the fire and the stupid

Damn I been posting a lot lately.

This morning I feel all freaky twitchy. Maybe it's time for my period soon? That would maybe explain it.

Three times in a row there I tried to type about how I'm feeling lame and down on myself right now and was interrupted by the phone. Four, five. This feeling I have, I feel like it always happens when I've done some good stuff and rectified some wrongs. I get all shameful and sulky and lacking in self-confidence and it makes me want to go start acting less than awesomely again so I can have more things to rectify. Like I'm not okay with the idea of me being a good person. Like having people mad at or frustrated with me is part of my identity and I wouldn't feel right if nobody had any reason to be annoyed when they thought about me.

Retained an image from my dream last night. I was an old woman wearing rags. One of those is-my-self / am-looking-at-me scenes. It was dark and cold and there was a huge monster, one of those size-of-a-hill monsters with a building or something on its back. I ran onto the monster, to like the first landing or hallway or whatever of the building. One wall was open to the air and you could see the hall stretching down to my left (looking; my right, as character sitting). I don't know if I ran to or was like lifted up and set down on this couch thing on the landing. Had the feeling the couch was like a special place that I was supposed to be sitting. In front of it was a fire which I huddled on the couch and stared at, trying to keep warm. But in later shots it wasn't a fire, it was a kiddie pool with water in it (which wasn't frozen for some reason despite the cold). There was another character, male, saw him only in silhouette. I felt he was a friend or ally, someone I trusted, but that he was frantic about something. Looking for fire. Yeah, in this shot the thing in front of the couch was definitely a kiddie pool and not burning. But there was a scrap of cloth that smelled like fire, was smeared with soot, and he either had this or it was dangled in front of him and he went tearing off through the maze after it, looking for the fire. Also the landing where I was sitting seemed like part of an abandoned building, it was dirty and wrecked-looking. I assumed the rest of the maze was too, only darker because not up by the surface. I wasn't worried about the other character, like I didn't think anything bad was going to happen to him, but I felt bad that he was going off on this wild goose chase through the maze in the cold and dark looking for a fire I didn't have anymore and didn't know where it was.

I'm most sure this has something to do with my problems

[Bossman walked in, we did bills (finally!), it's been like an hour or more]

The above seems like an apt image for how my problems with relationships play out so that I treat people less well than they deserve. And look at my careful phrasing and the phrasing of my dream log even! None of the bad things happening were attributed to me, just actions performed by some shadowy force to whose whim I am also subject. This shadowy force which leads my ally-person on a cold and scary wild goose chase and also picks me up and plops me down in my place. Selfquote time! "Know your place, child. Know / into whose hands you will be delivered / when the metal links are severed." From [acorn iron] which was about being a leader on Gaia. Metal among other things refers to the seven levels of trust, all of which are metals except glass, since glass denotes lack of relationship.

The people who are best at things just do them. They don't sit around all day obsessing about how they are done or figuring out why they are done one way instead of another. People who are very good at things sometimes do obsess and figure in such wise--but not those who are best. For them the knowledge and conversation of the thing they can do is enough and explanation, complication, analysis all seem superfluous.

It comes as a surprise to no one, then, that I am not the best relationship-haver around. I am, in fact, not great at it. I've known I have big problems in this area for a long, long time--hence all the studying. I've been able to say, "well, I'm improving" for years now, which makes me feel both proud and ashamed. Proud of how far I've come, ashamed of how much that means I sucked to begin with.

Big maze monster. Reminded me a little of that giant with the penultimate castle on his back in God of War, the one you get into after fighting the medusas in the desert. 'Cept instead of being in the desert it was just somewhere cold and dark at night.

Looking for fire, the phrase came up over and over. Fire I didn't have anymore and didn't know where it was. That came and went from my place by what means I know not. Meaning that, that burning thing important enough that I huddle around it and others run frantically to look for it, is also under the control of the shadowy force. Maze monster, same thing? Well, maybe the fire isn't under the shadow's control--but access to it certainly is. That's the thing, access. (Axes, I almost typed. May I ax you a question?)

A repeating image across many dreams--I've written about this so recently!--is me about to be in a fight, going to a cache of weapons, and finding all my weapons are flimsy pieces of crap that don't do anything useful. Acute conflicts like fighting are all works of fire magic. Access (axes!) to fire in my dream not being controlled by conscious me (or character me) fits well with this. Part of the same situation, issue, thingy. Problem. That in the place of my fire I am an old raggedy woman huddling in a dirty, ill-kept place over something which is sometimes my fire and sometimes a stupid cold little pool. And I don't know which will be which at any moment, and I don't know how to make it better if it's the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Problem.

Meanwhile while I've been writing this post I've been doing various work things and generally being pleasant and helpful as usual. Once more I had a coughing fit while on the phone but I don't think the lady was too offended--I set her down for a minute then we finished filling out her gift certificate form. Dog. I want to dig more with this, I think it's important, but I really ought to get back to work, this is a ton of words and time spent on words instead of working. Yowza!