Dreams

I woke at 4 am .  A time I sometimes wake.  The pressure of bladder. The early morning pee. The memories.  Of dreams.  These were the finest.  A sense of mystery and adventure lingered. I’d been in that special place, a kind of Mediterranean harbour.  I was at a meeting and after a pretty older woman from my youth spoke to me.  She was not someone I’d remember, though I did. Not a confidant as such. But nonetheless a companion late at night after the guests had mostly gone and a few of us remained.  

Do you miss it? She asked.  I intuitively knew she was speaking of our shared past. High school and coming of age. 

I do.  I said.

Would you want to return.

No. I said with certainty.  

The future at that moment seemed bright. There were more adventures and insights to be had. I might even grasp the meaning of dreams. I would go forward into an unknown future. 

I awoke with that sense. The trust in God.  The feeling that all would be well.  The answers lie ahead not in the past.  

I did pick up a book and read about amends and God.  I don’t want to become lost in my own affairs but want to know what God has in store. 

A friend contacted me from the past and shared he’d relapsed after decades of sobriety, lived 8 hears of relapse and now returned to abstinence and the program. He is well off and a fine fellow. I was glad to communicate with him . There are several men who have spoken with me recently. One is hunting now in the interior while another shared that his partner is content to watch tv.  I often feel alone. My closest friend of sorts is now driving his dementing wife to visit her childhood friend of decades.  He is interested in his brother and we talk of cars and planes and dogs and cats. It’s an odd parallel universe we share. Each individual in his own way isolated but coming together.

I’m aware of my lack of children and brothers or sisters and parents. i see that others still have these close connections while I have more distant relatives. I reflect on my Aunt Sally.  We have so much in common though the truth be told I have so much in common with my deceased parents and deceased brothers, the friends I grew up with the neighbourhood children.  

Once I thought I was unique but the differences really are minute. This biggest one seems to me the lack of children. Yet it could be my being a psychiatrist or as easily my being a ships captain as well. I mostly think of my difference in my poly sexuality, the range of relationship I’ve had, marriages, heterosexuality, homosexuality, Tran sexuality.  I think this even as in ways the whole sexual nature of self ebbs and retreats.  I miss the friend called passion but welcome the friend called patience.  These aspects of character come and ago like moods almost.  There’s a stead search and discovery that pulls me forward.  A desire for seeing around the next corner.  What lies just over that hill. What is in that forest. What is this harbour like.

Of course I’m afraid of strangers. I’m human but there’s God.  Anxiety is a measure of one’s distance from God though equally a measure of one’s humanity.  I have a loving God of my understanding.  The key is love and the realization that no matter what, as Phillips says, my God is still too small.  I must expand my heart to embrace the depths and breadth of love but I’m selfish and tired. I’ve served my life helping others and helping my self. I wonder about my struggles with money.  Alone I’ve managed but with women in my life I’ve lost. Would I have lost more alone. I fear that others are more capable financially and feel s twinge of envy or jealousy as I see their wealth. But then I turn to gratitude and feel blessed to quote a hackney phrase, beyond my wildest dreams

Of course I want to be an astronaut.  I want to go to outer space . I want to explore different galaxies and planets. But there as much intrigue in a new cafe on the street.  I don’t want to visit monsters. I fear I want ‘senstation’, the great kahunna, the consumer sense of the taste of omniscience. I am as the zen master says, a westerner, a product of this time and society, a spiritual consumer.

I’m reading A gentleman in Moscow and aaware of the fear and evil of communism encroaching on this space , much as Jesus was tempted by the Devil.  I say ‘Thy Will Be Done’ but then imagine crucifixion and Joan of Arc.  What if Thy Will Be Done means immense reward and comfort and indeed heaven on earth rather than some Steven King like challenge. 

I have had my peanut butter and jam sandwich . It’s the thing of late night wakefulness. At the same time I’m trying to lose the weight about my middle that comes from sitting at a desk and not doing enough exercise. The problem is watching tv as that’s when I’m most prone to snack. These late night indulgences are a bit of heaven.  I sleep well after this snack.  I look forward to the morning coffee too.  I’ve a meeting today and some work to do but the big decision is whether to buy a new iPhone which will be launched tomorrow. I’ve a plan to drop off laundry and continue to at least look at the new device which my work depends on. My source of adventure is in learning new apps and transferring the old to the new.  I have the cloud to consider.  So much of my past is in the local hard drives and memories while more and more I trust this ethereal space called the ‘cloud’.  

My patients are faced with dementia, others with death and I’m muddling forward wondering whether to face old age in a pair of trousers or trews or a dress.  I really am grateful. My challenges and demons or blessings are almost humorous in comparison to what they could be.  I hank you God for the revelry. Thank you Jesus.