I'm a dreamer.  This isn't political.  This isn't about soaring ambition. I have vivid dreams when I'm happiest and things in my life are on the up and up.  Sometimes I'm intrigued and look up dream interpretation of major aspects of my dreams online.  I'm always curious about what things could mean.  

Some of these dreams are silly.  Sometimes I watch a murder mystery unfold and my dream is so much better than what happens when I try to write it out. I know just how attracted I am (or really am not) to other women, but my pregnancy dreams were fun, and entirely lesbian.  There was nothing to interpret. I was pregnant, hormonal and carrying boys.  My sex dreams with men are usually about me being powerful and dominant. Sometimes I will dream about a loved one I haven't talked to in a while. It varies but I can usually feel the importance of it and I know when to just let it be the imaginative story it was. 

The dream I had more recently was different. 

I can't remember the circumstances around the first time I had the dream, but I remember the dream.  I was at my family's house but it was a house I have never seen. It had at least two stories made of white washed wood.  It was weathered into softness and dents were in the wood from years of abuse at the hands of Mother Nature. \

In the dream I was exploring the backyard and was at the foot of a dead tree stump when I noticed a hole at the base of it.  I stepped down into it and it opened into a narrow tunnel.  I walked and crawled along the tunnel, as it was easy and then difficult and easy again to get through it.  It was as if parts of the tunnel were made to walk through in large groups and parts where made for crawling children.  I was surrounded by damp and dark earth.  It smelled like old fires and musty linens.  It smelled like rotting wood that has since been aired out.  I had to pull myself forward, as clumps of dirt crumbled softly under my hands.  The soil wasn't the dark nutrient rich soil I would want in my garden, but it wasn't dead and dry either. Dessicated life was all around me. 

By the time I got to the end of the tunnel, I found myself at a door to the house. It opened easily and soundlessly for me. I made my way inside and even through the cracks in the wood, there was no sunlight.  I had my pocket knife and my lighter on me (not a stretch as they're usually in my purse). I used my lighter to see and my knife to poke a prod through the darkness. It felt comfortable and familiar in the darkness as if I had been here many times. 

I walked to the right and found a room filled with boxes.  The boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling and they were filled with blankets, clothes, photo albums and dishes.  I started peeking inside and found dolls and so many things I wanted to pore over and cherish.  I made my way back to where I started and found there was also a staircase and realised there was no way to make it here from the main entrance of the house.  I felt like I had stumbled upon a secret treasure that only I knew of.  I was in a place that no one else knew existed.  I climbed the stairs, scraping along the wall until I arrived at the top of the stairs which opened into another room filled with boxes.  There was so much to unpack and explore and there was a feeling of excitement and worry.  I felt the urgency of rushing before I woke up, knowing I was in a dream. 

The next time I had the dream, I wanted to bring others with me, but I couldn't get them to follow. I wanted to move the boxes to the open and go through them in a brighter room.  I could move the boxes and every time I tried, I would wake up.  

This last time I dreamed of this house, the secret rooms were empty.  I made my way up the stairs.  All of the boxes were gone.  There was a table and a sudden understanding.  The table looked like many people stood around it.  There were no chairs. I could feel the history of the room.  It was heavy and I knew the table once held the memories of slaves. I touched the wood and felt the smooth and cool wood.  It was one rough, but had been worn by years of being touched and holding the greatest treasures and heaviest burdens.  There were generations that spoke softly and raged passionately. For the briefest moment, I felt calm as I touched the table and the walls.  I felt the weight of the slavery that bound the past in that room.  But I felt peace that I could not understand. 

The dream sat with me.  I picked it apart and chewed on it.  It took a week or so, and a meditation session before I realized my peace was from knowing the dream was about me and there were no slaves in that room anymore. 

When I started this blog, the idea of a butterfly was where I found my peace and my hope.  I was told my marriage falling apart was a rebirthing but I never had a birth I was unwilling to repeat.  Childbirth gives you breaks between contractions.  You get a beautiful baby to nurture.  I didn't see how marital abandonment was anything like birth.  I chose the symbol of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.  I could see myself as a caterpillar, eating all sorts of food in the years I worked hard on my massive ass expansion. I could see the cocoon holding me tightly and destroying all I was as I became goo.  Then I could see the butterfly breaking through that chrysalis.  I could see me setting myself free, destroying all that created me.  I would crush it and destroy every bit of what it used to be. Then I could see the butterfly.  Beautiful.  Aloof.  The thing with the allegory is it has repeated in different ways just so I could see it and borrow strength because of it.  Everywhere I looked, I saw butterflies and felt stronger because of it.  

This dream was one of those allegories.  I felt it with my evening sip of something strong.  Last week, my kids saw me more inebriated than they have ever seen me.  I came home from work to a messy home and just as I was losing my shit and starting to yell at my kids, I realized I could have a sip of something strong and let it go.  Dishes and trash were not more important than my kids.  I popped open a bottle of Moscato Red from my sister and sipped about half a bottle.  When I drink I get giggly.  Silly.  Stumbly.  But not angry or dangerously drunk.  Just enough to know I can't drive. But it was new to them. 

For years I didn't drink at all.  I always felt like I needed to be sober in case we had to run to the emergency room (my boys were big on dangerous fun). I needed to be sober so my ex could drink.  I needed to feel in control.  I finally started sipping a bit more and relaxing in the last year.  It might have something to do with all of the happy hours at work.  I realized the boys were older and mature enough that I can leave them home alone for a lot of the time. It's okay to sip something. We don't have random hospital visits a few times a year anymore. To clarify, drinking or not drinking wasn't that whole connection to slavery. It was feeling like I had to be in control of everything.  It was feeling powerless in my role as a mom and wife when underneath it all, I was always just Yessica. It was feeling all I was supposed to feel to get to the place I'm at now.  It's a good place but I had to be shackled to really understand freedom. 

It was a journey through the tunnel.  Some days were filled with miracles. Some days were difficult and painful.  I had a lot to unpack and I couldn't get anyone to carry me through it.  I had to do it on my own.  I wanted to lighten the load by moving it outside and I couldn't.  One day I went back, the work had been done and I felt free.  I could feel the history of who I had been.  I could see the emptiness that didn't feel barren.  I could own all that I carried in those boxes without needing to hold each thing up.  It was all a part of the home now, and not something separate and heavy.  Things weren't balanced precariously.  The dream was telling me I had healed. In the darkness I didn't realize the boxes were being unpacked.  I didn't know when the shackles fell free.  

There's so much in my head at most times that being able to take a snippet and understand it is a gift in and of itself.  Sometimes those dreams are stories and those stories continue to take notice of the ways you are growing and changing.