Perhaps this is where we are forced to face the shortcomings and the successses of our self-fulfilling prophecies-because we are doomed to continue writing the same story for ourselves until we are exhausted by them-and this we cannot control. One can hope that eventually we tire of living the same story over and over, and at some point start crafting a new one.
Amen.
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