Cleaning House/Time to Go

Last night I dreamt I was at my college boyfriend's parents' house. They were doing some spring cleaning, and getting rid of old stuff of mine that they had found.

I dreamt their house was a townhome - this was not what their house was, but in the dream it was. It was nestled into the end of a cut-off street here in Chicago. The one that comes to mind is down on Wells street, south of North Ave., where a little side street is blocked off and converted into a version of a small park, with a statue or fountain, a couple large container pots for seasonal plants, and a couple benches.

It was his parents, but my friend Mike was him in the dream.

It went like this; I don't know why I was there, but I was, and nobody was concerned or found it strange. Mike takes me inside the house, and we are just hanging out, not doing much of anything. Then, his parents - my exes parents - come home. They are quite nice to me, and act like there's nothing odd about seeing me after ten years of their son and I being broken up.

In fact, they are glad to see me - they found a bunch of my stuff while they were cleaning, and set it aside. And here I was; I could take it with! They tell Mike to show me my stuff so I can take it away.

In the dream, their house looked like a brick townhome from the outside, but from the inside, it was a split level. The stranger part was that the basement was completely open and shared between two units of the townhome. They shared the basement with my ex's parents' best friends.

His parents lead Mike downstairs to show him what needs to get removed. We walk all the way from the front of the long house's basement, around their friend's side, and back to where we started, to a ladder that seemed to be going into an attic hole in the ceiling.

Along the way, I comment to his parents how much I like how they furnished the downstairs. There were areas of the basement that he seemed to have dug down into the ground, with make shift stairs. In one of these little areas, he put a bar room-style dart board machine. In another was a little bar, with an ornate bar to sit at and back wall mirrored and full of liquor bottles. There was a pool table, as well, mixed in with other stuff that you would find in a typical basement. It was as if they were trying to make a living area out of storage space, and couldn't seem to cleanly separate the two.

Finally, Mike shows me my stuff. There was nothing of great importance - some pictures I had colored from a coloring book with my ex during a playful weekend together. Some other doodlings. And that was all; about 15 pieces of paper that, in all honestly, had they just thrown them out, I would never have known the difference.

I look through them, and they REALLY want me to take them and get rid of them. Like these items have been holding them back from having the organizational nirvana that they seek. I look around at their moderately disorganized basement and think; well, it was very nice of them to not throw away my stuff until I determine what needs to be done with it. But seriously, this is the least of their troubles. Why bother? Just get rid of it.

I take the papers. It seemed to have been the last remaining thing holding us together. I leave. They are not pushing me out the door, they aren't cursing me or telling me to move the fuck on. They just calmly let me go as I am ready. I realize it's time. I leave.

Dealing with Mistakes and Catching Up

Last night I had a dream that I was back in the gymnasium of my grade school. We were putting on a show - we were all adults, but we were putting on a show for our parents like we used to do shows back in school.

This one girl I used to be friends with had brought a script that she thought was funny, and put me in it. She hadn't thought much about putting me in it except that I was reliable and would help her with it. What she hadn't planned on was me stealing the show. I didn't necessarily try to steal the show, I just did my part to the best of my ability, and the audience loved it. They enjoyed her part, but they loved my part.

There was a part where the other person didn't give me the right cue, and I had to get my line. Other people were mortified for me, but I wasn't. The guy goofed and I let the house know it. It occured to me that I needed to make us all look good, instead of trying to call out someone's mistake - and mistake is a loose term. He just forgot a line. I was very unforgiving.

My mom was there, watching. She saw how unforgiving I was, and I instantly had this image of that friend who was mentioned before playing volleyball. In sports, everybody works to get the ball where it needs to go, to score, to overcome somebody else's - maybe due to lack of skill or maybe just a simple error - play mistake to make the team look good. My mom seemed to be thinking that maybe it would have been good for me to play volleyball. Maybe then I would have learned that making the team look good was the key - not pointing out how everyone else goofed and that I did all my stuff right, but the overall result was the team's collapse. She seemed to think I was a little hard on myself and other people, and she wishes I would have learned some of that forgiveness growing up.

There have been some other dreams over the last couple weeks, but I haven't written them down. I was hoping I'd remember a couple of them. Well, if I do I'll come back to this. Thanks for listening.