Dreams

Most of the time, dreams are very confounding and confusing. And I often wonder what precipitated the dream; in other words, what events occurred in my conscious mind that I needed to process in some way in my unconscious mind?

Yesterday evening I was out with my extended family for a birthday celebration. As a result of hanging out with people of a certain age, the conversation always seems to come back around to the “good old days.” My father, who passed away 28 years ago, is often a subject of discussion, especially for my uncle who clearly is always living in the past. Anyway, so my dad had been brought into my consciousness last night. The other thing that happened was that we waited quite a long time for my uncle to arrive at dinner (to the point where we were getting a little concerned). Anyway, he arrived and all was fine. But here’s how those events played into my dreams last night:

I’m not exactly sure where we were or even who I was with. It was some kind of event or meeting in some kind of public place. I was probably with a combination of friends and family, each one morphing into one another as so often happens in my dreams. The part I do remember is that we were all waiting for someone to arrive. Although I don’t remember the context or the actual person, there was someone who was disappointed that her father had not come to see her do her first triathlon (although not me in the dream, clearly this was meant to represent me) and we were all agreeing what a horrible person he was for not showing up.

The gist of the rest of the dream was that I (along with others) was waiting for my father to arrive. He was bringing someone with him, but I can’t remember who it was. We were all standing around waiting and were worried as to why he was so late. I don’t remember all the specifics, but I do remember feeling anxious in my dream about seeing him. As I started to process the significance of seeing someone I had not seen in 28 years, the anxiety began to grow a bit. There was no awareness or mention about the fact that he was (or had been) dead; he had just been away for a very long time. I wondered what kind of car he’d be driving; surely it wouldn’t be the same one he was driving 30 years ago! And would I even recognize him after all this time? What would I say to him? What would we talk about? Would he already know about all the things I had done over the last 28 years? And who was this person he was bringing with him?

I’m not even aware if my mother was around during all of this. She may have been, but there was no significance to whether she was there or not; she didn’t factor into this at all. As the hour drew later, we started to get concerned because they were beginning to lock the doors of the place we were at and we thought that if he didn’t arrive soon he wouldn’t be able to get in or to find us. Eventually, I decided to leave. I got in a car and started to drive, thinking that the others would catch up, including my father. That’s when I started to worry that I wouldn’t know what kind of car he was driving. And then my mother did factor into things here when I realized that she was driving a rented or borrowed car and I wouldn’t recognize it on the road.

The dream deteriorated at this point where I cannot recall any more of it. Suffice it to say that the meeting between my father and me never materialized.

So, now comes the deconstruction of the dream: What the heck am I waiting for? It’s almost like waiting has become my raison d’être over the last 28 years of my life. I’ve written previously about my penchant for “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” but this is a new spin on the waiting theme. Who am I waiting for? What am I waiting for? Why am I waiting for it? Maybe if I could figure out the Who and/or the What, I might be able to figure out the Why…

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I rode to/from work today - man was it windy this afternoon! I met CL and we went for a 6K run and planned to go for an easy swim afterwards. Unfortunately, the pool was closed. So we ate instead (of course!). God forbid we should actually burn some calories without replacing them. I had a slice of pizza from Mama's (yummmmm), a can of Limonata (mmmmmm) and to top it all off, a scoop of Creme Brulee ice cream from Ed's. Oh yes, no sense in burning calories when you can replace them twofold! Ha!

Nothing exciting happened in the Tour today. Lance is still in yellow. The first mountain stage starts tomorrow, so there should be some movement in the overall classification. I'll be doing a measely 75K in comparison to the 200+K that those guys will be doing. Ha!

I got my hair cut this afternoon. It was a new stylist for me. I always just go to the place that is the most convenient where I can make an appointment the day of or the day before. He did a really nice job and an awesome blowout, but then he kind of ruined it by putting in a bit too much finishing product which made it look a little greasy. Anyway, it's all ruined now as I ran this evening and was wearing a hat. Hopefully I'll be able to replicate the look myself (minus all the product, that is).