Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Dreams and my impending new reality.....
Had a dream last night/this morning. In it, I was in love with a model. She and I had gone to a fancy shopping district because I had lost a shoe and no longer had a matching pair, and so I needed to buy new shoes. We were in front of an exclusive store, and we had an argument. The argument ended with the model storming off and slipping through a special side entrance to the store for models only. When I reached the door, it was locked. There was no easily accessible front entrance to the store. I had to search and search for a way in. When I finally made it inside, I couldn't find the model, and when I got to the shoes, I realized right away that I was not going to be able to afford any of them. The salesperson said with great disdain that I would have to go to the discount section. As I was trying to figure out how I was going to get there, a slightly nicer salesperson said that he liked my purse, even if I was wearing it the wrong way, a sort of left-handed compliment. After climbing down several hidden staircases at the back of the store, I still hadn't found the discount section, and I decided I would just have to wear mismatched shoes. But I was still very upset about my fight with the model, and was concerned that our relationship was over. I decided to win her back by purchasing a gift certificate to the store in a huge dollar amount, even though it would probably bankrupt me.
My interpretation of the dream is this: the model represents my healthy self, and the fancy store is the world of healthy people. At least that's how it felt to me. Although it may seem at first to be completely superficial, the notion that I need to buy the love of a perfect woman, there was a lot more to it than that. What I was in fact trying to do was reconcile with the healthy world and the notion that I no longer fit in with healthy people. I lost my connection with the outside world when the model walked through that door and out of my life. Yes, some of this is indeed monetary, as I am aware that my illness has robbed me of a lifestyle to which I had become accustomed. But while it is about money, it is also about more than money. I know consciously that money can't buy happiness. But whether Americans want to admit it or not, money DOES buy social status and freedom. That high end store represented a social status I can no longer attain. I am willing to make do with less, as shown by my decision in the dream to wear mismatched shoes. But I do resent the loss of ability to travel (both physically and my ability to pay for a vacation), the possible loss of owning my own home if I can't get my current one sold, and the loss of access to quality medical care. And that's what I was trying to buy with that gift certificate....I was desperate to do whatever it took to get my health back.
The fact that someone tried to give me a compliment in the dream says to me that I am not completely invisible, at least not yet. And perhaps it also means that I still appear healthy to a point. But the level of difficulty I had in reaching even the bargain basement of the store says that I have become so isolated and homebound that I can no longer find much in common with the outside world. I am going to the re-opening ceremony of my old high school on Friday, the first public event I will be attending in my wheelchair where it is likely I will see people I know. I am not embarrassed to be seen in a wheelchair because I know that it will enable me to physically cover more ground and keep the exhaustion factor to a more manageable level. But I do wonder: if I should see an old classmate, what will we chitchat about? Most people at any sort of reunion talk about their jobs, their kids, their accomplishments, their vacations, their possessions. But I cannot work, have no children, cannot volunteer or do any significant community service, rarely leave the house, and will be completely broke soon if the house doesn't sell. That's not really fun stuff to discuss with semi-strangers. It is this sort of thing that makes me feel like I'm on the outside of the display window, wondering how to get inside. I guess my best strategy is to ask a lot of questions of the other person and listen intently and only bring up my situation if and/or when I am asked. Maybe I'll make some sort of joke about taking extremely early retirement, heh heh.
Certain relatives of mine have been critical of my association with so many other chronically ill people, telling me that I am wallowing in my own illness and am keeping myself sick because that's all I focus on. But my various attempts to ignore my illness and focus only on the positive to make myself healthy again have failed, and they will continue to fail because the sickness is more than psychological. If surrounding myself only with healthy, successful, positive individuals would cure me, wouldn't I naturally be doing that? Yes, I do gravitate toward the elderly and the sick, mostly because I have so much in common with them, and at least in part because I feel like I have something to offer them. But now I am also starting to see that the reverse is also true, especially since I have been so housebound the past year and a half. I am losing my commonality with the healthy world. I'm not gonna crawl under a rock and hide from the general public, but it would only be fair to acknowledge that I am becoming socially awkward, whether that is intentional or not. I just want to make it clear that this is a consequence of chronic illness that is usually ignored, and that maybe it should be mentioned a little more often.
Oh, one part of my dream WAS completely literal: I really do love (and miss) new shoes.
My interpretation of the dream is this: the model represents my healthy self, and the fancy store is the world of healthy people. At least that's how it felt to me. Although it may seem at first to be completely superficial, the notion that I need to buy the love of a perfect woman, there was a lot more to it than that. What I was in fact trying to do was reconcile with the healthy world and the notion that I no longer fit in with healthy people. I lost my connection with the outside world when the model walked through that door and out of my life. Yes, some of this is indeed monetary, as I am aware that my illness has robbed me of a lifestyle to which I had become accustomed. But while it is about money, it is also about more than money. I know consciously that money can't buy happiness. But whether Americans want to admit it or not, money DOES buy social status and freedom. That high end store represented a social status I can no longer attain. I am willing to make do with less, as shown by my decision in the dream to wear mismatched shoes. But I do resent the loss of ability to travel (both physically and my ability to pay for a vacation), the possible loss of owning my own home if I can't get my current one sold, and the loss of access to quality medical care. And that's what I was trying to buy with that gift certificate....I was desperate to do whatever it took to get my health back.
The fact that someone tried to give me a compliment in the dream says to me that I am not completely invisible, at least not yet. And perhaps it also means that I still appear healthy to a point. But the level of difficulty I had in reaching even the bargain basement of the store says that I have become so isolated and homebound that I can no longer find much in common with the outside world. I am going to the re-opening ceremony of my old high school on Friday, the first public event I will be attending in my wheelchair where it is likely I will see people I know. I am not embarrassed to be seen in a wheelchair because I know that it will enable me to physically cover more ground and keep the exhaustion factor to a more manageable level. But I do wonder: if I should see an old classmate, what will we chitchat about? Most people at any sort of reunion talk about their jobs, their kids, their accomplishments, their vacations, their possessions. But I cannot work, have no children, cannot volunteer or do any significant community service, rarely leave the house, and will be completely broke soon if the house doesn't sell. That's not really fun stuff to discuss with semi-strangers. It is this sort of thing that makes me feel like I'm on the outside of the display window, wondering how to get inside. I guess my best strategy is to ask a lot of questions of the other person and listen intently and only bring up my situation if and/or when I am asked. Maybe I'll make some sort of joke about taking extremely early retirement, heh heh.
Certain relatives of mine have been critical of my association with so many other chronically ill people, telling me that I am wallowing in my own illness and am keeping myself sick because that's all I focus on. But my various attempts to ignore my illness and focus only on the positive to make myself healthy again have failed, and they will continue to fail because the sickness is more than psychological. If surrounding myself only with healthy, successful, positive individuals would cure me, wouldn't I naturally be doing that? Yes, I do gravitate toward the elderly and the sick, mostly because I have so much in common with them, and at least in part because I feel like I have something to offer them. But now I am also starting to see that the reverse is also true, especially since I have been so housebound the past year and a half. I am losing my commonality with the healthy world. I'm not gonna crawl under a rock and hide from the general public, but it would only be fair to acknowledge that I am becoming socially awkward, whether that is intentional or not. I just want to make it clear that this is a consequence of chronic illness that is usually ignored, and that maybe it should be mentioned a little more often.
Oh, one part of my dream WAS completely literal: I really do love (and miss) new shoes.
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