Actually, I may have a few human friends who fit this description, but the friends I’m referring to here are my dreams. I know that you have such friends as well, but you may not know it. Allow me to tell you about mine. I think of them as beautiful (but not always pretty), shimmering, mercurial, magical fish that unexpectedly leap out of the vast sea of my unconscious, giving a clue as to what lies beneath. They are slippery and hard to grasp; and they will not be summoned…prone to appear at their will but not mine. Should I try and succeed in taking hold of one, I know that all will not be what it seems. There will be symbols to decode, and seeming dross to be turned into gold. And I’m sorry if I disappoint here, but consulting with the “book of dreams” from the local bookstore, or even the esteemed Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols probably will not illuminate the meaning of my dream. Nor will my therapist, at least not without my help. It is mine and mine alone—a gift for me to disregard or to try to open.

Some of these gifts are easier to open than others. Some years ago when I was considering going back to school I found myself questioning whether or not I would be able to add that to my already full plate of raising three very young sons with my husband, working full-time, and running a household. I already struggled with working mother guilt and sadness, but not working was not an option for financial reasons. I had long ago decided that housework would be the thing on the plate that would get the least of my attention. I talked to my husband and boys and all encouraged me to go ahead. Still I hesitated. I had a dream. In it, I was at the bottom of the stairs in my house, looking up. Covering the steps were toys that my sons had strewn, making it impossible to go up. Suddenly I saw them happily clearing the toys off of the stairs in front of me, making a path. I realized that I could indeed handle going back to school but that I needed to ask more of my children, who would be not only able but fine with taking on more responsibility. Pretty simple--a green light from the beyond.

And then there are the dreams that are not going to yield their treasure so easily. They might take a bit of time and mulling over. And sometimes you just give up and let them float away. I will give a little background for what is to come. I have been in a relationship for some years now. It has been in some ways very satisfying, but the hope I once had that it would be a true partnership—that would result in my dream of exploring the world together, inside and out—has diminished, I’m afraid. I now see this person more clearly, without the distortion of what I would like to see superimposed on him. I’m sure he has similarly adjusted his vision of me. A part of me wants to just stay with what I have in this relationship—it is, after all, a “known”—and not a bad known. But another part of me that will not be quieted wants more. Whether it seems unrealistic or ungrateful or what, it simply wants more. This battle has been going on for quite some time. Years, in fact. I have ended things with this person, gotten back together because it was unbearable, ended things again because that was unbearable, and so on.

I woke up one morning with just the last wisp of a dream in my mind, and I struggled to grab it. All I could recall was that I seemed to be at the front of a church, maybe, and perhaps there had just been a wedding—not sure. Suddenly, everyone kind of relaxed and laughed and hugged each other. Apparently, it was a movie set and it was a wrap—filming had ended, and now everyone was out of whatever their characters had been and we were all just relating very normally. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were there, and we were talking. We were all saying goodbye to each other, it seemed, and all wishing each other well. Whatever drama there had been within the movie had ended, and we were all simply actors. There was something reassuring about the dream, but I didn’t immediately relate it to me and my life in any way.

It didn’t hit me until later that the dream was illustrating one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, the one about all the world being a stage. My at times agonizing relationship with my friend was part of the drama—mine and his. But we could “wrap” and hug and wish each other well. Perhaps we had played our parts already and were simply prolonging the play when it had long been over. There was no need to take it all so seriously. And yes, there’s joy and pain and delight and disappointment in the play, but it’s a play. Step back from it. And get in a different play, maybe—one where you have a different part.

Fortunately, unlike some of my human friends (not that I blame them!) my ephemeral friends seem to have endless patience with me. My years of indecision, procrastination, paralyzing fears, and willingness to stay in my familiar rut rather than take a step toward the unknown do not cause these friends to become annoyed with me and my ways. They know and respond to my deepest desires, the ones that may be unknown—at least consciously—to me, and they will continue to try to get my attention until those desires recede, or are no longer. Clearly this blog is not for those who live their lives with unfailing clarity and lack of doubt as to what life is about and how it works. This is for those who, like me, flail and question. To be sure, there are times when my flailing and questioning gets on my own nerves, at which time I turn to the certainty of some new recipe I might want to try for dinner, or maybe just head to the mall. That feels solid. And comforting. And real. But I can’t help it, because I know there’s something—a big something--underneath of that landscape, and I’m fascinated with it because I think, I know, it’s more real.