DAY 38

My back hurts this morning, so I'm not going to do my workout.  The back pain isn't really the real reason I don't want to do it, though; I had a bad dream, and it's made me feel a little shaky.

I'd like to recount the dream here, because it had such a profound effect on me, but it involved people I know, and I don't want them to see this and get offended.  This is the hairy part of having an online journal; how much can you say?  If I was the only one I had to worry about, I'd say everything.  But unfortunately I have to take other people's feelings into account.  ;>

In any case, I'm going to write about the dream and not use names.  There are two characters besides myself in the dream, a man and a woman, so I'm going to refer to them as "the man" and "the woman".

I'm not sure what I was doing in the dream, but at some point I decided to leave the room in the middle of a conversation with the man because I was unhappy with whatever he was saying.  The man then hurled something over the wall of the room.  I didn't see it exactly, but I heard it smash to the floor and break, and I heard the sound of wooden things scattering across the room, and I knew instinctively that it was my ceramic kitchen utensil holder, which for some reason had all my wooden spoons and things in it (in real life, it has the plastic and metal stuff in it.  I haven't had the wooden spoons in it for a long time).

This really pissed me off, but I was also scared, so I didn't run back in there to confront him.  Instead, I stormed out of the room I was in and into the hallway, where I found the woman.  She had heard the sound and was pacing back and forth frantically, wringing her hands and mumbling to herself in a high-pitched, frightened voice.

I pulled her into a hug and tried to soothe her.  "It's okay.  Don't worry about it.  It's okay."  I think she calmed down, but not much.  (It's obvious where this part of the dream comes from.  I've spent quite a bit of time worrying about this person recently, but I haven't been able to do anything to help her.)  By this time I was determined that I had to do something, to make it obvious to the man that his behavior was unacceptable.  I apparently explained the situation off-camera, because AJ showed up with some long socks that said "ALAN" on the toes, and said, "Make him wear these.  His feet will stink for a week!"

This was not the solution, of course.  I wasn't sure what was, but I headed back to confront the man.  When I got back to the room, though, I discovered he wasn't there.  Asking around, I discovered that he'd left completely.

That was pretty much it.  I think the part about him leaving at the end is important because I tend to lose my nerve in situations like that.  If he'd been there, I might have been able to say what I wanted to say, but postponing the confrontation would only make me less able to pull it off.

The man in my dream has never been violent towards me in real life.  He is bigger than I am, though.  One time he was mad and slammed his hand onto a desk.  It made me flinch.

I'm not sure why I had this dream now, but I think it speaks to some sort of issue I must have.  I've always had a problem with strong people hurting weak people.  I can't stand to watch scenes like that in movies (as you'll recall).  I sort of wonder if something happened to me when I was a kid (this is the convenient, Hollywood psychology solution), or if there is some other sort of reason why I'm like this.  I can't really think of a single reason, though I can say that I was frightened of abuse as a child.  Maybe that's all it takes, even if no physical abuse actually occurs.

I feel really uncomfortable right now.  I wish I could just go back to bed.